What was the title of Dead Kennedys’ 1980 debut studio album?

Dead Kennedys’ 1980 debut studio album was titled Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.

The San Francisco punk band released the album in September 1980 through Cherry Red Records in the United Kingdom and Alternative Tentacles in the United States. It brought together the group’s sharp political satire, surf-influenced guitar lines, rapid rhythms, and Jello Biafra’s distinctive vocal delivery.

Songs including “California Über Alles,” “Holiday in Cambodia,” and “Kill the Poor” made the record an important statement in American punk. Its lyrics attacked authoritarianism, consumer culture, racism, and political hypocrisy, often using exaggerated humor rather than straightforward slogans.

The album is sometimes confused with the band’s later releases Plastic Surgery Disasters and Frankenchrist. Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is specifically the debut LP, while those two albums followed in 1982 and 1985. Its cover also became notable for a photograph of burning police cars during a 1979 protest in San Francisco.