Devo - Duty Now for the Future / New Traditionalists
|
Music CD Cover Artist: Devo Edition: Music CD Format: Extra tracks, Import CD Release Date: 1993-05-27 Music Label: Virgin Soundtracks:
|
| New | New Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $5.51 | ||
| Used | Used Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $2.99 |
Your purchase is protected by the A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee. Amazon.com automatically transfers your payment to the merchant so you'll never need to pay a merchant directly. Amazon.com A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee covers both the delivery of your item and its condition upon receipt.
Free Music Notes for Duty Now for the Future / New Traditionalists Album
Free Music Review: Two Four Star Albums in One Jewel Case!
Hit: 4 Stars
It's funny that this cd is like the Oreo cookie outside to the creamy "Freedom Of Choice" commercial success center. Looked and listened to in that perspective, it does show where the potato heads' heads were at. "Duty Now" is a really good album that came after a perfect one, and it does shrivel in comparison. The DEVO eyes had turned from the sound of things falling apart to the machinery that made it go. Having used up most of their "conceptual" songs for the debut, we were served up musings on love work and death.
In part, the blame does rest on producer Ken Scott, who obviously didn't understand the band with anywhere near the depth that Brian Eno did. Where Eno might have encouraged brighter production in (for instance) "Swelling Itching Brain," Scott instead chose to make it murkier. That most of the songs here are great overcomes the cloudy sound, and "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise" is a DEVO hall of famer.
This is also the home of one of DEVO's best statement of purpose songs, the concert fave "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA." Declaring themselves to be "suburban robots to monitor reality," DEVO make the claim that they are here to protect both man and mutant, only to discover that Mr. DNA deems them fit to "sacrifice themselves so many others may live!" It also rocks harder than anything else DEVO ever recorded for the first part of their career. After this, the slick success of "Whip It" kind of tamed them...if you ever considered DEVO tamable.
"New Traditionalists" found DEVO in a precarious state. Their arty irony and brainy pop smarts had made them a flavor of the moment via the "F.O.C." hit single and video, and suddenly the whole world was chanting "are we not men?" It both emboldened them and deepened their cynicism. "Through Being Cool" rallied the alienated to rise against the ninnies and the twits at the same time "Beautiful World" wearily declared that it might have been a beautiful world for you, but "it's not for me." After all, how could you rail against the lemming/jock mentality when they were the ones donning energy domes at the football games and singing "Whip It" at corporate synergy rallies?
But having been touched by the gold finger of hit making, DEVO did their best to fill an album with enthusiastic pogo anthems about their favorite topics. "Jerking Back and Forth" and "Love Without Anger" are typical visions of human relationships ala DEVO. (The stop motion doll video for "L.W.A." is among the band's best.) "Going Under" had them tinkering with their sound a little, and "Working In A Coal Mine" was given the DEVO oldie treatment. All in all, a solid album.
As a double record on one disc, worth every penny, especially since the import individual discs are getting really hard to find.