The mere fact that, 30 years on, "Q: Are We Not Men" and "Freedom of Choice" still sound fresher and more ground breaking than anything the new millennium has yet to offer should tell you already just how essential these CDs are. Be that as it may, the Men From Akron had a vision about the future of rock and a very twisted view about entertaining people. They came up with their delightfully automatonic stage show, complete with modified instruments and heavy on the keyboards, the goofy yellow uniforms and most importantly, the highly ironic worldview that, no matter how hard you tried, the world was going to hell in reverse gear.
The DEVO world jerked like a factory line machine that twitched like carbonated hormones inbred with misfired Chuck Berry licks. How else could their version of "Satisfaction" have ever been born if not for white guy frustration in an increasingly machinated world? To wit: "Mongoloid" is a man who is no different than the men who "wore a hat, had a job, and he brought home the bacon." The heroine of "Come Back Jonee" grieves for the boyfriend who wanted to become a rock legend but "ran head on into a semi, the guitar's all that's left now."
No matter how you view this, it is still a perfect merger of discontent, vision, and Brian Eno's skillful coloring of Devo's earlier hardcore leanings. The dramatic amount of subtleties in the production are heightend by the remaster, which is just fantastic. The visual sense that DEVO embodied helped turn the spudboys into stars, but with "Q: Are We Not Men?" however, DEVO crafted a musical statement for the ages. This reissue also contains the album as a full length bonus London concert from May 2009.
I was so into DEVO that, at my college graduation, I had an energy dome to put on my head after I received my diploma. I was completely taken in by how skillfully the band deconstructed the typical rock and roll preconceptions and virtually invented a style. This is, along with "Q: Are We Not Men," the Devo album that integrates the band's theories on De-evolution most completely to the music. With the addition of the "Dev-O Live" EP, It's perfection plus. (PS. The full-length Dev-O Live concert from which the Ep was taken can be found here.)"Freedom Of Choice" was where DEVO's world-view was overtaken by a case of pop-smarts. By 1980, all sorts of new-wave trademark-sounding cheap synths had become both widely available and more reliable, so the sound of the keyboards and guitars could mesh into a recordable (and more controlled) whole. DEVO's synths on "F.O.C." had moved almost entirely to the fore, and there was an obvious attempt at more disciplined song writing.
That discipline showed most obviously on "Girl You Want" and "Gates Of Steel." The very un-devoish longing in "Girl You Want" was universal enough to have found its way into the set lists of artists ranging from Soundgarden to Robert Palmer. The title track mocks how submissive we are when it comes to culture/consumer manipulation, while "Whip It" strings together a catalog of catch phrases and self-help mantras into a cracking (pun intended) three minute anthem. On the side of human conditions, "Mr. B's Ballroom" cocks its DEVO-eyes at the kind of hole-in-the-wall establishment where best friends drink and start fights before crashing through the plate glass door. (Likely while "Whip It" is playing on the jukebox.)
Just as important, this album (and its videos) is probably how most people measure their knowledge of DEVO by. "Whip It" became the kind of song that college new-wave parties did the pogo to, and corporate rallies would chant along with as a morale enhancer. By making synthesizer rock safe for frat boys, "Freedom Of Choice" is easily the second of DEVO's crowning albums. And as on the new version of "Q: Are We Not Men?" the remastering makes this album absolutlely sparkle.
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