#14: Back in the USA — MC5 (1970)
Where Kick Out the Jams was chaos, Back in the USA was precision: short, fast, stripped down, produced by Jon Landau with a directness that predicted the Ramones’ approach by five years. The band had learned to edit themselves without losing the energy. The album demonstrated that political fury and pop brevity were not opposites, which was the specific lesson the Ramones applied most effectively.
