Customer Reviews

Pioneers Who Got Scalped

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have mixed feelings about this double CD"Anthology" from Devo. On the one hand, its a very goodcollection of Devo's essential recordings. They even included difficult to find gems like 'It Takes a Worried Man' and 'Doctor Detroit' -- two of Devo's best you won't find on any of their previous albums. This disc also contains some early pre-Warners versions of 'Jocko Homo' (terrific), 'Mongoloid' and 'Be Stiff'. You'll also hear under-rated gems like 'The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize' (which should've been a hit). However -- you can already get most of Devo's best work (for less money) on their 'Greatest Hits' and 'Greatest Misses' CDs. A lot of Devo's post-Warners work is contained here. Devo changed its sound significantly following their last Warners LP (1984's 'Shout'). Songs like 'Baby Doll' have a definite dance music feel -- with heavy synthesizers and drum machine. In fact, much of Devo's soundtrack work -- which dominates Disc Two is sadly uninspired. (Although their version of NIN's 'Head Like A Hole' is worth a listen). I was also disappointed that too many dance-mix versions of popular songs were included here. The version of 'Doctor Detroit' is the longer, over-produced "dance mix" version. You will also hear re-mixes of 'Snowball', 'Here To Go' (The latter of which has already been re-released on 'Greatest Hits' and the Infinite Zero version of 'New Traditionalists'), 'Baby Doll' and 'Disco Dancer'. Also be forewarned that the new song (recorded in 2000) -- 'The Words Get Stuck in My Throat' is actually a joke. It is Booji Boy (aka Mark Mothersbaugh) singing off-key and in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. As silly as it is, it is actually more like "traditional Devo" than most of the rest of Disc Two. It is even poignant in its own a twisted (devolved) way. There is a 52-page booklet which is a great source for Devo photos and illustrations.(Unfortunately the text in the booklet gives little insight to the band itself (Exactly WHY did drummer Alan Myers leave the group in 1988?) -- and the author seems to have never met a Devo song he didn't LOVE. By the way -- the CD cover --one of Devo's best ever -- is in 3-D. It depicts record company executives tossing hatchets at Devo-inspired action figures. Very clever. Devo was great. You will definitely realize that by listening to this collection (Disc Two not withstanding). Howver, if you're looking to just enjoy some classic Devo songs you haven't heard in years (like 'Whip It' and 'Satisfaction')-- get 'Greatest Hits' instead.

FIRST,the BAD NEWS: Since The Beatles "Anthology" was released,every music company feels the title "Anthology" can be used to unleash yet another collection of "Greatest Hits". Did they all miss the boat? The idea was to release,"Alternate" and "Unreleased" material. That's why it sold.(And is it just a co-incidence that the very company who took the big reamer to DEVO,are the people embracing DEVO,now? Is Rod Rooter,now in control at Warner Brothers?) If you are a DEVOnian who bought all the classic Devo stuff as it was released,or have purchased the Infinite Zero versions on C.D....you have about 80% of the material on this album. However...if you like the classic stuff,and don't mind it between the rarities....

The GOOD NEWS is....there really is some obscure stuff,and hard to find tracks! Among the previously unreleased tracks,are segments of General Boy & Booji Boy....from "The Men Who make The Music",as well as the inspirational "Duty Now For The Future" and "General Boy Visits Apocalypse Now",in which the good General waxes on things Devo. A great inclusion is the cool song "Worried Man",which if you never saw the little-seen film "Human Highway" you missed.(This version does not have Booji Boy's monologue).Most of the "unrerelased stuff" is from the "Oh No It's Devo" era to the present.

And speaking of presents! A BRAND NEW TRACK! (recorded Jan.2000), Booji Boy sings,his classic tune: "The Words Get Stuck In My Throat"...making this a must have set! The booklet,has a nice selection of photos as well.

A lot of rare stuff is absent...tracks like "Bush Whacked","Hey Hey My My"(with Neil Young),"Somewhere With Devo (Studio Version)","Witch Doctor",not to mention,numerous B-sides and Demos. But thems the breaks...you'll pay for 2 CDs,to get 1 cd worth of new stuff. Perhaps its the fans getting "scalped"? Here's hoping for "Anthology 2: More Wampum For The Buck". DUTY NOW SPUDS!

Disc one really shows Devo at their peak while disc 2 shows why I stopped buying their albums from "Shout" on. I had hoped that there might be some hidden jems that I missed the first time around, but disc 2 is full of unimspired dance tunes and cover songs. I wonder what they were thinking when they re-made "Bread and Butter"?

New fans will appreciate some of the pre-label versions of their songs(Jocko Homo, Mongoloid) though hardcore fans have certainly heard these before on vinyl(or on the Hardcore cd). It's nice to have "Worried Man" on cd. Where's "Pink Pussycat", by the way.

New spudboys might be better served by buying the first 3 albums and skipping the later stuff. I see Amazon has an import of "Duty Now for the Future/New Traditionalists". Not a bad deal

Now, how about a DVD of all the Devo videos!

Pioneers Who Got Scalped has always given me mixed emotions. It is a solid two CD set packed with extras. It is too bad that it is the older stuff I am more impressed with than the newer material that has been put out since the spud boys have (mostly) hung up the energy domes. The music industry is ripe today for DEVO's humor and message and could use a little devolution to become more human again...or maybe less drum machiens would be a better start...

I digress. One of my favorite bits on the cd's is the cover of Nine Inch Nail's Head Like A Hole. Devo is a bit of a whild card with covers. Don't Be Cruel was more peanut and nanner sandwiches than spud, while Are You Experienced was as far removed (and in tune) from Hendrix as the song could get. Head Liek A Whole is very faithfully covered by DEVO and somehow manages to be as enjoyable a Reznor's original. It is a vingnette of the talent of the spud boys and this set.

The cover of the cd is also nifty with the 1970's moving picture thing as you change the angle.

I love the first CD in this set, and there are maybe 5 songs on the second CD that are pretty good. The rest reminds me why I don't like the later albums.

A few weeks after purchasing this, I got two CDs in the mail from Rhino Handmade - The reissue of "Dev-O Live", and "Recombo DNA". Recombo DNA is a 42 track double CD, but instead of lots of hits it is full of demo versions, obscure live songs and unreleased tracks. Some gems include an old live version of "Words Get Stuck in my Throat", which was re-recorded for the "Pioneers" anthology, and the studio version of "Somewhere with Devo", which showed up in live form on "Now It Can Be Told".

They could have made an amazing 3 CD set by combining the first CD of Pioneers with Recombo DNA.

I have to resist the temptation to five star this spud-puppy, because the great stuff is truly, truly great. It's easy to listen to these two CD's and see where the sound of things falling apart, as they likened the "Are We Not Men" WB debut to, began falling apart. Disc one covers the territory up to "New Traditionalists," and is just too juicy to describe. But I'll try. Let's face it, NOBODY sounded like the band that made the original "Jocko Homo." By the time Brian Eno polished the sound with his visionary production style, the Spudboys were tinkering with the elemental theories of rock. By breaking "Satisfaction" into a robotic yelp with a rhythm akin to a factory worker's machine line, they tweaked convention so hard that there was no way to ignore their arrival. "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" not only rocked punkishly hard, it also described the band's vision of their placement as "suburban robots to monitor reality."

With that kind of formula in place, genius could not be long in coming. With "Freedom of Choice" and "New Traditionalists," they delivered in spades. (Or is that spuds?) "Freedom Of Choice" bent and twisted the crazy consumerist mentality that makes us believe we have so much to decide on, when we really are just being manipulated. Witness the title song's lyrical bite as well as the hit, "Whip It," which strung self help mantras with a razor sharp wit and dance floor snap. After that, success seemed to elevate the cynicism, with "Beautiful World" bemoaning that, although things might be good for some, the closing line of "It's a beautiful world for you, but not for me" spoke to every isolated misfit the macho world of hair band metal and success at all cost Reagen Republicanism had ever stomped on. At the opposite end of the spectrum was the anthemish "Through Being Cool," urging the alienated to "Step out and dare to declare" their uniqueness. Classic stuff, this.

After the NT album though, things went askew in Devo land. "Oh No, It's DEVO" gave us a few great songs ("That's Good" is here, "Patterns" isn't), but was mired in gimmick heavy production. Altered pitch voices were the norm on most of "Oh No," detracting from the band's strengths. By the time the much better "Shout" came along, the public had moved on and their record company had very publicly made it known that they weren't interested. The two great cuts from that unfortunately out of print disc, the title song and an outrageously devolved Hendrix cover of "Are You Experienced" (which had a fantastic vid) are here. It took a few years of wound healing and a slowly building acknowledgement of DEVO's influence to get them another album, "Total Devo." It was probably the least inspired of the studio albums, and the singles here are all that counted. The Rip Van Winkle tale of "Disco Dancer" could just have easily been about the band! Too bad that the follow up. "Smooth Noodle Maps" was ignored. As an album, it rates with any other from the Warner Years. "Post Post Modern Man" could have been from "New Traditionalists." But a nostalgia trip only has so much gas, and even though the tour was successful, the album went into obscurity fast.

As for the rest of "Scalped's" second disc, I'd have been much happier with the single versions of "Dr Detroit" and "Here To Go" than the overlong dance versions. With the exception of "Head Like A Hole," the additional cover versions are unexceptional, and the irritating "new" version of "Words Get Stuck In My Throat" makes you glad for skip buttons on remotes. This is the place where that elusive fifth star slipped away. Maybe some day Rhino will be generous enough to grab all the DEVO discs and give them the royal remaster treatment.

Special mention must be made about the 3-d cover! THIS is the kind of inspired silliness that made me love DEVO in the first place.

This anthology has a lot of awesome songs, but some of the songs were bizarre choices to put on this compilation. Even if you own all of their albums, this has songs that you don't own. It has a lot of songs off of soundtracks, and a couple of singles and demos not available elsewhere anymore. The first disc is pretty much their greatest hits, and it's an almost perfect disc. The second has some mediocre songs, but overall, it's just as good. I especially like their covers, because they can remake a song without making it sound the same. For someone who doesn't have their albums, it's a great buy! For someone who owns most of this, try to get it used or for cheaper.

Starting as a cult favorite in the mid-70s, word of Devo's powerful live shows spread throughout rock music fandom. Never as enjoyable on studio recordings as they were live, this collection spanning their 25 plus year career nonetheless showcases the quirky inventiveness and originality they brought into play. Contained in the first 25 songs/narrative cuts are some ("Uncontrollable Urge", "Be Stiff", "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA") that can truly be considered gems reflecting a unique view of our world and the devolving "spuds" of the great unwashed. Their creativity as a unit gradually dimished as the mid-80s wore on, but one can still see their relatively lasting imprint on entertainment, advertising and, yes folks, even politics: witness Al Gore, the original role model for "Mongoloid".

Disk 1 is flat-out solid. The hits just keep on coming. I was 13 when these guys were in their prime (Freedom of Choice). Listening to Disk 1 is like going home ("Mongoloid" echoes in my dreams sometimes). Wacky flowerpot-hat-wearing spudboys! Gotta love 'em. Twist away the gates of steel.

This could have been soooo much better, which is why I can only give it a measly 3 stars. Granted, most of the material is top notch, but with these "Anthologies" being primarily aimed at fans, I have to ask: Where's the beef? Having been an avid but not fanatical Devo listener before purchasing this 2 CD set, I was already familiar with the bulk of this anthology through owning the Warner Bros. Greatest Hits & Misses CD's and the band's first four studio albums.
Disc One of this anthology does and adequate but unspectacular job of documenting Devo's Warner Bros. career. Unfortunately, this was already done pretty well by the Greatest Hits and Misses CD's, and Disc One has very little to add to these previously released compilations...Sure, you get the Booji Boy label recordings of "Mongoloid" and "Jocko Homo", but these are the lone representatives from Devo's extensive pre-Warner career. And, somewhat annoyingly, the Disc One tracks differ very little from the Greatest Hits and Misses selections. Devo had some killer album only cuts like "Going Under" and "Strange Purtsuit" and it would have been nice to see some of these see the light of day rather than the standard hits and semi-hits. Aside from these criticisms, Disc One is still a great listen for either the rabid or casual fan-- this was Devo in their prime, and few have come close to matching their blend of intelligence, wit, and innovation in pop music.
Disc Two is comprised mostly of the band's later work and lacks the consistent quality of Disc One. It starts out strongly enough with tracks from Devo's 5th album, but after that the tracks progressively (and, perhaps, appropriately) de-evolve into 80's synth pop crapola. There are, however, a few gems from this era-- "Theme From Dr. Detroit", "Some Things Never Change", and "Post Post-Modern Man" are among the few standout tracks on Disc Two. The previously unreleased track, "The Words Get Stuck In My Throat", is a pleasant surprise, particularly to hardcore fans who have been hearing the track on bootlegs for years. Overall, Disc Two isn't a total throwaway, but most of your time spent with this Anthology will involve the classics on Disc One.
If you're a casual fan and money is not an issue, then go ahead and buy this anthology-- It's got all the hits and most of their best cuts. The booklet is classy and informative, but a bit sycophantic at times. If $30 is too much for you to spend, then your best bet would be to track down the Greatest Hits and Greatest Misses CD's-- both can be found very cheap at chain stores. Or pick up any one of their first four studio albums-- either way you'll be treated to some great music.