Nilesblog

#85

Wire

154 (1979)

Wire represents a period of minor upheaval in my musical tastes. They are not responsible for all of it, but they are indicative of music that urged me beyond melodic pop and rock concerns and into less listener-friendly music.

This is not to say that Wire is not listener-friendly a great deal of the time. Their periodic brain-fucking rockouts I would rank high amongst my favorites. Their album Pink Flag (which is much higher on the Pitchfork countdown) is probably the most recent addition to my personal Top Ten Albums: lifetime achievement category. It kicked out, oh, let's say Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I don't know, I don't actually have this list created.

I never got into 154 though, because it didn't immediately grab me upon first listening like Pink Flag and Chairs Missing did. Upon diving fully into it, I find that 154 blends the continual expectations bucking of Chairs Missing with the pure punk rock industro-buzzsaw of Pink Flag while matching neither in terms of quality.

The noisy sections don't gel into anything meaningful, while the pop-oriented parts don't manage to subvert the style as much as the Wire likely wished them to. It doesn't mean the poplike songs are bad by any means, but they don't quite accomplish the intended effect. "Map Ref. 41 Degrees N 93 Degrees W" is a great song, but just look at that title. Wire, man, you guys are trying to hard. You wrote a great pop song, deal with it.

Super-solid album, would listen again, but not for quite some time. The singles here will make appearances though. "Map Ref etc." has been on my heavy rotation for months.

MXYZPTLYK

"Should Have Known Better"

This song is not on the goddamn internet. It is awesome. Find it. Fuck you internet.

"The 15th"

There is a hypnotizing arrogance and fuck it all quality to Wire. I think it is because of Punk. If the music of Wire was represented as an object in reality, they would be a monolith that you see waaaay out in a field and when you hike over to look at it, it spits on you.

"Map Ref. 41 Degrees N 93 Degrees W"