I recently watched a documentary about WLIR, a
radio station in Long Island, New York that popularized New Wave and other alternative
music in the late seventies through the mid-eighties. The documentary was
called “New Wave: Dare To Be Different” and if you have an interest in music
(which since you’re here, you clearly do) I recommend it. It is a great story
about a bunch of fellow music lovers making a difference, and a fun trip down
memory lane.
One of the bands noted on the documentary also
happens to be my next review!
Disc 1250 is… Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo!
Artist:
Devo
Year of Release: 1978
What’s up with the
Cover?
A drawing of Mark Mothersbaugh (I think). This picture makes me think of Hunter
S. Thompson, with his newspaperman hat and jaunty grin.
How I Came to Know
It: I
first knew Devo from their cover of “Working
in a Coal Mine” and from there they came casually in and out of my music
life. My friend Nick has brought songs over in the past, a couple of which are
on this record.
What drove me to give “Are We Not Men?...” a full listen was an article
on Paste detailing the Top 30 albums (to them) from 1978. Devo landed at
eighth. If I ever complete the Odyssey or find some extra time I’ll do my own
“best of” list for 1978, but for now Paste Magazine’s gave me a few good leads,
including this one.
How It Stacks Up: I only have this one Devo album. I checked out
some more of their stuff but nothing grabbed me, at least for new.
Ratings: 4 stars
Devo is not my usual music. As much as I enjoyed the documentary featuring
so much New Wave, a quick run through of what I’ve reviewed at “A Creative
Maelstrom” will show you it isn’t my scene. “Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!” proves
that none of that genre bumpf matters when you deliver music this good.
Devo’s debut release sounds fresh and experimental by contemporary
standards. It is hard to imagine what people made of it back in 1978. A weird
mix of showtunes, punk rock, New Wave pop and proto-electronica, this record
does whatever the hell it wants, waits for you to catch up, and then switches
gears and does a totally different version of whatever the hell it wants.
Long-time readers will know my aversion to critical darlings that are
innovative for their own sake but are otherwise unlistenable. Devo could easily
have fallen into this category. Instead, Mark Mothersbaugh’s genius builds a musical
maze out of a hundred impossible angles and then makes it a pleasure to walk
you through it.
What’s the record about? Hell if I know. If you are approaching the album
looking for complex metaphors and literary allusion you are barking up the
wrong tree. Here it’s all about the music – the words are just some extra bit
of paint on an already crowded canvas. Devo wisely keeps them simple and
visceral.
There is lots of strange percussion, organ and early synthesizer and
staccato guitar licks that sound like the guy playing is having a fit of palsy.
Or at least that’s how it would seem if you tuned in for 20 seconds and turned
the radio dial. However, this music is sneaky clever, with all that banging,
droning and riffing all blending together into songs that are a joy to listen
to. Most of them are downright danceable.
The opening track “Uncontrollable
Urge” has a classic guitar riff that could be the intro to some blues rock
song, until Mark Mothersbaugh starts singing a frantic run of “yeah yeah yeah-yeah-ye-ye-yeahs jumping the
beat, and some kind of Broadway chorus comes in where I think the bridge should
go. Also, there are beeps and chirps. It all works.
The second song is a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” which takes the classic rock song
and makes it sound like funk reimagined through the Mos Eisley Cantina band in
Star Wars. Except awesome. Mothersbaugh’s frantic delivery on this song are
exceptional, converting the unfulfilled longing of the original into something
that captures the growing sense of future shock and hurry of modern life.
“Come Back Jonee” isn’t a cover
of Johnny B. Goode, but it is inspired by it, using faint echoes of the
original tune and lyrics before soaring off into bizarre Bowie-like organ space
odyssey. Once again, it isn’t just clever, but also fun and infectious.
This record feels heavily before its time. “Gut Feeling (Slap Your Mammy)” has the dreamy alternative sound of
the Cure a year before they released their first record. “Praying Hands” theatrical rock would be at home in the 2001 rock
opera “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”
There times when “Are We Not Men?” loses me, like someone trying to see
the impossible angles in a Lovecraftian witch house. While this takes me out of
the music emotionally, I still appreciate what Devo are trying to do. The mistakes
on the record are few, and they are always made with the best intentions.
My copy of the CD is also a reissue with a whole bunch of live tracks
that are good, but had me wishing they were on a separate disc.
Other than that, there isn’t much to complain about. I checked a
few more Devo albums out but nothing compared with the sheer brilliance and
bravado of “Are We Not Men…”. Some bands just get it right the first time.
Best tracks: Uncontrollable Urge, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,
Praying Hands, Mongoloid, Jocko Homo
No comments:
Post a Comment