WIRE YOU WRITING ABOUT WIRE?
By Jim Slimedog
I’m writing about the band, Wire, and more specifically, their first album “Pink Flag,” because I think they’re a band that gets forgotten and besides being a great band they were groundbreaking as well.
Wire (were and still are) an English punk band with serious art rock influences forming in 1976, obviously encouraged by the whole Ramones/Sex Pistols scene at the time. I guess you could call them “Art Punk” which sounds like a really bad idea but with them it really worked out fine. And actually, on Pink Flag things are more straight ahead with only the lyrics, (often obscure and seemingly taken from science textbooks at times), being the most arty part. In the late seventies there was hardly a local punk/new wave band in Boston that didn’t have a least one art student in its personnel and legendary local band, Mission of Burma, were noticeably influenced by Wire. The albums of Wire, after Pink Flag, got more experimental adding keyboards, etcetera and while I think most are very good none match the power of their fist album.
So what is so unique and groundbreaking about Pink Flag? Well, at the time we, of course, were still just listening to albums and because of technical reasons sides were limited to 20, 22 minutes or so. At the time albums mostly had 8 to 12 songs on them. The Ramones with it’s first one, about a year before, had 14 which was the most I had seen at the time. Pink Flag has 21 songs which clock in at less than 40 minutes! The album was released long before hardcore and their particular style of short songs. They did this by having four songs under a minute and nine under two minutes. They also did this by sometimes omitting intros, having a verse and chorus that only repeat once and sometimes not repeating! And instead of coming off as some kind of novelty it really works. An example is the 46 second instrumental “The Commercial” which is not some ambient noodling you’d expect but two distinct musical parts both repeated once.
There are several styles here, also, though it does come together as a complete whole. You have the aggressive punk of Mr. Suit, 12XU; the upbeat pop/punk of Ex-Lion Tamer and Straight Line; quick short punk of Start To Move, Brazil; moody slower grooves of Lowdown and Strange and even straight pop/rock with Fragile and Mannequin.
Strangely enough, I think the song, “Pink Flag” is my least favorite on the album and there might be one or two others I don’t care for but not bad when you have 21 songs to choose from.
So, the question is not why I’m writing about Wire but why are you not listening to them. Check them out or I’ll have Jimmy thrash ya or Andy bang your dog.
