# February 16, 1977: The Damned Release "Music for Pleasure" - Punk's Growing Pains
On February 16, 1977, British punk pioneers The Damned released their second album, "Music for Pleasure," on Stiff Records. While this album is often remembered as a commercial and critical disappointment, the chaotic story behind it perfectly encapsulates the beautiful disaster that was early punk rock.
The Damned had already made history as the first British punk band to release a single ("New Rose"), the first to release an album ("Damned Damned Damned"), and the first to tour America. They were leading the charge alongside the Sex Pistols and The Clash. So expectations were sky-high for their follow-up.
Enter Nick Mason, the legendary drummer of Pink Floyd, as producer. On paper, pairing punk's most anarchic band with prog rock royalty seemed either brilliantly subversive or catastrophically misguided. Spoiler: it was mostly the latter.
The recording sessions were notoriously chaotic. Mason, used to Pink Floyd's meticulous, budget-unlimited studio perfectionism, found himself wrangling four punks who specialized in three-minute bursts of controlled chaos. Captain Sensible later recalled that Mason was "a lovely bloke" but admitted the collaboration was like "getting your gran to produce your record." The band was reportedly more interested in getting drunk and causing mayhem than in multiple takes and sonic experimentation.
The album's sound reflected this clash: overproduced in places, underbaked in others, with strings and saxophones awkwardly grafted onto songs that wanted to be simple and raw. Critics savaged it. The NME called it "a pale shadow" of their debut. Fans were confused. Even the band disowned it almost immediately.
But here's where it gets interesting: "Music for Pleasure" represents something crucial in music history—the moment when punk had to figure out what came next. Could you just make the same album again? Should you experiment? What happens when the establishment (even the cool part of it) tries to shape rebellion?
The album flopped commercially, and The Damned broke up shortly afterward (though they'd reunite and continue for decades). Yet in retrospect, "Music for Pleasure" has gained a cult appreciation. Songs like "Problem Child" and their cover of "Help!" showed a band trying to push boundaries, even if they weren't quite ready.
The failure also taught the punk scene valuable lessons about artistic control and staying true to your sound—lessons that would influence DIY culture and independent music for generations. Sometimes the most significant moments in music history aren't the triumphs, but the glorious, instructive failures. And February 16, 1977, gave us one of punk's most fascinating stumbles.
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