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Track Listings

1	Reuters
2	Field Day For The Sundays
3	Three Girl Rhumba
4	Ex Lion Tamer
5	Lowdown
6	Start To Move
7	Brazil
8	It's So Obvious
9	Surgeon's Girl
10	Pink Flag
11	The Commercial
12	Straight Line
13	106 Beats That
14	Mr. Suit
15	Strange
16	Fragile
17	Mannequin
18	Different To Me
19	Champs
20	Feeling Called Love
21	1 2 X U
22	Options R

Editorial Reviews

Product description

Wire ~ Pink Flag

Amazon.com

Wire's debut is the smartest record of the '77 punk explosion, a formally seamless suite of 21 songs in 35 minutes, edited to the bone and graced with allusive, thoughtful lyrics, howled by Colin Newman like political slogans. The band's crisp, precise snap gets an awful lot of mileage out of their three-and-a-half chords, and their attack never lets up. The album's minimal structures and snarly guitar sound are still hugely influential ("12XU" has been covered many times, and Elastica's "Connection" is basically a rewrite of "Three Girl Rhumba"), and its sequence is so perfect that the band that opened for Wire on their reunion tour ten years later simply played Pink Flag straight through, including between-song pauses. --Douglas Wolk

Product details

Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches; 4 Ounces
Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Restless Records
Date First Available ‏ : ‎ December 14, 2006
Label ‏ : ‎ Restless Records
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000003BGK
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1

Best Sellers Rank: #397,826 in CDs & Vinyl (See Top 100 in CDs & Vinyl)
- #347 in British Punk
- #3,907 in British Music
- #4,175 in New Wave

Customer Reviews:
311 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		85%
4 star		11%
3 star		3%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from the United States

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nuzombie4

Great album...great band!

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

Essential album....all three expanded wire albums are must owns!!!!I love the hard cover book packaging!great!

6 people found this helpful

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Roy Apple

My Favorite LP of the 1970s Punk Era

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2007

Verified Purchase

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.

15 people found this helpful

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Scott

Amazing

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2014

Verified Purchase

I'm another one of those dorks that never heard about this before. My goodness, this is fantastic. From this one album, I can hear dozens of bands influenced. This album was twenty years ahead of its time. I've actually moved down bands I used to love as they sound like late knockoffs of Wire. How this isn't one of the most talked about albums in its genre is beyond me.

13 people found this helpful

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Lee Wrecker

Pink Flag - Green Light

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2012

Verified Purchase

The vinyl 4 Men With Beards version of this album is superb. The sound is better than the original Harvest release while the mastering is faithful to the original version. The record itself is very clean sounding with no pops and almost silent between songs (the Beards are good at this). The artwork is beautifully recreated and even improved on in the case of the label. The other two 4 Men With Beards re-releases of the Wire albums Chairs Missing, and 154 are just as good in their magnificent sound and high quaility artwork. Bravo Beards!

4 people found this helpful

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endsng

best late '70s punk album

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2007

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this is one of the absolute best of the '70s punk albums, along with the clash debut, sex pistols (which now sounds a bit dated), and the ramones. the sound quality of this disc is a major improvement over the late '80s cd reissue. the only problem is the lack of a lyric sheet, which really puts the album into perspective, and makes it more impressive. i removed the lyrics from my older, flat sounding version, and added it to the new one. THE SOUND AND THE SONGS ARE GREAT, GREAT. I didn't care for some of Wire's later synthesizer styled music, but this 'punky' debut is a classic.

6 people found this helpful

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Minus Nine

Buy this album

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

I was trying to come up with the top five albums that everyone should own. It involved a lot of thinking back over the years and crossing over a lot of genres.

Then I thought, what is the number one album that everyone should own?

The answer is Wire's "Pink Flag". You need this. You should listen to it regularly.

4 people found this helpful

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Timothy J. Cooper

Great reissue of a classic

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2018

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Fantastic—a must for fans and collectors. The definitive version

2 people found this helpful

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Frederick Goldston

Intelligent and thoughtful rock music

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2014

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Holds up very well with time. The music is just as compelling and genuine as when

I first heard the tracks 30 years ago. Mannequin and Ex lion tamer, were my favorites. You could not have a complete punk/alternative collection with out referencing this treasure.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Robert Pennie

Punk?Post-Punk?Who Cares....It’s Wire.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Everybody already owns Pink Flag,don’t they?We all know how excellent it is.Short sharp blasts of distortion.The question here is whether we need to buy this again,and more importantly do we need to spend £25 on something we own.The answer,quite simply is....YES!!...It’s Wire ffs..included in this stunning package is the album plus various demos,single versions,alternative mixes etc.All sound incredible.And the 7x7” hardcover booklet looks stunning,with lyrics included,an introduction from Sounds resident punk journalist Jon Savage and bio of the album as well as some great photos from the time.The only quibble i would have would be the way the discs themselves are housed,meaning you can’t help but touch the playing surface.Superb package.One of my favourite albums from the era just got the release it deserves.

7 people found this helpful

carljpgr

Faultless vinyl

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a short review really for all 3 of the re-issues on vinyl. They sound absolutely stunning, no surface noise whatsoever on any of my copies, and perfectly flat. If you can still get hold of them I wouldn’t hesitate.

Mike G

The definitve punk template

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 24, 2001

Verified Purchase

This is the other definitive '77 punk album, with the Pistols "Nevermind..." being the first. Pink Flag contains the song structures, chord shapes and back beats from which all other punk records descend - consider it a punk template! The power transfers well to CD, unlike some other material from the same era. In my view, the only "weakness" here is the inclusion of the two "bonus tracks" ("Dot Dash" & "Options R" from "the rare stuff"), though these are not exactly rubbish, the space may have been better occupied by the live versions of "12XU" and "Lowdown" from the Vortex sessions. Your partner & neighbours will cringe - buy it!

12 people found this helpful

Rob Smith

Wire

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2019

Verified Purchase

Excellent expanded edition of a fantastic debut album by one of the best best punk bands ever

senuc

everything is great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2019

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