The Top 30 Albums of 1978: # 13

Wire
Chairs Missing

Although the king of the one-two-three-all good music 1978 title obviously belongs to Brian Eno, here we are with his runner-up, an album that he might have ended up on if producer Mike Thorne hadn't acceded to Colin Newman's request to bring in more synthesizers. (When Mike initially refused, Newman apparently said "Then we'll just get that Brian Eno guy". Thorne acquiesced immediately.) Arriving less than a year after Wire had dropped Pink Flag, an abrasive, solid punk album that screeched and howled with what might be considered an against-all-odds "maturity", Chairs Missing is the sort of thing that we're all content to now call post-punk.

Enjoy this moment, it's rare: the plastering of genre label is spot on.

It's tempting to throw a superchunk of credit to Mike Thorne--without his synthesizer and hundred dollar electronics, Chairs Missing could have ended up being just another follow-up throwdown, another punk album. Thing is, Thorne was just following orders, and while those orders included letting him do his thing, they also had some specific checks to make: loops and whistles, bells and clicks. Thankfully, the post-production work is seamless enough that none of Thorne's work reads as paint job, and Chairs Missing stands around looking lopsided when placed alongside what would have been Pink Flag's brothers.

Opening with "Practice Makes Perfect", it's clear that Wire aren't out to create too many hit singles: gloomy, horror movie moans punctuate Colin Newman's yelling of "Waiting for us...waiting, and waiting, and waiting" as the thump of the instruments eventually settles into an unsettling ring that takes over the last 40 seconds of the song's run time. You can't bang your head to this, but if you did, you'd just end up swaying like a metronome. The album follows that arc through "French Film Blurred", and then there's a pretense towards changing it up in "Another the Letter", a 67 second track that sounds like it was created solely to showcase how creepy merry-go-rounds would be if Wire was hired to soundtrack them. Rapidly spitting out vocals until the song stops at the revelation that the "letter" of the title is, in fact, a suicide note--by this point, you're either on board or not. The embrace of a Goblin/Tangerine Dream style of synth takes over for the opening of "Being Sucked In Again", only to be smashed once again by controlled, muted guitars only allowed to spit forth seconds of sound. The whiplash of "Mercy", a song that grinds all of its noise into succinct closers for each measure while the bassist struggles to control the tempo. The 94 second "Outdoor Miner", the closest thing to a single the record label could find on the album, a song they asked the band to expand to single length despite it having lyrics about lizards, leopards and a miner laying down to be buried underground in the "earth which he's known since birth."

"I Am The Fly", the singular breakout song that most people know from the album, an anthemic song that prefigured and probably created the sound--throbbing, industrialized punk gone pop--the band would play throughout the 80's before their most recent--yes, they're still going--return to noisier pastures.

That's the album. It isn't punk.

1978 was a year where a lot of incredibly catchy disco songs were created. A year where you could look to the opening shots from bands that would go on to define the global sound of pop, punk, dub and new wave. But it was also a year where established bands worked to innovate and explore their range of sound. Wire was, to be kind, neither. Pink Flag was their debut album, it had only been on the shelves for seven months when Chairs Missing showed up. While both albums would go on to be considered--rightly so--as some of the most important and strongest of the decade, in August of 1978, Wire was just another punk band doing a follow up. If ever there was a time to rest on laurels and repeat what worked, this was it. Instead, they chased their own demons, argued their producers into bowing to their obsessions, and dispensed with what was catchy in sixty-second tracks. It's a testament to the strength of 1978 that something as gutsy as this album sits this low on the countdown. If the race to the top were judged by courage alone? 

We'd be talking top five material.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Sean Witzke]

This is my favorite Wire record - Pink Flag always felt weaker in comparison.

[NIK]

I love Pink Flag but still haven't gotten around to checking this out yet, your review makes me wish to do so posthaste!

[Tucker Stone]

Me too Sean. I have a lot of affection for the Read & Burn series from the last few years--have you heard that stuff? It doesn't have the same start-to-finish perfection of their late 70's work, but there's some great shit on there.

NIK--if you're down with Pink Flag, you're going to love this one. 154, the one they dropped in '79 is also pretty great. I prefer Chairs Missing out of the three, but all of them are really fucking strong.