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)
