The Headless Children is the fourth studio album by heavy metal band W.A.S.P., released in April 1989 through Capitol Records. The album reached No. 48 on the US Billboard 200 chart, the band's highest chart position, and remained on that chart for thirteen weeks.
Overview
The Headless Children showcases a new level of maturity from the band compared to their previous three albums, which had stereotypically lewd "rock and roll" lyrics. Politics and social issues are now a theme throughout the album. The cover art, based on "Gateway to Stalingrad", a cartoon by Daniel R. Fitzpatrick, depicts a string of historical figures including Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Benito Mussolini, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Al Capone and the Ku Klux Klan, with an image of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald shown prominently in the foreground. Later editions of the album have replaced, among others, Ayatollah Khomeini with additional KKK members. The Headless Children was the first W.A.S.P. album to feature ex-Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali and the last studio album to feature guitarist Chris Holmes for nearly a decade until he rejoined the band in late 1997 to record Kill.Fuck.Die. "The Real Me" is one of two songs the band covered and released as part of the Headless Children release,. "The Real Me" however was the only song of the two to make the album. The song was written by Pete Townshend of The Who's and is from their classic rock opera album, Quadrophenia. "Mean Man", written by lead singer/bassist Blackie Lawless, is about guitarist Chris Holmes' wild lifestyle and is dedicated to him; ironically Holmes left the band shortly after the album's release, though he did return 10 years later. Lawless stated in an interview shortly after the release of the album, that "The Neutron Bomber", is about Ronald Reagan and the power he and America had over the world, with such a large nuclear arsenal. The song despite most likely being written during his Presidency, was however released a few months after his retirement and the election of George Bush Sr. "Forever Free" is a ballad typical of the time in the hard rock/heavy metal genre, which is supposedly a homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird". According to the liner notes, the "F.D.G." in "Rebel in the F.D.G." stands for "Fucking Decadent Generation".
Critical reception
In a contemporary review for the German magazine Rock Hard, Thomas Kupfer considered The Headless Children second only to W.A.S.P. "brilliant debut album" and remarked how the song structures were simpler and the music more melodic than in previous works, but Lawless' voice had "lost nothing of its charisma". More recently, Greg Prato at AllMusic called The Headless Children W.A.S.P.'s "most accomplished work" and their "best constructed album". He also noted "The Real Me", "Mean Man", "The Heretic", "Forever Free" and the title track as highlights. Canadian journalist Martin Popoff described the album as "the W.A.S.P. record for those who don't like W.A.S.P., hollow, damp and alone, integrity discovered, humanity revealed."
