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Devo's Freedom of Choice LP is 40 years old, apparently.
FoC was my first Devo album, but I’d seen Devo on SNL before this came out, so I was already kind of aware of who they were and that their live act wasn’t your average rock show. And yes, “Whip It” was the gateway drug that convinced me to buy the album.
Anyway, it’s hard to understate the influence Devo had on me as a teenager. In this article, Gerald Casale talks about how FoC was a deliberate move away from their punky basement origins to something a bit more conventional (by Devo standards, anyway), and it probably took that move for me to get what they were doing. Either way, Devo were probably the first contemporary band I got into that showed me how rock could be a vehicle for art, social satire and political commentary all at once – and STILL be fun.
As for the title track and Casale’s comment that the lyrics are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago, I think he’s even more right than he mentions here. Today we are so overwhelmed with choice that people want freedom from choice not just in terms of government, but in consumerism, media and just about every other aspect of life. Psychological journals are full of case studies about the “paradox of choice”, and sociology professors have written plenty about how the Internet was supposed to lead to freedom of information but instead has led to new age of media manipulation by meddling with trust – a new form of censorship where speech is not muzzled but simply drowned by other media competing for your attention, whether the intention is disinformation or simply getting you to click ads.
Or, if that’s too heavy, think of it this way: do we really need ten damn streaming video services?
We are indeed Devo.
So, yes, Devo weren’t just a bunch of art nerds with flowerpot hats – they were way ahead of the curve.
Don't be tricked by what you see,
This is dF
FoC was my first Devo album, but I’d seen Devo on SNL before this came out, so I was already kind of aware of who they were and that their live act wasn’t your average rock show. And yes, “Whip It” was the gateway drug that convinced me to buy the album.
Anyway, it’s hard to understate the influence Devo had on me as a teenager. In this article, Gerald Casale talks about how FoC was a deliberate move away from their punky basement origins to something a bit more conventional (by Devo standards, anyway), and it probably took that move for me to get what they were doing. Either way, Devo were probably the first contemporary band I got into that showed me how rock could be a vehicle for art, social satire and political commentary all at once – and STILL be fun.
As for the title track and Casale’s comment that the lyrics are just as relevant today as they were 40 years ago, I think he’s even more right than he mentions here. Today we are so overwhelmed with choice that people want freedom from choice not just in terms of government, but in consumerism, media and just about every other aspect of life. Psychological journals are full of case studies about the “paradox of choice”, and sociology professors have written plenty about how the Internet was supposed to lead to freedom of information but instead has led to new age of media manipulation by meddling with trust – a new form of censorship where speech is not muzzled but simply drowned by other media competing for your attention, whether the intention is disinformation or simply getting you to click ads.
Or, if that’s too heavy, think of it this way: do we really need ten damn streaming video services?
We are indeed Devo.
So, yes, Devo weren’t just a bunch of art nerds with flowerpot hats – they were way ahead of the curve.
Don't be tricked by what you see,
This is dF
