BCB 100 - Wire
- geoffcowgill
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BCB 100 - Wire
Just got my first Wire album (Chairs Missing) over the summer, and I will certainly get the other two essentials at some point. I shouldn't put my choices in at this point, but I must point out for the deaf among you, that "From The Nursery" is one of the flat-out coolest damn things ever committed to tape.
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I don't hate the later stuff, but the first three records are overwhelmingly better and more original.
Album - Pink Flag, with Chairs Missing pretty close behind
Song - A Touching Display. Their most impressive sonic assault, no less so for being easily the longest song on those first three.
Album - Pink Flag, with Chairs Missing pretty close behind
Song - A Touching Display. Their most impressive sonic assault, no less so for being easily the longest song on those first three.
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I wrote parts of this on another thread, but hopefully it's coherent enough to continue here:
The thing I like about Pink Flag is how there's absolutely no extraneous material on it. It's an incredible achievement as a debut, to subtract and subtract until you're left with just the sheer sound- brittle, staccato and-yes!-angular that pretty much (for better or worse) invented a whole new language for guitar rock. And Newman sings like they play, lots of jagged harshness, but with a melodic sensibility nonetheless intact. It's pretty exhausting, and it's all over in only 35 minutes, too!
These days, it's everywhere as a signifier. Actually, I'm amazed at some of the wierd moments that pop up on that album- how the hell did they get the sound for "Feeling Called Love," or that strum that's held on for a note too long on "Champs," or even the way they turn their lyrics, essentially a series of cutup slogans and observations, into full stories: making an ominous catchcry out of "Looting, Burning, Rape!" is quite an achievement
Yes, and it's got their best tunes, and the most wit out of all their LPs. Completely realised and formed in that regard.
Chairs Missing I like a lot, too. "Outdoor Miner," of course, but even the droning, unrelenting "Heartbeat" or the buzzing, clawing, "I Am the Fly." It seems at once beautiful, beguiling and studied all at once. They were into deconstruction.
Actually, perhaps I'm barking out of the wrong tree, but does anyone else hear any similaraties between the guitarsounds employed on Pink Flag and Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets- both have a really claustrophobic, clanging feel to them- I wouldn't be surprised if Wire listened to that record. Chairs Missing is obviously more Barett-y in its approach, but there's still the dissection that's at the heart of the debut's best moments.
154 I like, but it does seem a bit lost at times, certainly the least immediate of the three. Certainly, it's the most beguiling out of all them, the sense that the direct, almost abrasive approach of the first LP had subsided into a more introspective and selfconscious style. You can hear them trying to move even further away from the template they established on Chairs Missing- the melodies are fragmented or at least allusive. How else can you describe an LP where the most obvious tune is shouldered with the title "Map Ref 41N 93W"? And yet for all its inconsistencies, it's at times, wonderfully enigmatic.
But I must admit Pink Flag is the one I return to the most, maybe it's the odd simplicity of the riffs, the completely compact nature of it. It's not surprising that it became the most copied of all the Wire LPs, as it's certainly the most distinctive, soundwise (to my ears anyway).
The thing I like about Pink Flag is how there's absolutely no extraneous material on it. It's an incredible achievement as a debut, to subtract and subtract until you're left with just the sheer sound- brittle, staccato and-yes!-angular that pretty much (for better or worse) invented a whole new language for guitar rock. And Newman sings like they play, lots of jagged harshness, but with a melodic sensibility nonetheless intact. It's pretty exhausting, and it's all over in only 35 minutes, too!
These days, it's everywhere as a signifier. Actually, I'm amazed at some of the wierd moments that pop up on that album- how the hell did they get the sound for "Feeling Called Love," or that strum that's held on for a note too long on "Champs," or even the way they turn their lyrics, essentially a series of cutup slogans and observations, into full stories: making an ominous catchcry out of "Looting, Burning, Rape!" is quite an achievement
Yes, and it's got their best tunes, and the most wit out of all their LPs. Completely realised and formed in that regard.
Chairs Missing I like a lot, too. "Outdoor Miner," of course, but even the droning, unrelenting "Heartbeat" or the buzzing, clawing, "I Am the Fly." It seems at once beautiful, beguiling and studied all at once. They were into deconstruction.
Actually, perhaps I'm barking out of the wrong tree, but does anyone else hear any similaraties between the guitarsounds employed on Pink Flag and Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets- both have a really claustrophobic, clanging feel to them- I wouldn't be surprised if Wire listened to that record. Chairs Missing is obviously more Barett-y in its approach, but there's still the dissection that's at the heart of the debut's best moments.
154 I like, but it does seem a bit lost at times, certainly the least immediate of the three. Certainly, it's the most beguiling out of all them, the sense that the direct, almost abrasive approach of the first LP had subsided into a more introspective and selfconscious style. You can hear them trying to move even further away from the template they established on Chairs Missing- the melodies are fragmented or at least allusive. How else can you describe an LP where the most obvious tune is shouldered with the title "Map Ref 41N 93W"? And yet for all its inconsistencies, it's at times, wonderfully enigmatic.
But I must admit Pink Flag is the one I return to the most, maybe it's the odd simplicity of the riffs, the completely compact nature of it. It's not surprising that it became the most copied of all the Wire LPs, as it's certainly the most distinctive, soundwise (to my ears anyway).
It's before my time but I've been told, he never came back from Karangahape Road.
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They're a band I admire more than love, and considering I like them a hell of a lot that doesn't mean they're not brilliant. They were one of the most intelligent and bands of their era but were never sterile, never lacked passion or excitement, and recognised that a cracking tune could be just as valid as ten minutes of arty noise - in fact, their '80s stuff was some of most accessible music to come from the 'industrial' scene and their more recent work, while less essential, shows they still have it: check out the riff to In the Art of Stopping. As punk as anything, that.
Album: Pink Flag
Song: Marooned
Album: Pink Flag
Song: Marooned
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I tried them out once and they didn't grab my attention, although sometimes that can take a while. Not sure about their inclusion into the BCB100 but I guess a lot of you are from that era so it is no small wonder.
Is it true the song 'I am the Fly' inspired Irvine Welsh to write that short story in the Acid House when God turns some poor waster into a fly?
Is it true the song 'I am the Fly' inspired Irvine Welsh to write that short story in the Acid House when God turns some poor waster into a fly?
...
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All I have is Pink Flag and I've listened to it so little that I can't remember any of the songs. Not that I don't like it, but I don't listen to that type of music enough to keep it in rotation. The last time I played it was maybe four years or so ago and I was shocked when Mrs. 6String said she liked it.
Album - Pink Flag
song ?
Album - Pink Flag
song ?
Everything is broken
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