Devo - Pioneers Who Got Scalped

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Music reviews of Pioneers Who Got Scalped

Music Review: A Disc and a Half of Greatness.
Rating: 4 Stars

With that kind of formula in place, genius could not be long in coming. With "Freedom of Choice" and "New Traditionalists," they delivered in spades. (Or is that spuds?) "Freedom Of Choice" bent and twisted the crazy consumerist mentality that makes us believe we have so much to decide on, when we really are just being manipulated. Witness the title song's lyrical bite as well as the hit, "Whip It," which strung self help mantras with a razor sharp wit and dance floor snap. After that, success seemed to elevate the cynicism, with "Beautiful World" bemoaning that, although things might be good for some, the closing line of "It's a beautiful world for you, but not for me" spoke to every isolated misfit the macho world of hair band metal and success at all cost Reagen Republicanism had ever stomped on. At the opposite end of the spectrum was the anthemish "Through Being Cool," urging the alienated to "Step out and dare to declare" their uniqueness. Classic stuff, this.

After the NT album though, things went askew in Devo land. "Oh No, It's DEVO" gave us a few great songs ("That's Good" is here, "Patterns" isn't), but was mired in gimmick heavy production. Altered pitch voices were the norm on most of "Oh No," detracting from the band's strengths. By the time the much better "Shout" came along, the public had moved on and their record company had very publicly made it known that they weren't interested. The two great cuts from that unfortunately out of print disc, the title song and an outrageously devolved Hendrix cover of "Are You Experienced" (which had a fantastic vid) are here. It took a few years of wound healing and a slowly building acknowledgement of DEVO's influence to get them another album, "Total Devo." It was probably the least inspired of the studio albums, and the singles here are all that counted. The Rip Van Winkle tale of "Disco Dancer" could just have easily been about the band! Too bad that the follow up. "Smooth Noodle Maps" was ignored. As an album, it rates with any other from the Warner Years. "Post Post Modern Man" could have been from "New Traditionalists." But a nostalgia trip only has so much gas, and even though the tour was successful, the album went into obscurity fast.

As for the rest of "Scalped's" second disc, I'd have been much happier with the single versions of "Dr Detroit" and "Here To Go" than the overlong dance versions. With the exception of "Head Like A Hole," the additional cover versions are unexceptional, and the irritating "new" version of "Words Get Stuck In My Throat" makes you glad for skip buttons on remotes. This is the place where that elusive fifth star slipped away. Maybe some day Rhino will be generous enough to grab all the DEVO discs and give them the royal remaster treatment.

Special mention must be made about the 3-d cover! THIS is the kind of inspired silliness that made me love DEVO in the first place.

Description of Pioneers Who Got Scalped

The first of the two CDs on the Rhino compilation Pioneers Who Got Scalped goes down like butter, every song a classic. Two or three more CDs could have easily been culled from these same fertile years between their debut album and 1981's New Traditionalists. The second CD starts to lose the plot a bit as the members of Devo started going in different directions, primarily Mark Mothersbaugh's developing interest in movie soundtracks and scoring. But it does still paint the picture of Devo and where they were during what Jerry Casale, Mothersbaugh's writing partner, refers to as "the enigmatic years."

Until someone steps up and releases the entire Devo recordings and videos together in one big box, this will have to do. And too many great things cannot be said about the 52-page booklet filled to the gills with info and photos. While completists will still be left wanting, this'll keep most spud boys and girls pogo-ing contentedly. --Steve Turner

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