#89Devo
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)
With my cred on the geek street as high as it is, I am mildly ashamed to have been unfamiliar with Devo until I listened to this album. But, thanks to my month-long hiatus and numerous aborted attempts to write this post, I have become very familiar with this album.
I was always turned off by the weird-for-weird's-sake vibe that Devo put off. I'm all for pretense, but as the band responsible for "Whip It", I thought they seemed a little too proud of themselves.
Ok, come to think of it, I probably avoided Devo entirely because of "Whip It".
I am only partially converted with Are We Not Men. There are some great moments in this album, but they are the ones where they stop couching their very obvious talents in self-conscious weirdness and social criticism about as deep as egging your principal's house. Though that is pretty punk.
This is a very dated album in atmosphere, aesthetics, lyrical content and influences. The late 70s early 80s is a fun time to visit, though. Some of the songs can be isolated and dissected for purposes of empiric asskickification.
Mix Songs:
(the song names have links in them, and those links go to the song in question.)
First pretend it is 1985. Then let me say that this song is bad.
Epitomizes what I'm talking about above regarding Devo's talent being limited by insecurity. This song is transportive, and has a REM vibe that predates REM substantially. If Mark Mothersbaugh had gotten laid in high school, who knows what might have happened?
This song is perfect if you are making a low-budget comedy in the early- to mid-1990s and want to quickly establish how quirky/irrepressible/"not like the other kids" your female character or ragtag group of outcasts is without actually writing any dialogue. The female character should do a wacky dance at an inappropriate time to it, or the group of outcasts should complete some sort of endearingly outrageous project to it. You are welcome, the past.
At first I disliked this song as derivative, but upon repeat listening it really started to creep my shit out. It is particularly effective after listening to the whole album. Deceptively catchy.
Next (hopefully soon, since I've already listened the shit out of it):
From Here to Eternity (1977)
(yes this album is exactly as good as this video makes it look. Disco glitter spacefucking.)
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