Listening Post: Devo - Ranking

Something I've never done but might go back and complete is the the actual rankings of Listening Post and Reflecting Pool records in order of grades.

I'll start with the latest Listening Post for Devo.

Freedom of Choice: A+ (100)
Q: Are We Not Men A: We Are Devo: A+ (99)
Something for Everybody: A (93)
Oh, No! It's Devo; B- (81)
Duty Now For the Future: B- (80)
New Traditionalists: C- (74)
Shout: C- (72)
Smooth Noodle Maps: C- (70)
Total Devo: D- (61)

Devo output average: B- (81)
In other words, about average. What one can expect from any artist. Stick with the top three and you'll be fine.

Listening Post: Devo - Something For Everybody

Devo - Something for Everybody - 2010

The image clean, the icon reminiscent, the name familiar, it's 20 years later and Devo has a new album.
Should we care?
I'm not sure, I want to like it, the way I dug Freedom of Choice and Q/A.
For one thing, they've seemed to bury the hatchet between the band and guitars. Because the first single and first track, "Fresh" is boiling with lead solos, a sound sorely missing, and Mothersbaugh's chimpanzee vocals have a newfound freshness. In other words, it works in every way that the last 2 albums (20 years + old) did not.
The techno-march of "What We Do" perfectly matches the Devolution concept and the song itself is an unapologetic anthem for the band and any spud followers.
What comes to mind is that Devo has found its sense of humor again. They aren't trying too hard to be the leaders of the tech revolution. They've learned a LOT from scoring cartoons and, realizing that their sound and image and concept is basically a cartoon to begin with, they've embraced this with love and aren't...angry about it anymore. More corporate than ever before, I would have fully embraced and accepted it if they had shorn hasmat suits in favor of suits and ties ala The Tubes during Completion Backwards Principle.
The techno-soul is finally back on the near perfect, "Please Baby Please" and it's welcome, baby. Followed by "Don't Shoot, I'm a Man", a song that harkens back to the first album in both style and substance, S4E really feels like a return to form. Incorporating "Don't tase me, Bro" and grafting it to a song about a hybrid car driver worried about being shot by a rooftop sniper, I'm reminded that this is a band that once wrote a song based on the writings of President Reagan's would be assassin.
If you remember and sort of miss Devo from the "Whip It" days and you have a little space in your heart for herky jerky new wave space rock, Something For Everybody is the record for you.

Grade: A
ASide: Fresh, What We Do, Please Baby Please, Don't Shoot I'm a Man, Sumthin'
BlindSide: Mind Games, Human Rocket, Step Up
DownSide:

Listening Post: Devo - Smooth Noodle Maps

Devo - Smooth Noodle Maps - 1990

Remember all that anonymous pseudo-dance synth music on the last Devo record? It's ba-a-a-ck! Only more monotonous than before. At least this time we are only treated to a 30 minute blast. Half the time, the same amount of schnooze!
I have to believe that opening track, "Stuck in a Loop" is a commentary on the banality and exhaustive sound the band is vomiting out.
It says a lot that the most interesting track is the cover of the early 60s hit, "Morning Dew". One of the things I notice as I listen is that Devo is exceptionally capable of making acceptable dance tracks. But, it's like dance tracks done by someone with low-functioning Asperger's. Their ability to embrace the sex or sensuality or connective tissue that is required of dance tracks is missing. It's dance music for robots. Which is why it must fail. To dance is to connect. Not just to put words on beats.
It isn't until the album is almost over that the band gets their snark on for real. "Jimmy" is like Ween's "Spinal meningitis" for people with very thin skin. And there's "Devo Has feelings, Too", with it's crunchy guitars and the sense that the door might be closing on the spuds. Not a moment too soon.

Grade: C-
ASide: Post Post Modern Man
BlindSide: Morning Dew, Jimmy
DownSide:

Listening Post: Devo - Total Devo

Devo - Total Devo - 1988

Here's the thing about this record. Besides the fact that who the fuck knew it even existed?
It's really boring. There's no doubt that Devo know how to put notes together and create music or "songs". And the first track, "Baby Doll" does contain a certain amount of nightmarish soundscaping. But, beyond that it's a dull record.
And, most egregious, it's almost an hour long. That's almost TWICE the length of Oh, No! IT's Devo, or Shout or Freedom of Choice and a full 20 minutes longer than their previous longest record, Duty Now for the Future. So, not only is it boring, it's a LOT of boring.
That it sounds like every other third rate synth-o record from the era is an insult to Devo AND those other records. Weirdly, I think Harold Faltermeyer is to blame for most of this stuff's success. A track "The Shadow" which incorporates that era-popular orchestral synth chord that was used to death by Trevor Horn (Or is it Rabin...?) sounds like a desperate attempt to write the soundtrack to some comedic actioner. No surprise that Devo's foray into that world was the distant and desperate to be funny, Doctor Detroit. While the theme to that god-awful Dan Ackroyd movie was awful, we didn't need an entire album's worth. Let alone 58 mintues worth.
And what's with the synthetic xylophones? Why did you ever bring this to us, Thompson Twins??? Worse, Devo, why did you appropriate them?
I'm often reminded of a great passage from a review of Adam Ant's alter work on Allmusic where the reviewer pointed out that Adam had been rendered anonymous on his own record. I will use that here and never again offer it as anything but my own idea.
Devo couldn't sound less like "Devo" and more like "every other band of its type" on this record. Anonymous is the perfect adjective.

From a band who, just ten years earlier were on the cutting edge of theory, ideology and cracked pop, this is an egregious offering.

Grade: D-
ASide:
BlindSide: Baby Doll
DownSide: The Shadow, Man Turned Inside Out (Adam Ant probably owes Devo some royalties because this song sounds TOO much like Room at the Top), Sexi Luv, Blow Up

Listening Post: Devo - Shout

Devo- Shout - 1984

I'm not sure what to make of this. Everything I've read says it's awful. And it's the last Devo recording for a while. Also follows a tradition of self-production after someone else at the helm. But I kinda like the opening track, the title track. It reminds me of Human Sexual Response's "Pound" or "Land of the Glass Pinecones". But poppy. It's obvious that Devo is goin for radio play or some kind here. They've tasted the money teat and, why the hell not? Aren't they the godfathers of this movement? Shouldn't they benefit from what they've wrought?
This is the most generic synth music one can imagine. It's Flock of Seagulls/Thomas Dolby/Howard what's his name and everyone else, though devoid of personality and without glee. Although "The 4th Dimension" sure tries hard to have a melody...
I don't find Shout as offensive as it appears many others do. Of course, that could be because my expectations are so low. It's a notch below the last one.


Grade: C-
ASide: Shout
BlindSide: The 4th Dimension

Listening Post: Devo - Oh, No! It's Devo

Devo - Oh, No! It's Devo - 1982

The opening track of Oh, No!, "Time Out for Fun" is at once the full immersion into synth rock (there's not a real instrument on this record, save Mothersbaugh's vocals and even that sounds fake) and also more fun than anything else on the previous record.
With Oh, No! it seems obvious the guys had given up on their "De-evolution" doctrine and were going for hitsville, U.S.A.
At just over 30 minutes, it's barely an album. Using lyrics based on the writings of John Hinckley ("I Desire")
make it a subversive and caustic one as well.
On Oh, No! It's Devo, the group employed ex-Queen, ex-Cars producer Roy Thomas Baker who shines everything up nice and glossy. But that doesn't mean there isn't bite. Well, if not "bite" at least it's easier on the ears.
An antiseptic record, it's no Freedom of Choice, but it's not as dull as New Traditionalists.
I'm one of those people who actually like the uber-pop sheen of Weezer's Make Believe. It's no surprise that I like this one as well.

Grade: B-
ASide: Peek-A-Boo
BlindSide: Time Out for Fun, That's Good, Big Mess, Deep Sleep

Listening Post: Devo - New Traditionalists

Devo - New Traditionalists - 1981

Ah, success.
Following the success of their massive top 40 hit, "Whip It" and with a healthy disdain for their new-to-the-cause fans, Devo came out the next year with their most synthetic sounding album to date. I've already discussed in the last post the reasoning for marginalizing the guitars and it's really evident here. More than noticeable. This is the sound that would mire down bands like Sparks and The Cars. The affection for the disaffected sound of synths.
That said, much of this album is poppier than one would have expected, but that's most likely due to the instrumentation. The collection of songs from "Through Being Cool" to "Pity You" and others show a strong disdain for their status as pop icons. I mean, Devo were supposed to be artists, right? They were Warholian to the t, no?
The hit "Beautiful World" suffers from sounding just like Sparks "Cool Places", obviously the latter is inspired by the Devo tune which came out 2 years earlier. The Sparks song is better but the Devo song has Marco Pirroni-esque guitars.

This album is the first time Devo produced themselves and it shows, there's no one to stop them from the keys-implosion.
The result is a rather tedious affair. A smattering of hooks here and an occasional catchy track there, but otherwise, this is a lackluster affair.


Grade: C-
ASide: Through Being Cool, Jerkin Back n Forth, Beautiful World
BlindSide:
DownSide: Soft Things, The Super Thing

Listening Post: Devo - Freedom of Choice

"Freedom of Choice is what you got. Freedom from choice is what you want."



Devo - Freedom of Choice - 1980


There is a terrific interview with Bob Lewis, the unsung co-creator of Devo here. It's a must read if you are even remotely interested in the history of pop music and new wave of the 70s. My favorite takeaways?
That Girl U Want is the band's rewrite of "My Sharona" in an effort to get a hit. And that the reason they moved away from guitars was because the guitarist, Bob Mothersbaugh, married a girl that co-creator Gerry Casale liked and so Casale started edging the music away from guitars and more to synths. Hysterical. And a good cautionary tale. For that is one of the things that contributed to the creative demise of the band.
But, that's not going to happen here because this is Freedom of Choice, the big hit, the monster, the one you probably had if you had one at all. The one with "Whip It".
I bought this the week it came out and didn't listen to Side Two for the first couple of weeks. I never got around to it, since Side One was so fantastic.
By the second song on FoC it's obvious that what is happening is the fulfillment of the promise of the debut. The robo-soul is there but the dystopian snark has been replaced by hooks and catchy tunes. The hit single, "Whip It", is the very definition of catchy and hooky. It's transporting as its so obviously from an era, and yet, it's timeless at the same time. Delicious.
My favorite track was the almost anti-Numan synth track, "Snowball". The energy coupled with monotony almost dares you to pogo and air synth at the same time. The cheeky, "Ton O' Luv" is as funny as it is slovenly. The title track is replete with irony and black humor. If you don't listen, you won't get it.
And that's just side one.
Side Two opens with a song as easily played by the likes of Dead Kennedys, "Gates of Steel", and proves that turning "punk" into "new wave" does indeed make it more palatable and easy on the ears of mom and dad. Subversive, though it is. The album is relentless in it's timelessness and nostalgia. There are 100 minimalist synth bands in "Cold War" but none of them had the humor. Perhaps it was because Devo was born out of the tragedy of Kent State by ex-hippies who saw the world for what it truly was for a few minutes: inhumane and hysterically funny.
The album runs out of steam a bit toward the end, "Planet Earth" sounds like something that B-52s would have done, but this is nitpicking.
Freedom of Choice is a seminal album.

Grade: A+
ASide: Girl U Want (It IS My Sharona!), Whip It, Freedom of Choice
BlindSide: it's Not Right, Snowball, Ton O' Luv

Listening Post: Devo - Duty Now For The Future

Devo - Duty Now For the Future - 1979

Duty Now For the Future opens with Devo's Corporate Anthem which could just as easily been the theme to Space:1999 or The Lathe of Heaven, it's sci-fi to the core, dystopian but with a sense of the absurd. Things weren't that bleak back then. They were, but we all had a sense of humor back in the 70s.

The album tries to be as cheeky as its predecessor but doesn't quite hit as hard in most places. The obvious Uncontrollable Urge, "Clockout" tries to hard to be new wave soul that it just misses the mark as does "Blockhead", this album's "Mongoloid". That said, almost all the songs on Duty Now clock in and out so quickly that they play as a sort of soundtrack for corporate cubist America. Taken as a concept album of sorts, Duty Know is actually quite brilliant.
Taken song for song, Duty Now is actually not that great and a completely unnecessary relic in light of how brilliant the debut and the next record would be.


Grade: B-
ASide: Secret Agent Man
BlindSide: Timing X
DownSide: Swelling Itching Brain

Listening Post: Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! - 1978

Devo's debut explodes with the herkiest of jerkiest pop songs, "Uncontrollable Urge". Mark Mothersbaugh's nerd voice is married perfectly to the style AND the substance. He's an outlier. Devo is all outliers. "Praying Hands" is their version of soul. The yips and yelps only contribute to the disconnectedness. Their deconstructed "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", though more easy on the ears than The Residents version a few years earlier, is actually just 13 years away from the original. Think about that. How much had music changed between 1965 and 1978. This was bold experimentation, it was punk at its core, but relabeled to not scare off parents. Even the most punk track, "Too Much Paranoia", which is as much experimentation as it is punk, is so replete with humor that it's impossible to hate. And it only sticks around for 2 minutes. And there's little doubt that Black Francis was thinking about "Shrivel Up" during nearly every session on Doolittle.

The first time I really listened to Are We Not Men was in the form of a cassette. I can't think of a more devolved form to listen to music on. The quality was poor, easily degenerated and, ultimately so fragile to border on decomposable. In other words, it would quickly devolve.

To many, Devo is a joke. Guys from Ohio who wore upside down planters and took "nerd rock" to a new level. To those who were in from the beginning we knew that it was more than that. If comedy had an ironic equivalent in music, it was Devo. Just a few years out of releasing his brilliant "Here Come the Warm Jets" Brian Eno recognized the Op Art meets Pop Music (The Cars would make this more accessible the same year) and signed on as producer. The result was a record that would be the true soundtrack to post-punk new wavers and pave the way for the likes of Laurie Anderson and Adam Ant. Where there was Bowie and XTC and the like, Devo wrapped it all in the coldness of a casio player. Challenging but never off-putting, this album was the true marker of the ascendence of New Wave.
It was dada, it was art. It's sublime.

Grade: A+
ASide: Uncontrollable Urge, Mongoloid, Come Back Jonee
BlindSide: Jocko Homo, Gut Feeling (Mothersbaugh sounds more like he's aping Jagger than on Satisfaction and the song itself sounds like it could have been written by Ocasek)