Devo - Q: Are We Not Men
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CD Details
Artist: DevoBrand: DEVO
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Uncontrollable Urge
- (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
- Praying Hands
- Space Junk
- Mongoloid
- Joko Homo
- Too Much Paranoias
- Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy)
- Come Back Jonee
- Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin')
- Shrivel-Up
Music reviews of Q: Are We Not Men
Music Review: Only Akron Could Spawn This
Rating: 4 Stars
Devo came from Akron, Ohio... where I lived until recently. Their appeal and early success was a complete enigma to most locals. But Akron was scraping the bottom of the cultural and economic barrel at that time, so if local talent was attracting national attention it was counted as a blessing regardless. Certain influential artists (David Bowie, in particular) and critics suspected that the band was at the forefront of something revolutionary.
I've seen them linked with Kraftwerk back in their embryonic stages, and there's some logic to that. But the thing that I think is sometimes missed by people from other parts of the country is the absolute contempt that this band inspired in local people when they started. Kraftwerk may have been amusing or ridiculous to the Steve Miller Band fans of the world in 1978, but when you put on a Devo record, folks actually got mad. They'd listen for a few minutes in disbelief, and shake their heads, and then they'd get that impatient look that says, "Okay, this isn't funny anymore." Devo had an unbelievable polarizing effect, and they were extremely controversial. When they played live, they were threatened with physical violence.
I can still remember listening to Q. Are We Not Men? for the first time... and not exactly liking it, but being stretched by it. So I listened to it again. When you hear these songs now they sound pretty conventional, but at that time the whole album just sounded demented and disturbing. I may have been too young to catch all of the humor (I had probably just figured out that the sixties Batman television series was a comedy). Eventually, I liked it. And by the time the next album came out, I was a fan.
As the band "devolved" they became more of a synthpop unit, which was okay with me since I liked the music they were making. But this Brian Eno-produced debut is more of a straightforward rock and roll record ("Gut Feeling" and "Come Back Jonee", especially), with lots of guitars and Chuck Berry era influences. It holds up better today than most of their successive albums, and certainly better than much of the popular music of the time.
Lyrically, Devo is a smart aleck science. There's a loudly subversive philosophy involved that informs everything the band produces. Back when it was still vague, it passed for profound... but eventually the band couldn't poke fun at the system and participate in it at the same time, so they gave up and caved in to everything they claimed to despise. Now they work in L.A. and write toothpaste jingles.
Incidentally, Devo's greatest hits packages are totally worthless. If you want to get into this band, you have to survey the albums. This is probably a good place to start.
Description of Q: Are We Not Men
Content featues the 11 tracks from the original album plus 11 live bonus tracks, all on one disc. Produced by Brian Eno, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! was a seminal touchstone in the development of American new wave. It was one of the first pop albums to use synthesizers as an important textural element, an innovation that began to lay the groundwork for the synth-pop explosion that would follow very shortly. Q: Are We Not Men also revived the absurdist social satire of the Mothers of Invention, claiming punk rock's outsider alienation as a home for freaks and geeks. While Devo's appeal was certainly broader, their sound was tailored well enough to that sensibility that it still resonates with a rabid cult following.When Devo's debut album came out in 1978, nobody knew what to make of the mutant new-wave quintet from Akron, Ohio. With Brian Eno's skillful production, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Jerry and Bob Casale, and Alan Myers emerged fully formed and outrageous with their razor-sharp social commentary and exhibition of subversive media savvy. Beyond their industrial uniforms and pseudo-devolved demeanor, Devo also happened to be a rocking little band. Classic rave-outs like "Mongoloid," "Jocko Homo," and "Uncontrollable Urge" illustrate the band's perky-jerky intensity. On their inimitable cover of the Rolling Stones' youth anthem, "Satisfaction," Devo's avant-garde robot funk takes the song to a new level of alienation and discontent. While the band went on to greater fame, this was the only album they made that truly mattered. --Mitch Meyers
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