“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 The robo-soul is there but the dystopian snark has been replaced by hooks and catchy tunes.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
