In My Head (album)

In My Head is the sixth studio album by American punk band Black Flag. It was released in 1985 on SST Records, and was their final studio album before their breakup in 1986. The CD reissue adds three of the four songs that later appeared on the I Can See You EP, replicating the original 1985 cassette release which came out concurrent to the LP.

In My Head
Studio album by Black Flag
Released	October 1985
Recorded	October 1984, January 1985, March 1985
Studio	Total Access Recording, Redondo Beach, California
Genre	Hardcore punk punk rock post-hardcore heavy metal
Length	37:12 47:31 (original cassette and CD reissue)
Label	SST (045)
Producer	Greg Ginn, Bill Stevenson, David Tarling
Black Flag chronology
The Process of Weeding Out (1985) In My Head (1985) Minuteflag (1986)

After building a reputation for confrontational hardcore punk, late-era Black Flag turned to a more experimental, heavy metal-inflected sound, in particular on their last two albums. Greg Ginn intended In My Head to be his first solo album.^[1] The cover is a collage of six drawings by Ginn's brother Raymond Pettibon which SST cut up and used without paying him and without his permission, resulting in Raymond cutting ties with the label.^[2]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[4]
The Great Rock Discography	6/10[5]
MusicHound	3.5/5[6]
Punknews	[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[8]
Sounds	[9]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	6/10[10]

The album received very positive reviews upon release. Robert Palmer, writing for The New York Times, found the music to be "intriguingly, sometimes dazzlingly fresh and sophisticated, but the band hasn't had to sacrifice an iota of the raw intensity and directness that are punk's spiritual center." He compared the "polyphony of shifting shapes that is the principal guitar motif in the brilliant 'White Hot'" to "listening to the once-revolutionary guitar break from the Yardbirds' mid-60's hit 'Shapes of Things' while one's turntable goes up in flames." "Yet for all its sophistication," he continued, "this is jagged, abrasive rock and roll, music hard and direct enough to appeal to any punk or hard-rock fan. [...] 'In My Head' is the sound of heavy metal rock as it could be but almost never is, metal without the posturing, the pointless displays of fretboard prowess, the bashing rhythm sections and banal lyrics that have become endemic to the idiom."^[11] It also notably received a full score from the English music magazine Sounds, which found it to be even better than the band's debut.^[9]

Retrospective reviews have also been largely positive. Punknews found the album to be more innovative & better produced than its predecessors,^[7] while John Dougan of AllMusic called it "some of the best contemporary rock music extant."^[3] Louder Sound called it "one of the group's finest albums, with [its] foreboding title track its most gloriously tortured moment. [...] Healthy people don't make music like this, and indeed, soon after its release Black Flag were done."^[12] "Early Black Flag releases like Nervous Breakdown, Damaged, and My War spawned tons of imitators," wrote BrooklynVegan, "and there's no way to overstate how influential they are, but In My Head has something else going for it. Over three decades later, you rarely hear other music that sounds like this."^[13]

Track listing

Side A

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Paralyzed"	Ginn Rollins	2:39
2.	"The Crazy Girl"		2:46
3.	"Black Love"		2:42
4.	"White Hot"	Ginn Rollins	4:59
5.	"In My Head"	Ginn Rollins	4:30

All tracks are written by Greg Ginn, except where noted

Side B

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
6.	"Drinking and Driving"	Ginn Rollins	3:16
7.	"Retired at 21"		4:56
8.	"Society's Tease"		6:09
9.	"It's All Up to You"		5:14

Cassette/CD editions

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Paralyzed"	Ginn Rollins	2:39
2.	"The Crazy Girl"		2:46
3.	"Black Love"		2:42
4.	"White Hot"	Ginn Rollins	4:59
5.	"In My Head"	Ginn Rollins	4:30
6.	"Out of This World"	Roessler Stevenson	2:13
7.	"I Can See You"		3:22
8.	"Drinking and Driving"	Ginn Rollins	3:16
9.	"Retired at 21"		4:56
10.	"Society's Tease"		6:09
11.	"It's All Up to You"		5:14
12.	"You Let Me Down"	Rollins Stevenson	3:40

• Tracks 6, 7 and 12 reissued in 1989 on the I Can See You EP.

Personnel

• Henry Rollins – vocals
• Greg Ginn – guitar
• Kira Roessler – bass, background vocals (on "It's All Up to You")
• Bill Stevenson – drums
• Raymond Pettibon – artwork

References

1. Earles 2014, p. 43.
2. Chick 2011, p. 345.
3. Dougan, John. In My Head at AllMusic. Retrieved 2011-07-01.
4. Larkin, Colin (2011). "Black Flag". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8.
5. Martin C. Strong (1998). The Great Rock Discography (1st ed.). Canongate Books. ISBN 978-0-86241-827-4.
6. Graff, Gary (1999). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (2nd ed.). Visible Ink Press. ISBN 1-57859-061-2.
7. "Black Flag – In My Head". www.punknews.org. May 7, 2002.
8. Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian David (2004). Black Flag. ISBN 9780743201698.
9. "Black Flag: Damaged (SST 007) ****/In My Head (SST 045) *****. By Neil Perry : Articles, reviews and interviews from Rock's Backpages".
10. Weisbard, Eric (1995). "Black Flag". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp. 44–45. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
11. Palmer, Robert (February 23, 1986). "Black Flag Adds a Soupcon of Sophistication to Punk Rock". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
12. Chick, Stevie (November 20, 2016). "The 10 best Black Flag songs from 1981-1985". loudersound. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
13. Sacher, Andrew (January 29, 2019). "Black Flag Albums and EPs Ranked Worst To Best". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved March 16, 2021.

Works cited

• Earles, Andrew (2014). Gimme Indie Rock: 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981–1996. Voyageur Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-4648-8.
• Chick, Stevie (2011). Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag. PM Press. ISBN 978-1-60486-584-4.