Can you please explain this word called equality?
Swamp Dogg - Rat On!
I like a record that seethes with anger. Swamp Dogg is an artist who, despite his often clownish persona, has a foundation of rage, and – when that breaks through – he seethes so well.
This album, for example, is more famous for it’s sleeve, which always features in those worst record sleeve lists. However, it contains God Bless America For What – a song so simmering with rage, it's breathtaking. There’s no ambiguity about this one – no-one’s mistakenly singing along with this one at MAGA rallies. It’s a lyric that got him (what we would now call) shadow-banned by his record label and sued by the Irving Berlin Foundation – all grist to the Swamp Dogg anger mill.
Rat On! is probably the quintessential Swamp Dogg album: it sits right at the intersection of soul, blues, rock and country, has songs about complicated personal entanglements, race, politics, a perfect cover version (The Bee-Gees’ Got To Get A Message To You), some kind of self-aggrandising statement in the sleeve notes, and an eccentric cover.