Showing posts with label Devo Are We Not Men?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Devo Are We Not Men?. Show all posts

Saturday, June 05, 2010

DEVO, Cheeseburgers and the Best Album of Their Career


Bob Mothersbaugh's distorted guitar shatters your skull at the begining of What We Do, the second track from Devo's phenomenal new album Something For Everybody.

It's been a long ride since their 1978 Eno-produced debut album Are We Not Men?, but through the years and beyond all the music trends and muscial innovations, Devo have miraulously weathered the storm, and comfortably adapted to the techno-savvy world of the Internet, mobile phones and iPads.

This album proves the band have always been ahead of the game. Finally everybody seems to be catching up to the band's theory of De-evolution.

When you usually hear a new album, there's always three songs that aren't up to scratch. Not so on Something For Everybody. For the new kids on the block, power and punch and pristine electronica and dangerous rock guitars fuse together like a Black & Decker power drill.  Metal heads will love this album because it balances synth pop and guitar art rock set to a unstoppable rhythm track. 

This is art rock at its most exciting. I bet you Nine Inch Nails will be flipping out to this platter.

What's intriguing is how a band like Devo can toy with subversive pop irony and cleverly generate it into a yellow sunshine, executive robot monster killer sound.

When the band formed in 1973 it was all Boogie Boy and Akron, Ohio eccentricity. Then by 1980, things became slicker with Freedom Of Choice. MTV discovered the band, Whip It made Devo a household name in redneck middle America, and towards the latter albums, they became victims of their own game.

What was Devo thinking when they joined forces with Disney to create a kiddies' version of themselves in DEVO 2.0?  A few years later, the band slapped a lawsuit against McDonald's for ripping off their likeness.  No wonder I never trusted Ronald McDonald,
Twenty years after the release of the album Smooth Noodle Maps, Devo are back with a vengeance, equipped with a killer sound and 12 pop masterpieces that effectively detail the depravity, hypocrisy, global chaos, irony, and stupidy of the human race. The riffs, the beeps and the beats are neatly crafted into hypnotic pop melodies with an eerie edge.

"What we do is what we do. It's all the same, there's nothing new. Eating and breathing and pumping gas. Cheeseburger cheeseburger, do it again." This is a perfect example how Devo can turn an ordinary mantra into a nuclear pop reality nightmare.

Welcome back Devo. Life's been really rather boring... until now.

Monday, May 17, 2010

DEVO Gets Ready With Something For Everybody

Interesting news from http://www.clubdevo.com/ in theat the Akron, Ohio funsters will release their first studio album in 20 years on June 14th (UK) and June 15th (US). Entitled Something For Everybody, the album includes the songs Fresh and Don't Shoot (I'm Alive).

The boys have opted for blue energy domes instead of red, but they are drawing the line at eating Frankenberry,

"Thirty years ago, people said that we were cynical, that we had a bad attitude," says Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh. "But now, when you ask people if de-evolution is real, they understand that there was something to what we were saying. It’s not the kind of thing you want to see proven right, but it does make it easier to talk about."

More than three decades after the release of their visionary debut, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo, and a full 20 years since their last studio album, Devo is back with the aptly titled Something for Everybody.

The highly anticipated album (which was launched with a memorable performance in Vancouver at the Winter Olympics) features the band's classic line-up - Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Gerald and Bob Casale—joined by drummer Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, Guns n' Roses).

Produced by Greg Kurstin (The Bird & The Bee), the album also includes contributions from John Hill and Santi White (better known as rising hip-hop star Santigold), John King of the Dust Brothers, and the Teddybears.

Though the 12 songs on Something for Everybody are built on Devo's signature mechanized swing, the recording and presentation of the album saw the band experimenting with an entirely new approach. Greg Scholl was brought in to serve as COO for Devo, Inc., and - working with the advertising agency Mother LA - conducted a series of studies through the www.clubdevo.com site to help the band with its creative decisions, from color selection to song mixes.

Gerald Casale adds that Devo really was looking at today’s world when writing the new songs. “The tautology of a line like ‘What we do is what we do' is taken straight from hip-hop,” he says. “And words like 'bro’ and 'dude'—we're surrounded by it all the time, 20-year-olds don’t even see any irony in it anymore.”

A Devo for our times. A band that evolves, even as the world around them confirms the decay they have long suspected. With Something for Everybody, Devo has gained from experience, honed its attack, and stands ready to sound the alarm for another generation.

“As angry young men who have been validated, we have the possibility to do something that resonates like it did back in the early days,” says Mark Mothersbaugh. “It’s the same car, just now with air bags, power brakes, and steering.”

“We're inspired by reality,” says Gerald Casale, “because the world is so ridiculous and stupid. DE-EVOLUTION IS REAL.”

Duty Now!