Love Songs for the Retarded

Love Songs for the Retarded is the second studio album by the American punk rock band the Queers, released in 1993 by Lookout!

It was the first of five studio albums the band would record for Lookout!, and their first by the lineup of singer and guitarist "Joe Queer" King, bassist Chris "B-Face" Barnard, and drummer Hugh O'Neill.

[2][3] By 1991 King was co-owner of a café and bar in Exeter, New Hampshire called Joe's Place, where O'Neill and Barnard worked as dishwashers.

[2][3] "The songs were irresistibly melodic;" Livermore recalled in his 2015 memoir, "a couple of the slower numbers, heavily influenced by doo-wop and the Beach Boys, were almost heartbreakingly beautiful.

[3] Livermore was pleased to find that he got along well with the band, especially King, who shared Weasel's fondness for wisecracks and stories but was easier-going, less cynical and acerbic.

It's all I knew—I had no idea there were other punk bands that weren't like us [...] Lord knows Joe and Hugh did [...] I generally just stuck to booze, although I got my first taste of hard drugs from those guys.

"[3] Nevertheless, he found that the band was so well-rehearsed that their intoxication hardly affected their performance, the songs flowing almost effortlessly while Giorgini worked eagerly and Weasel kept everyone on task: "Ben was determined to crank out [the album] in two days flat.

"[2] Weasel shares writing credit with King on two of the album's tracks, "Fuck the World" and "I Can't Stop Farting".

[3] To his disappointment, Livermore "couldn't quite nail" the backing vocals on "Debra Jean", despite having practiced the song for weeks in advance.

[6] Reviewing Love Songs for the Retarded for Allmusic, Kembrew McLeod rated it 4 stars out of 5 and said that "most of the album alternates between the guitar-driven pure pop craft of 'Daydreaming' and the less melodic, raging punk of 'Monster Zero'.

"[8] Critic Robert Christgau gave the album an honorable mention, summarizing that "for 16 songs in 36 minutes, they [heart] Ramones and rhyme with 'beers'.

artists in rescinding their master tapes and licensing rights from the label, invoking a clause in their contract citing delinquent royalty payments.

Love Songs for the Retarded was the first Queers album recorded with Mass Giorgini (pictured in 1996), who would work on six more of their studio albums.