Recipe for Hate

Album cover

The album cover features an image of two dog-faced humans. It is an original photo-collage - using the bodies of 1930's southern racists mocking the press after their acquittal by an all white male jury for murder, and 1944 Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp guard dog heads. This is a metaphor for how far hate can spread. Hate by simple conversation that escalates - soon becoming the norm in culture ( Artist ). The artwork was designed by Fred Hidalgo (known for drawing the cover for The Offspring's highly acclaimed 1994 album Smash, which was also released on Epitaph). Recipe for Hate was the first Bad Religion album since 1988's Suffer to display the Friz Quadrata font on the cover; the band would use this font again on their subsequent albums (except for The Process of Belief and The Empire Strikes First).

Musical style

The album finds Bad Religion continuing the experimentation of its predecessor, Generator, introducing elements of country and folk on songs like "Man With a Mission", and "Struck a Nerve", the latter of which includes a guest vocal by Johnette Napolitano (of Concrete Blonde). "Man With a Mission" featured a slide guitar part over a standard punk guitar "gallop".

Production and marketing

Like Bad Religion's albums up to Generator, Recipe for Hate was recorded at Westbeach Recorders in Hollywood, California in 1993. This was the last time they would record an album there, until 2002's The Process of Belief.

During the recording of the album, Johnette Napolitano (of Concrete Blonde) and Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam) were invited to the studio to provide backing vocals on some of the songs. Napolitano's backing vocals can be heard on "Struck a Nerve", where she shouts "It struck a nerve!". Vedder also provided backing vocals on "American Jesus" and sings the second verse of "Watch It Die".

Final overdubs and mixing were done at Brooklyn Recording Studios in Los Angeles, CA. The car used in "Stealth" was a band member's car, and recorded just outside the studio in the parking lot. One or two songs were remixed at a different studio after the Brooklyn Recording sessions.

Reception

Recipe for Hate was released on June 4, 1993 and became the last Bad Religion album distributed via Epitaph Records before their return to the label in 2001. Not long after its release, Bad Religion was signed to Atlantic Records, who quickly reissued the album. Although Recipe for Hate did not chart on the Billboard 200, it peaked at number 14 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart. The singles, "American Jesus" and "Struck a Nerve", also did not chart, but also earned airplay on MTV.

Recipe for Hate received generally mixed to positive reviews from most music critics. Allmusic reviewer Jack Rabid gave the album a rating of three-and-a-half stars out of five and states: "It's easy to take them for granted, to view Recipe as just another red-hot LP (ho hum) by the last and best band to survive the '80s L.A. punk explosion. And on first listen, it's tarnished by their previous mild malaise: everything sounds alike, and some exit the boat here too quickly. But then the beautiful sonic smack starts to sink in, and the luxurious melodies introduce erudite parables."

Track listing

Personnel