wire the band

mms

sometimes
i've just heard pink flag and it's mostly really awful shouty punk - this lot are mean't to be good aren't they ?

i didn't know what it was but was told after i moaned a bit - i was quite ready for someone to tell me they were something new if that's some kind of compensation.

is there anything better than this that they've done?

i just don't think i can do rock music really, maybe that's it.
 

10:02am

Active member
wire's next two albums after pink flag, chairs missing and 154, may satisfy you more. they began to explore the studio more and, in my opinion, are the two most sonically interesting post-punk albums bar none. 'shoutiness' is pretty much gone on these, replaced by either minimal art-punk experimentalism or deconstructed pop, alternately. definitely check them out before abandoning wire.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
mms said:
i've just heard pink flag and it's mostly really awful shouty punk - this lot are mean't to be good aren't they ?

Shouty punk is a Good Thing often....even if this totally turns you off, listen to Mannequin for a supreme example of the 'fuck you' pop song, along the same lines as the Primitives' classic Crash.

As for 154 etc being the most interesting post-punk albums sonically - it surprises me (not in a negative way) that someone would say that, with the amount of feted competition in that area (PiL, This Heat, etc). Still, a pleasant surprise.
 
O

Omaar

Guest
There's a song called "The 15th" (later covered by fischerspooner) which is brilliant, and another called "Map Ref. 41ºN 93ºW" (I didn't remember that off the top of my head) which I remember being really good . both off 154.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Or better still get
ON RETURNING (1977-1979)
a compilation of all that stuff. Drink a bottle of cheap Scotch, wake up and put it on, it's amazing with a hangover.
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
I always disliked them - "I AM THE FLY I AM THE FLY" - f uck off! But strangely I saw them live about 5 years ago and they were rocking, doing this rock plus techno thing which somehow worked OK.

But the original albums I'm not into.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
"I AM THE FLY I AM THE FLY" - f uck off

I guess it is kind of annoying. But hey! That's flies for you.

The felllow does sound like he's trying far too hard to be a cockney insect.


The track that precedes it "Feeling called Love" is a little gem, though. To prove the point (to myself , at least) I'm listening to it right now. Ooops. It's over.
 

martin

----
I like them, but can't stand all this shit about them being an intelligent or progressive counterpart to the more yobbish bands, their lyrics are meaningless rubbish bordering on the genuinely vacant, but I quite liked the stop / start nature of stuff on Pink Flag, and about half of Chairs Missing.
 

tate

Brown Sugar
Lichen said:
""Feeling called Love" is a little gem, though. To prove the point (to myself , at least) I'm listening to it right now. Ooops. It's over.
bit of a lou reed vocal thing going on there
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Pink Flag is the album that's lauded most by rockists, I believe it is a standard text for US Hardcore... however the real treasure is Chairs Missing (minimal art punk meets a post punk take on Syd Barrett's English psychedelia) and 154 (sinister multitextured art rock). I always really loved the lyrics, as coded as Scott Walker or Green Gartside at their most gnomic, and as obscurely evocative as modern-art/punk haikus... the combination of perfect pop with artfully weird lyrics (ie the 15th, Map Ref, Outdoor Miner) and more sinister, rhythmical stuff is very compelling to me anyway. In fact they explored rhythmical interplay in a curiously white way, (no funk here) is probably their greatest innovation... on the 2nd and third albums there are bits of interplay (esp on 154) that almost recall classical minimalism, just abstract loops churning on top of each other... easily one of the most enjoyable and influential post punk bands of the era...
 
F

foret

Guest
pink flag is a lot cleverer structurally, the lyrics not really, though they convey the signifiers of intelligence (like the inverse of sex pistols)

the 00s stuff is the best i can think of for anyone after such a long intermission
 
F

foret

Guest
gek-opel said:
Pink Flag is the album that's lauded most by rockists, I believe it is a standard text for US Hardcore... however the real treasure is Chairs Missing (minimal art punk meets a post punk take on Syd Barrett's English psychedelia) and 154 (sinister multitextured art rock). I always really loved the lyrics, as coded as Scott Walker or Green Gartside at their most gnomic, and as obscurely evocative as modern-art/punk haikus... the combination of perfect pop with artfully weird lyrics (ie the 15th, Map Ref, Outdoor Miner) and more sinister, rhythmical stuff is very compelling to me anyway. In fact they explored rhythmical interplay in a curiously white way, (no funk here) is probably their greatest innovation... on the 2nd and third albums there are bits of interplay (esp on 154) that almost recall classical minimalism, just abstract loops churning on top of each other... easily one of the most enjoyable and influential post punk bands of the era...

good summary, 'a mutual friend' has an uncannily displaced passive/aggressive aura that is very like syd, in a different context

don't really follow the minimalist thing, it's all coming through neu!, and except for a few tracks on 154 they're still very intricate

there was a thread on ILM a while ago and 'a touching display' was very divisive (i always thought it was fantastically single-minded, some people seem to think it's their nadir)
 
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hamarplazt

100% No Soul Guaranteed
mms said:
i've just heard pink flag and it's mostly really awful shouty punk - this lot are mean't to be good aren't they ?
I was dissapointed by Pink Flag in more or less the same way. It does improve with repeated listenings, but it's nowhere nearly as good as Chairs Missing and 154, which are among the very best post punk albums. Colin Newmans solo A-Z is just as good BTW, don't miss that one either.

Their late eighties comeback albums, Ideal Copy and A Bell is a Cup, are completely different, much more soft sounding. There's a wonderfull, unreal slow motion feel to them, and I quite like them, unlike most Wire fans. Some people say they sound like U2, but I can't really hear that, except maybe for some surface similarities in the production. After that they worked with sampling and got into a kind of minimal noise rock that I haven't heard much of. I saw them live two years where they played very very hard, monotous noise rock. Kind of impressive for guys their age, I guess, but rather dull nevertheless.

I do find it a bit annoying that Pink Flag is usually recommended as their best work, it's this typical thing that groups are almost always seen as being better in the beginning, when they were more primitive and raw and "real" - the lame punk orthodoxy that skill and complexity = progression = progressive rock = ROCK TREASON, WRONG WRONG WRONG FORBIDDEN.
 

bruno

est malade
hamarplazt said:
Colin Newmans solo A-Z is just as good BTW
agreed. i think they were better at not being wire, as in duet emmo, do me, etc. and wir had its moments - so and slow is beautiful.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
@foret: minimal cos whilst you have quite a "thick" mass of instrumentation, each individual component is incredibly simple, the interaction of said simple elements creates a delightful sense of pulsing interplay... exactly like Steve Reich...

Still don't get the hate for the lyrics... "signifiers of intelligence"?? Its not like they are dropping loads of references they don't understand (like say hmmm The Manic Street Preachers...) the lyrics are inconsequential, yes, but rather fun... perhaps you are referring to the deliberate verbosity that sounds like they've been sweatily thumbing a thesaurus the whole time? I guess that is a fair comment, but I have to say I enjoy hearing "cartologist's 2D images" as a lyric in a song... better than say "it was all yellow" tho just as meaningless..
 

mms

sometimes
hamarplazt said:
I do find it a bit annoying that Pink Flag is usually recommended as their best work, it's this typical thing that groups are almost always seen as being better in the beginning, when they were more primitive and raw and "real" - the lame punk orthodoxy that skill and complexity = progression = progressive rock = ROCK TREASON, WRONG WRONG WRONG FORBIDDEN.


well yes i did have my suspicions this was the case actually, as alot of people who's tastes i respect are into them. and the 'dude' that put them on is the most rockist man alive bless him. i really thought they were some awful new indie band aping the sound of 77' as this is the stuff he usually plays. they're something i've never involved myself in, but on the grounds of this thread i will explore a bit more, this first taste came as something of a shock though.
the minimal thing sounds good, though, of the rock bands i've liked shellac, fugasi etc there is an element of that, there are lots of compelling and dramatic things you can do within this kinda set up.
 
F

foret

Guest
gek-opel said:
@foret: minimal cos whilst you have quite a "thick" mass of instrumentation, each individual component is incredibly simple, the interaction of said simple elements creates a delightful sense of pulsing interplay... exactly like Steve Reich...

Still don't get the hate for the lyrics... "signifiers of intelligence"?? Its not like they are dropping loads of references they don't understand (like say hmmm The Manic Street Preachers...) the lyrics are inconsequential, yes, but rather fun... perhaps you are referring to the deliberate verbosity that sounds like they've been sweatily thumbing a thesaurus the whole time? I guess that is a fair comment, but I have to say I enjoy hearing "cartologist's 2D images" as a lyric in a song... better than say "it was all yellow" tho just as meaningless..

no hating the lyrics, i have a slight antipathy to wry/inconsenquential/dismissive cos those attributes are so valued in the worst of current indie aesthetics, it's just that people are missing the point if they think wire's achievement was to write lyrics wry and 'literate' enough to displace the thuggish simplicity of the music (nauseous pitchforkist triangulation) when (as far as i can see) it's the terseness and intricacy of the tunes that distinguishes pink flag from other 77 punk
 

soundslike1981

Well-known member
I've never really understood the love for 'Pink Flag'. It's cute in its way, better than 100,000 shitty punk records--but still nothing to get excited about one way or the other.

'Chairs Missing' and 'A-Z' are tops for me, I can see anyone with open ears other than the most die-hard popist/dance-ist liking at least parts. '154' hits or misses me, but on the whole it's still pretty good. A few parts get a bit post-Barrett Pink Floydish for my taste, but I can still understand the appeal.

Dance/art/avant-garde-ists might dig some of the Gilbert/Lewis records, especially Dome's '3' from 1981. Certainly ain't "punk," that stuff. Stuttering rhythmic synth-concrete, great little post-dub production touches, "lyrics" literally reduced to rhythmic motifs, eschewing any tired rock/pop/folk pretense of "meaning" or even clever poetics. Occasionally surprisingly dance-ish, I've actually seen a couple tracks work in clubs in that context.
 
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