DEVO - Q: ARE WE NO MEN? @ 45

 

Released on August 28th, 1978, DEVO's debut LP, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, turns 45 years old today. After incubating their music and philosophy over the course of some 5 years, the world was introduced to the concept of "De-Evolution", the principal that humanity had peaked as a species and was now backsliding into primitivism and ignorance.

Inspired by the Kent State Massacre of 4 students on May 4th, 1970, co-founder Gerald Casale began to formulate the basic principals of DeEvolution into the band, DEVO, back in 1973. Along with co-founder, Mark Mothersbaugh, brothers Bob 1 & Bob 2 and Alan Myers, the band spent three years developing songs, stagecraft and iconography in order to represent their vision of a degraded, displaced and disjointed dystopian future. By 1977, the group were ready to record and their demo was causing the likes of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno to be in the running to produced the album. The job ultimately landed with Eno, who flew the band out to Conny Plank's studio near Cologne, Germany.

Production of the album ended up being something of a battle of wills, as the band held steadfastly to conceptions about how the songs should be produced, while resisting potentially beneficial suggestions from Eno. In later years, band members would express regrets over their stubbornness and refusal to collaborate more openly with Brian. But despite the friction, they managed to produce an album of tight, angular and innovative music, which would prove to be deeply influential as upcoming young artists sought something more than the three chord slash of punk.

I know my own reaction to the band and the album was a sense of revelation. I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live and was immediately won over by their quirky, alien idiosyncrasy, which was counterbalanced by an uncanny sense of nostalgia for mid century modern aesthetics. Parts of it reminded me of music from Warner Bros cartoons, while other aspects left me feeling like I'd stepped into a '50s science fiction B-movie. Coupled with their hazard suited, herky-jerky robotic stage antics, you had the perfect formula for fanatical DEVOtion!

While some critics at the time of its release couldn't quite grasp what the band were doing, the album has still managed to secure a solid position as essential listening from that era, in the ensuing years since its release. It's an album I can still listen to at any time and enjoy its strangeness, while marvelling at its ability to resist sounding dated.

CABARET VOLTAIRE - THE CRACKDOWN @ 40

Celebrating its 40th anniversary today is the fifth studio LP from Industrial music pioneers, Cabaret Voltaire, with The Crackdown being released on August 18th of 1983. It's the album which saw the band take a decisive turn away from overt experimentation and fundamentally lay the cornerstones of what would become known as "EBM" (electronic body music). Its funky electro-grooves became the signposts for bands like Font 242, Front Line Assembly and countless others.

Recorded late in 1982 at Trident Studios, London, England, the band were now paired down to a duo, with Chris Watson having left part-way through the recording of their previous album, 2x45. With Watson's "Musique concrète" contributions now absent, the group leaned more into the latent groovy essence which resided in its remaining members. It was also the era when MIDI based electronic drum machines and sequencers were making their mark on the electronic music scene and the Cabs were on the bleeding edge of incorporating that tightly synchronized syncopation into their music. The wobbly sync of analogue gear was gone and the rhythms subsequently became tough and tense.

The album was produced by the band themselves, along with Mark Ellis (aka, Flood), who would become a stalwart producer in the genre of electronic pop, working with artists like Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, New Order and Orbital, among many others. The result was a genre defining shift from a band which had come from oblique avant-garde obscurity into now setting themselves up to lead a new revolution on the underground dance floors of the UK, Europe and North America. Taylor Swift would never be the same!
 

NWA - STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON @ 45

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP from NWA (N****s With Attitude), Straight Outta Compton, which was released on August 8th, 1988. For many, this was the album which announced the arrival of "gangsta rap", giving the fledgling genre a sense of danger and risk which it had only flirted with up to this point.

Prior to the release of Straight Outta Compton, the rap music scene of the mid 80s was commercially dominated by mostly innocuous "party" music, built on electro-funk grooves and principally concerned with fairly non-threatening subjects. While the genre had debuted in the mainstream with a sense of social conscience on tracks like The Message and White Lines, the mainstream of the time was mostly filled with themes of hanging out, and having a good time. With NYC as the birthplace of the sound, the West Coast scene was largely overlooked as inconsequential. That all changed with NWA.

Formed in 1987, NWA brought together MCs Ice Cube, Dr Dre and Eazy-E. Relative unknowns at the time, they'd go on to become iconic names after the release of this album. Musically, driven by DJ Yella and the Arabian Prince, the sound slowed the groove and dragged it away from the Kraftwerk inspired thrust of Planet Rock, into a downtempo heaviness, built on sampled R&B & jazz records and anchored by the booming kick of Roland's TR-808 drum machine. Lyrically, the album pierced the furiously raw nerve of urban black alienation, dispensing with any restraint or politeness and thrusting expletives into the faces of unsuspecting listeners. Unlike the controversies around something like 2 Live Crew and their focus on vulgar sexuality, NWA's outrages came from a sense of revolution against authority, no more perfectly vocalized than by the album's most notorious track, Fuck the Police.

The sheer audaciousness of Fuck the Police became one of the driving factors in making this record such a notorious hit. The song even merited a stern warning from the FBI to the group, and police were refusing to work security at their shows. All of this blow-back from the authorities, however, only served to intensify the group's notoriety and publicity. While radio stations flatly turned away from the album, it still sold in the millions thanks to the shock factor that was unleashed by that track. I can clearly recall the sense of awe that swept my own social circle as this record hit our turntables. We'd never heard anything like it. It was so stark, so angry and so firmly footed against its oppressors. Someone had finally given voice to the deep outrage that was fuming in the guts of the disenfranchised urban cores of North America. It was a moment when you realized it should have been said so much sooner, but that it was about fucking time that it finally hit the mainstream.

While this new breed of rap uncovered the harsh realities of city life, it also unleashed a kind of misogyny which would form the unfortunate alternate thrust of this double edged sword. Women became "bitches and 'ho's" and subjects of abuse. It's only one of the more uncomfortable aspects of the genre which only became exaggerated in later years as the culture became less concerned with communicating the social injustices of the disenfranchised and more focused on the braggadocio of wealth, sexual prowess, violent confrontations and social status.

Yet at its best, NWA and Straight Outta Compton offered a desperately needed reality check for a culture which has continued to decline as disparities between classes continue to be aggravated. Along with Public Enemy on the East Coast, they brought rap music into the '90s with a sense of danger and urgency that has not been equalled since those heady heydays. This was likely the last time, in my recollection, when music was able to upset the establishment in a way which had any real impact. There hasn't been a musical movement since then which has threatened the mainstream in such a tangible and visceral way. However, such rage and determination has since been co-opted into mere consumerism for the 21st century, with artists assessed based on the quality of the footwear they put their names to instead of the validity of their message. That's not to say there aren't those still speaking truth to power, but those voices seem more pushed to the fringes rather than occupying the culture's central ranks. 

 

KRAFTWERK - TOUR DE FRANCE @ 20

 

Marking its 20th anniversary today is the eleventh studio album from Kraftwerk, Tour De France Soundtracks, which was released on August 4th, 2003. It was their only collection of new recordings in 12 years, with The Mix being released in 1991, but it was also their only collection of new compositions in 17 years, with the last set, Electric Cafe (aka Techno Pop), coming out in 1986. While the group continue to tour regularly, they have not released any new studio recordings since, albeit numerous live collections have been made available from their 21st century tours. Tour De France was also the last album to feature Florian Schneider before his departure from the band in 2008 and his passing in 2020.

The album was conceived as a tribute to the Tour De France bicycle race, which was celebrating its 100th anniversary that year, though the album release was delayed, missing the actual anniversary of the race. It was also an expansion on the single of the same name, which was released 20 years earlier, in 1983. The cover graphics for the single and album are nearly identical. Following the release of the album, the group began to tour again, revamping their live presentation to utilized the now familiar four podium "laptop" setup, with each member having a compact array of computers, keyboards and minimal controls, all backed by large visual projections, which eventually evolved into 3D graphics in more recent years.

With such a long lapse in activity from the band, it was a concern as to whether fans would be there to pick up on the release, but the band's impact had become so pronounced within the popular music world, with it's decisive shift towards electronic pop, that the album was a global hit, rising to the upper ranks of numerous charts. Stylistically, the album continued along the path of tight, punchy dance music forged by The Mix from 1991.

With Ralf Hütter now the only remaining founding member of the group (or from their "classic" era lineup), fans continue to speculate on whether or not they have another album of original new works in the wings. 20 years is a long time to go without anything new, especially for a group who are now recognized as being on the same level as The Beatles in terms of influencing the direction of popular music, and some could argue they've surpassed the Fab Four, and convincingly. They're still out there touring regularly and packing venues with their 3D live shows, which I got to see in 2012, and which duly blew my mind. I can't accept that they haven't got at least ONE more album up their robotic sleeves.

PSYCHIC TV - TUNE IN (TURN ON TO THE ACID HOUSE) @ 35

 

In August of 1988, 35 years ago this month, Psychic TV came out of the closet as an Acid House band after having pranked the club crowd with a fake Various Artists compilation of dance music in June of that year under the title, Jack the Tab. The TUNE IN single is purported to be the first UK release to use the term "ACID HOUSE" as it directly referenced the Chicago originating style. Whereas the Jack the Tab album had obliquely alluded to the movement, though skewing towards a more hip-hop & funky style of groove, Tune In went full tilt into the classic "four on the floor" techno-disco beat which characterized the US inspiration, though the signature squelching TB-303 wasn't quite in place just yet.

 

At the time of its release, I'd only recently clued into the sound via the seminal Phuture 12", Acid Tracks. I was a fan of TG's brand of "Industrial" music and Psychic TV, but what I heard from Phuture was a completely fresh sound with a whole new sense of possibilities. I recall many of my friends who were into experimental music were suspicious of this new sound, finding it too dry, basic and minimal, but I was twigged and my guts told me something big was coming down the pipes. When I saw Tune In on the shelf in my local import shop, I remember I got a sudden rush of delight by seeing that someone like Psychic TV had recognized the potential of what was coming. I hadn't heard the Jack the Tab LP yet, so this came as a total surprise after hearing the retro psyche-rock of their latest album, Allegory & Self. It felt like a paradigm shift was happening.

 

The single was originally released on Temple Records under the Jack the Tab name with a label showing a picture of Superman holding a Psychick cross, and without any mention of the name, Psychic TV. This short-lived version was quickly pulled from distribution after DC Comics expressed objections to the use of their intellectual property and threatened legal action. 

 

Soon after the release of this single, it seemed the UK exploded with ACID HOUSE music and rave culture soon followed, with clandestine warehouse and outdoor parties sprouting up all over the country, luring young party-goers into the ecstasy of new designer drugs and all night techno dance parties. For me, the birth of the entire modern electronic music scene traces back to the summer of 1988 and the release of records like Psychic TV's Tune In. For the next few years, until Genesis P-Orridge and family were chased out of the UK, Psychic TV pursued a course of becoming the ultimate psychedelic electronic dance band, putting on marathon 3 hour live shows across the UK, US and Europe, travelling in a Merry Pranksters style school bus, and spreading the word of tuning in, turning on and freaking out.

 

HERBIE HANCOCK - FUTURE SHOCK @ 40

 

Released in August of 1983, Herbie Hancock's Future Shock turns 40 years old this month. Fusing jazz, funk, hip-hop & electronic dance music, the album, along with the Rockit single and it's unforgettable music video, would bring Hancock's name to its highest recognition in popular music.

With two decades of work under his belt, Hancock was well established in the jazz scene, both as a solo artist and for having worked with legends like Miles Davis. He was always a forward thinking musician and he'd done extensive work throughout the 1970s defining the jazz-fusion sound, incorporating funk grooves with jazz sensibilities and pushing it all into the modern age by incorporating synthesizers and electronics. But Future Shock didn't even begin life as a Hancock album.

The origins of the album began with bassist Bill Laswell and keyboardist-producer, Michael Beinhorn, who were looking to devolp a follow-up to their sophomore Material album, One Down. Many of the songs on Future Shock began as demos for what was thought would be the next Material LP. However, once the ball began rolling on these compositions, the duo approached Hancock to work with them on developing the songs further. From there, reggae drumming legend, Sly Dunbar, guitarist Pete Cosey and DJ Derek Showard, better known by his stage name of GrandMixer DXT, came onboard to fill out the studio band. Together, they managed to channel the zeitgeist of a new breed of fusion music, incorporating modern jazz sensibilities with cutting edge alternative hip-hop funkiness. They soon realized they were on to something when demos of their recordings started receiving unexpected positive reactions from people who had a chance to hear them.

For the single, Rockit, a stunning video was directed by 10cc's Godley and Creme, who helped mastermind an iconic set of robot dancers and musicians created by Jim Whiting, a production which swept the MTV music awards of that year. The video managed to keep the song in heavy rotation on the fledgling music channel, propelling the single and album into major sales territory. It was one of those rare moments when true innovation and creativity managed to break into the mainstream music scene.