| Plastic Surgery Disasters | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Dead Kennedys |
| Cover: | Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters cover.jpg |
| Released: | November 1982 |
| Recorded: | June 1982 |
| Studio: | Hyde St. Studios and Möbius Music in San Francisco |
| Length: | 42:56 |
| Label: |
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| Producer: |
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| Prev Title: | In God We Trust, Inc. |
| Prev Year: | 1981 |
| Next Title: | Frankenchrist |
| Next Year: | 1985 |
Plastic Surgery Disasters is the second full-length album released by punk rock band Dead Kennedys. Recorded in San Francisco during June 1982, it was produced by the band and punk record producer Thom Wilson, with Geza X getting a "special thanks" underneath the DK's/Wilson credit for additional production. (DK's guitarist East Bay Ray redundantly added his own name to the production credits on Manifesto reissues of the album.) The album is darker and more hardcore-influenced than their debut album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables as a result of the band trying to expand on the sound and mood they had achieved with their 1980 single "Holiday in Cambodia".[1] It was the first full-length album to feature drummer D.H. Peligro, and is frontman Jello Biafra's favorite Dead Kennedys album.[2]
According to Jello Biafra, the main musical influences for the album were Bauhaus, Les Baxter and the Groundhogs.[3]
The album's cover features the band's name superimposed over the black-and-white photograph "Hands" by photojournalist Michael Wells. Wells's photo depicts the emaciated forearm and hand of a malnourished Ugandan child in the palm of a European missionary to highlight the horrors of famine in parts of the African continent during the 1970s and 80s. The same image was used by another San Francisco-based punk band called Society Dog for their 1981 EP .....Off of the Leash..
Most pressings of the album include a booklet containing lyrics and pieces of collage artwork by Biafra and Winston Smith that thematically tie in to the lyrics of each song on the album.
On the album's original vinyl and cassette releases, the A-side comprises tracks 1–8, ending with “Winnebago Warrior”, and the B-side tracks 9–13, kicking off with “Riot”. Some reissues parse out Melissa Webber's spoken intro to the album from the opening song, "Government Flu", and list it as a separate track entitled "Advice from Christmas Past". Similarly, Webber's spoken outro after "Moon Over Marin" revisits "Advice from Christmas Past" and is listed as such on some editions of the album.
The compact disc of the album has been reissued to include the EP In God We Trust, Inc. as eight tracks added onto its end and also appear on streaming versions of Plastic Surgery Disasters.