Devo - Q: Are We Not Men
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Free Music Notes for Q: Are We Not Men
Free Music Review: Only Akron Could Spawn This
Hit: 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.
Free Music Review: very underrated band
Hit: 4 Stars
Devo pretty much made a rock and roll revolution, and saved music forever. Along with elvis costello, joe jackson, the clash, ramones, and the sex pistols, Devo made punk and new wave take down disco and make a new musical way of life. This is perhaps the best Devo album, but not all the songs are amazing.
The best songs are:
Gut Feeling - best Devo song ever
Uncontrollable Urge - really catchy
Satisfaction - awesome, funky beat that blows rolling stones out of the water
Mongoloid - great song
Jocko Homo - good lyrics, amazing beats, great production, catchy chorus
Come Back Jonee - a good song to dance to
these songs are all amazing....but there are bad songs on this here album...
The bad songs are:
Too Much Paranoias - really annoying
Space Junk - annoying chorus...but the music is okay
Well the rest...Sloppy, Shrivel Up, and Praying Hands are good songs but not classics....they are the medium songs of the album
Overall, the songs are mostly great, the production is amazing, the musicianship is amazing, and the effect of this album will be seen for years and years...Devo was the history of rock for the 80's decade, and basically made it what it was. Without Devo we would be slaves to disco.
Free Music Review: Quirky 80's styled band with an awesome story to tell
Hit: 4 Stars
At the time this album was released, I was getting into MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. I had no clue that the music that came out at the time included the multi-talented DEVO, and their quirky nature was partly to blame. They had a hit in the 80's with Whip It, which served as a false image for the very creative band which had a mission to preach the de-evolution of man.
This album features awesome tracks (Gut Feeling, the glamrock-meets-offbeat-punk Mongoloid, the quirkiest cover of the Rolling Stones' (I Can't No) Satisfaction, Uncontrollable Urge, and the staple of all Devo shows, Joko Homo) which fluctuate with quirkiness which seems to yell that all of humanity is going into the gutter. They have such an irreverence for their style and others' styles that the music says it all at times. They are awesome musicians (better than a lot of straight-forward rock groups that I've heard) and they play a lot on different offbeat punk melodies and beats.
This album is a classic and is wonderful to have around. I don't listen to it as much as I do other types of music, but it is a testament to true identity and creativity. And a lot better than "just a band who performed "Whip It."
Free Music Review: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
Hit: 4 Stars
At this point in their career, Devo's music was a strange combination of 1950's rock-and-roll with shouted, screamed lyrics about their peculiar, Church of the Subgenius-esque theory of 'De-Evolution', mixed in with a bit of punk and new wave. Probably their best album, this strikes a fine balance between being genuinely bizarre, and also being fun to listen to. Their later music, although sporadically brilliant, tended to become a bit like the B-52s, but with synthesisers. 'Q', on the other hand, is constantly interesting, containing one of two bizarre covers of the Rolling Stones' 'Satisfaction' (against their wishes, the Residents had released a similarly detached, alienated version a few months previously) to be released in the late 70's, the early singles 'Jocko Homo' and 'Mongoloid', and a clutch of catchy / disturbing rock-and-roll. Brian Eno's production is almost transparent, and makes you wonder whether he just turned up and switched the tape machines on. The album was also released as a picture disc, and the original cover was different to the one above, featuring an alarmed-looking man who appeared to have dropped a camera.Free Music Review: Still fresh and interesting...
Hit: 4 Stars
I am surprised that I not only like this album, but that I still play it quite often. I love the songs Mongoloid, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (one of the more unique cover versions in rock history), Uncontrollable Urge (a great way to start the album), and the Devo classic, Jocko Homo. It's actually a very good album, strange, unique, quite listenable, and not really as classifiable as most people think. Devo gets thrown in with the New Wave/Punk bands, but their music was more unique and interesting than the slew of New Wave bands. I think this may actually be their best album. Their later stuff was certainly interesting and more accessible, but I still think this is the quinessential Devo album.