Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a seminal band for a reason, and it all started with this album, April 15, 2006
Really, what more can I say about Wire's Pink Flag that hasn't already been said? The album is so good, so burned in the retina of my brain (even though I still cannot for the life of us unscramble Graham Lewis' lyrics), so nearly perfect that it's sort of hard to write about. In a perfect world, whatever nonsense I may have to say about the record would be moot, as you should already own this record (along with Chairs Missing and 154, Wire's second and third albums respectively). But for those of you who may be enraptured by the recent flurry of post-punk revivalists who continue to make quite a stir, let the reissue campaign of the first three records introduce you to the band that Interpol, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, and Bloc Party only wish they could be.
Recorded in 1977, Pink Flag is an immaculately concise punk record, even as Wire recognized that punk was becoming a self-parody and willed themselves to develop through experimentation with structure, technology, and process. Pink Flag's 21 songs cover a mere 35 minutes, many of them clocking in around 90 seconds or "when they ran out of words" as bassist / vocalist Graham Lewis once quipped. Energetic and volatile, each of the songs on Pink Flag thrash through the repetoire of reductivist power-pop riffs as immediately catchy and aggressive as anything by the Damned, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols. But even on their first album, Wire demonstrated an uncanny ability with chord changes and melodic shifts that by '70s standards were much artier than their punk bretheren. Of course, in the aftermath of math-rock's acrobatic twists and turns, Wire's Pink Flag hardly sounds unpredictable... but if it weren't for Wire would we really have Laddio Bollocko, for example? Probably not.
The album's opening track "Reuters" is an anxious introduction to Wire's provocation with lead vocalist Colin Newman over-annunciating a polemic against government's abuse of propaganda (sound familiar?) on top of an increasingly agitated metronomic blast of bass, twin guitar, and drums. Elsewhere near perfect pop songs develop out of the angular punk slashing, as heard on "Ex Liontamers" and "Mannequin." Wire ends the album with the monotone anthem "12 X U" which many have declared their "Anarchy In The UK." With a motorik rhythm punctured by concise punk riff, the track simultaneously decries homophobia and censorship with the song's entire lyrics "I saw you in the mag kissing the man / 1 2 X U!"
So yeah, Wire are a seminal band for a reason, and it all started with this album. If you don't have it, please do yourself a favor and buy this album. You won't regret it!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Favorite LP of the 1970s Punk Era, May 6, 2007
Everyone's heard of the Iggy Pop, The Clash, Ramones, Damned and Sex Pistols, but many of you have probably not heard of Wire. I was very into the punk scene in the 1970s and I loved it all back then. But of all the punk albums that came out between 1976 and 1980, Wire's "Pink Flag" (1977) holds up best for me 30 years on. This album is very raw with a minimum of production, but with some key elements of production here and there. It's been referred to elsewhere as minimalist and taking a deconstructive approach to rock music. Both are true, and Wire does it with intelligence on "Pink Flag". I think they set a standard for what can be done with a few chords that no one else has achieved. The lyrics on "Pink Flag" are mostly imaginative and timeless, certainly better than most of what was written back then. If I had to recommend a few albums that best represent the era, I would include this one. This re-mastered version of "Pink Flag" sounds every bit as good on CD as my original-pressing vinyl LP, maybe even better. I highly recommend it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Watermark of the 70's, January 5, 2009
Oh yeah. There's no hyerbole for the punk rock album that "plays like the Ramones Go To Art School", a punk rock suite of 21 tracks of exercises in arty punk rock. Be forewarned that the minimalistic approach doesn't make it boring or dull. Yeah, it's stripped of all excess to the fundamental features of music, but it doesn't even stick to one formula. Pink Flag, in it's short time span, won't dull, as it boasts at least 21 bursts of arty brevity.
Pink Flag is one of those albums that are so consistently good, it goes with a feeling of "wait, both tracks are on the SAME album?" What I mean, usually, whenever I'm listening, I get so focused on the fearlessly impressive 30 second Field Day for The Sunday's and the dance punk masterpiece that is Three Girl Rhumba, that the ultra catchy and clever Mr. Suit and the surf blasted surf riff of Mannequin are part of the album too. It's an album that when you look at the track listing, you get a feeling of complete overload of music goodness. While the musical goodness of this isn't AS good as a perfect ten album with the same feeling, it's one of the biggest compliments this album has.
Of course, one of this album's strongest points is the music itself. With crisp, rhymatic pulses, wry, cynical delivery, textured guitars accordingly to fit, and fluid, melodic bass, it already establishes itself as an extremely tuneful album. And that art feel? Oh, it's there. Reuters, for starters, trudges like the war, and the vocals ring over the audio landscape like an announcer of death. There is even some sweet pop. Mannequan melds fake, overly plastic woman in the lyrics with strangely pretty surf rock that would bring that really annoying fantasy California so famous in the 60's. Great harmonization! Fragile is a heartbreaking love song at first sight (call me pretentious, but I think they are using love to allude to something). They can snap up the perfect punk rock song in Mr. Suit and 12XU, and can even groove out to the best of them. Try not dancing along to Champs, Options R and Brazil. Heck, they even have commercial theme music, perfectly placed after the grim title track.
Sure, the album is more than meets the ear; when I first introduced myself to Wire, I found this music to be vapidly boring, one dimensional, and definitely not creative; but listening reveals tons of little details, done with the idea of making art in mind. Not a bad listen to start out 2009 eh? If anything, it sounds good in this day and age. Both punk and indie fans will find this a record they must add to their collections. It's one thing both can agree on.
9/10
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