Atomizer (album)
album by Big Black
Atomizer is the debut full-length album by American punk rock group Big Black released on May 7, 1986. The album is regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 1980s, and a forerunner of industrial rock.
Background and release
An early cover art proposal for the album included Marvin the Martian pointing a raygun at the Earth. This was eventually discarded due to legal problems.
One song from the album, "Big Money", was released as a B-side to the "Il Duce" single prior to the release of Atomizer. Homestead Records also issued "Big Money" and "Il Duce" the A-side of a 12" record with three live songs on the B-side (including the live version of "Cables" that would appear on Atomizer) with the agreement that the 12" be used for promotional purposes only. The label sent the promo 12" to radio stations, then sold extra copies outside of Big Black's native Chicago, hoping the band would never find out. When they did, Big Black left Homestead and signed to Touch and Go Records.
In the year after Atomizer's release, Big Black recorded their 4-song Headache EP and released it with a sticker that bore the words, "Warning! Not as good as Atomizer, so don't get your hopes up, cheese." The same sticker also appeared on some copies of Sonic Youth's EP Master-Dik.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q647288. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Atomizer (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.