Suicidal Tendencies is the debut studio album by American hardcore punk band Suicidal Tendencies, released on July 5, 1983 through Frontier Records. Regarded as one of the best-selling and most successful punk rock albums, Suicidal Tendencies was well-received by fans and critics alike, and the airplay of its only single "Institutionalized" (for which its music video was one of the first hardcore punk videos to get airplay on MTV) brought the band considerable popularity. The album was a major influence on the then-emerging genre of thrash metal and its subgenre crossover. Album information The cover of Suicidal Tendencies features an image of the band members hanging upside down, taken by Glen E. Friedman, who produced the album. The background on both the front and back cover depict various homemade Suicidal Tendencies T-shirts. "I Shot the Devil" was originally entitled "I Shot Reagan". The band is rumored to have been approached by the FBI to change the name of the song. The group eventually used the original title of the song on the lyrics sheet. Guitarist Jon Nelson was credited on early pressings of the album, but this was corrected to list Grant Estes. Nelson had already left the band before the album project began. In 1989, due to various royalty and publishing issues with Frontier Records, Muir and the later incarnation of the band re-recorded the entire album and released it in 1993 as Still Cyco After All These Years, with (mostly) faithful recreations of the originals, plus two songs from Join the Army and one previously-unreleased song "Don't Give Me Your Nothin'". Reception Suicidal Tendencies has received mostly positive reviews and ratings. Steve Huey of AllMusic gave the album 9/10 and called the album "fast, furious, and funny" and claimed that it "owed much more to hardcore punk than to the later hardcore/heavy metal hybrid they would become known for, but it's still quite possibly their best album." Huey added that "Mike Muir proves himself articulate lyricist and commentator, delving into subjects like alienation, depression, and nonconformist politics with intelligence and humor." Pushead of Maximumrocknroll described Suicidal Tendencies as "blistering rough-arsed metal thrash" and called the band "a screaming cyclone of sheer power and determination". Pushead also claimed that "this LP shows why they have such a strong following." Critic Ira Robbins writes that "Half-sung, half-recited and built on repeated sudden tempo changes, 'Institutionalized' is a unique, devastating centerpiece.