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:
