The Top 30 Albums of 1978: #18

Devo
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

The “Uncontrollable Urge” mentioned in the opening song on Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! probably refers to ejaculation, as it’s punctuated with a cry of “Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeaaaaaaaaaah!” Thing is, Devo are not sexual the way that, say, Marvin Gaye is sexual. They’re 13 year-olds with a “What the fuck?” kind of rubbing-themselves-against-the-couch-arm kind of sexuality, and most of their synthesizer-driven take on avant-garde New Wave comes out of that adolescent, pent-up frustration. The music on Are We Not Men is all elbows, fumbling over itself in its excitement to spurt something out—whether it’s jism or an epithet (“Mongoloid”) or the Burger King slogan (“Too Much Paranoias”). Yet, strangely enough, it’s all very elaborately constructed. Devo’s founders, Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale, met while studying art at Kent State University, and were even present on May 4, 1970, when the National Guard shot thirteen students there during a protest against Richard Nixon’s announcement of an invasion of Cambodia. Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up and Start Again, which is essential reading for the story of the band’s formation, argues that Devo’s Dadaist bent spawned directly from that event—Casale was friends with Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, two of the students killed—and the general shift away from the idealism of the 60’s in the U.S. at that time. Devo took their name from Mothersbaugh and Casale’s Theory of Devolution, which, according to Reynolds, “was a patchwork parody of religion and quack science woven together from motley sources, including the Second Law of Thermodynamics, sociobiology, genetics, the paranoid science fiction of William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick, and anthropology.”

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! subsequently rides on the friction between the band’s piss-taking and more self-serious undertones. If devolution for Devo means reverting back to the time of your first wet dream, it’s because they believe that there’s more truth in the awkwardness of adolescence than in the illusion of adulthood. As if to drive the point home further, Are We Not Men follows “Uncontrollable Urge” with Devo’s cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” which strips The Rolling Stones’ version of its eternal guitar riff, reducing it to frenetic bursts of noise, a steam-engine rhythm that forecasts their 1981 cover of “Working in a Coal Mine,” and, most indelibly, Mothersbaugh’s straightforward vocal delivery, which turns the song’s narrator into a sort of jittery observational comic, revealing the youthful petulance that was settled beneath Mick Jagger’s attempted sultriness. Early single “Jocko Homo” seems like an overt statement of purpose in the context of the album, as the band introduces itself (using the album’s title, naturally) while sandwiched ultra-simple blasts of guitar and keyboard. Elsewhere, the band proves itself capable of moments of quietly stunning beauty—like in the intro to “Space Junk,” when their jitteriness is countered with some long and light keyboard stabs, or “Come Back Jonee,” which pays tribute to Chuck Berry with an elegy for his favorite protagonist—but even that comes from left field. Devo’s idea of beauty is less like a love letter to you Jr. High School crush, and more like sitting in the back of the classroom stabbing yourself through the web of your fingers with a pencil to prove your love.

-Martin Brown, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

I'm wondering where the Ramones' "Road to Ruin" is going to place on this list.

Also, I need to listen to more Devo. I've been told this is something I need to do many times but they're rather...they're so unintimidating that it's intimidating to try and start ANYWHERE.

[Marty]

I can't speak for Tucker, but I'm not a big fan of Road to Ruin. It's a bit diluted, after the first three albums. Plus, I had a jackass boss who used to play it at work everyday because he thought he was a rock star. You can look for the Ramones to show up somewhere in this whole thing, though.

[Chris Jones]

I dunno, I don't think they lost their magic until Phil Spector threatened to kill their moms. And I do definitely think it's better than "Leave Home", which is I think by far their weakest early album.

[Tucker Stone]

Count me in with Marty on this one, sorry Chris. I like the Ramones fine, but Road to Ruin is less an album to me and more a container for some songs I really like alongside some others I don't.