Wire - Pink Flag

Wire Pink Flag
Harvest/Polydor 1977

To all of you pop-punk kiddies, here is an album that predates your likely existence on this mortal plane, and is far more interesting than your currently en vogue manufactured rebellion icons can muster in all their MySpaced glory.

The band is Wire, the album is their debut, Pink Flag, released in 1977.

This was a band that starting from here made several albums into the the of the decade that are truly spirited and not lacking in ambition. This album is a pithy, minimalist excursion of political rants, razorwire riffage, and had glimpses of hooky melodic fragments thrown randomly into its short bursts of audio chaotic stew.

Surgeons's Girl sounds like a bunch of drunken punks singing sports cheers and the title track has a sloppy, driving guitar figure that carries the drone of the the vocals. Truth be told, the guitar sound on this album is one of the most terse of the period, with a dynamic that is both dirtier but having far better clarity in tone than a lot of their contemporaries. It is a sound you can hear mined by bands like Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and Weezer, particularly when you hear the cut Strange. The organ in 106 Beats That makes for a weird Ray Manzerek meets Johnny Rotten sound mush.

There are several ditties clocking in at under a minute that are just fine on the ears, including the personally incomprehensible favorite Field Day for the Sundays, and the fuzzy sludge of Brazil. Actually, almots all the traks (20+) come in at under 3 minutes, and many under 2. Get in, slur what you gotta say at high volume, and get out.