ilm DEVO BALLOT POLL aka unconPOLLable urge (voting closes 10 July)

http://static.spin.com/files/140724-devo-video-men-make-music.jpg

greetings, beautiful mutants!

TRACKS POLL: please vote for up to 20 tracks, ranked, they will scored in the usual way i.e. 1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12

pretty much anything Devo recorded is eligible, where there are different recordings or mixes of one song (eg different versions of Jocko Homo or various mixes of Post-Post Modern Man) I will combine all the votes. votes for songs were later reworked into different songs will be counted separately (eg. All Of Us and Going Under are counted as two different songs, same for Plan For U and Enough Said) I'm going to count Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy as one single track for the purposes of the poll, Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA will also be counted as a single track. idk if there are any other ambiguous ones?

most of the tracks on these two bootlegs have never been officially released afaict, but they are eligible if you want to vote for any of them:

https://www.discogs.com/Devo-Hardcore-Devo-Vol-3-74-78/release/3599656

https://www.discogs.com/Devo-Hardcore-Devo-Vol-4-74-77/release/3599671

Mark Motherbaugh's solo recordngs, The Wipeouters, Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers are not eligible, unless ppl disagree and would like to see them included.

ALBUM POLL: please rank your top 5 Devo albums.
feel free to include compilations, live albums, stuff like Recombo DNA, the EZ listening disc etc. again, solo albums, the Wipeouters etc are not eligible, unless enough people disagree.

please send you ballots to ilxdevopoll at yahoo dot com

Voting closes 10 July 2016

:D

please vote for up to 20 tracks,

are there that many good Devo songs?

serious question

I think so, yes. I'll have no problem filling this out.

especially if you include the Hardcore Devo stuff, lots of real gems in there

yeah I will have no problem filling a ballot

i may even include some tracks from their last album.

don't forget to vote for their version of Hey Hey My My w Neil

"Space Junk" came up on my Discover Weekly just as this poll went live and I had to turn it up and upset the pets.

I considered doing subpolls for favourite video and favourite uniform, but there are two options that would probably dominate favourite video to the exclusion of all else, and I wasn't sure quite how to demarcate the uniforms (yellow boiler suits, freedom of choice energy domes/flowerpot hats, New Traditionalists plastic hairpieces and Oh No era wide collars/zoot suit trousers probably the main ones, but there are variations on each, also stuff like the Shout era Chinese-American friendship suits etc...). better for people just to discuss their favourites during the course of the poll imo

Yellow jumpsuit Devo is definitely the best Devo

Oh, I meant to ask in the opening post whether there's anybody who wants to volunteer to make images for the results? if not I'll do what I can, but any visuals will be fairy rudimentary.

Devo's co-founder and bass guitarist Gerald Casale had stated that the album was born out of critical reviews in which the band were alternately described as both "fascists" and "clowns." In response, the band decided to make an album that would answer the question, "what would an album by fascist clowns sound like?"

I love this band so much

I love the story behind the lyrics to "Big Mess"

http://devo-obsesso.com/html/ultrageek_pgs/cowboykimltrs.html

MECHA MANIA BOY ALL THE TIMES

idk, i could do a ballot but it'd all be stuff from the hardcore era and the first two records. well, maybe some stuff after that. turn around. peek-a-boo. race of doom. go monkey go. (and yes, mecha mania boy.)

are auto modown/space girl blues considered two separate songs? how about softcore mutations and going under- two separate songs?

what you guys don't rate Beautiful World?! Jerkin Back n Forth? Through Being Cool? Girl U Want?! Freedom of Choice???

nuts

what you guys don't rate Beautiful World?! Jerkin Back n Forth? Through Being Cool? Girl U Want?! Freedom of Choice???

nuts

nuts-off.

all time perfection ..

how about tunnel of life and booji boy's funeral? same song, or different?

Should really take part in this, so difficult to boil it down to 20 though, esp. if you factor in the Hardcore Devo stuff. Aaarrgh!!!

are there that many good Devo songs?

0_o

auto modown/space girl blues
softcore mutations and going under
tunnel of life and booji boy's funeral

in each case I'd consider them one track combine the votes I recieved for both.

they used the title softcore mutations for another track before the proto 'going under' just to confuse matters. this one would be counted as a separate song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rum9QLXKw

Came up with two dozen tracks without hardly even thinking about it. Dark horse candidate: "Going Under" from New Traditionalists. Also, don't forget "I Desire" from Oh No! It's Devo! (lyrics by John Hinckley)...

I've never listened to those Hardcore comps, surprised their so highly rated here, seems like classic "I liked their earlier stuff better before they sold out maaaan" posturing. but what do I know, I tend to not be a fan of raw demo sorta stuff.

here's the other 'softcore mutations'/early recording of 'going under' for anyone who's not heard it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8turZo7Arn4

I like their Warners albums a lot, but the super-early stuff doesn't interest me in the slightest.

I will vote in one of these for once

I've never listened to those Hardcore comps, surprised their so highly rated here, seems like classic "I liked their earlier stuff better before they sold out maaaan" posturing. but what do I know, I tend to not be a fan of raw demo sorta stuff.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, June 30, 2016 11:20 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hardcore vol 1 and 2 have a very distinctive, peculiar sound, it's really not the average raw demo sound you might be expecting - sort of inhuman and artificial but squelchily organic at the same time

the hardcore devo records are total art-terrorist stuff, made for the car-crash set. also packed with "provocative" racism and misogyny which, yeah. but i will solid rep for "ono" all day long. also the first two shows in the live set companion are nothing like the demos, amazing live versions of stuff from the first two records, and are essential listens.

Not that it matters but Smart Patrol/mr DNA is one song - never played separately once composed. Gut Feeling/Slap yr Mammy is two songs that are often played as a medley and sometimes played separately.

btw here's where I recommend Evie Nagy's 33 1/3 book on Freedom of Choice -- it's especially good on context, history.

the hardcore devo records are total art-terrorist stuff, made for the car-crash set.

It's like discovering a new band when you listen to that stuff.

anybody want to talk favorite covers of devo songs? i'm very much taken with melt-banana's "uncontrollable urge".

are there that many good Devo songs?

I could fill up half my ballot with songs just from the debut and feel good about my choice.

I had in mind three to four each from the first four albums and that's that, although anyone who doesn't vote for their Jermaine Jackson collaboration is a ninny.

I'm pretty sure I'll be the only person who votes "Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin')" as their #1, but it's one of my favorite songs ever by any band.

I could probably vote for like five different versions of Jocko Homo just to get started.

I'm a big fan of the Hardcore Devo stuff, Recombo, etc. Even so, my ballot will mostly be proper album tracks. Just too much devolved genious there to ignore.

A few killer strays for the curious:

Auto Modown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZxjGiOnb1I

Be Stiff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbg21cSR5Y

Social Fools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hlh85EgEp4

Penetration in the Centerfold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIrp5Ej0Vo

Time Bomb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCMiUO0tvKg

Faster and Faster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zij0uY3ifO8

hmmm, mark mothersbaugh is hinting that the '78 jam session with devo, holger czukay, eno, and bowie might be released. probably would be a disappointment, but you never know...

http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/Myopia060916.aspx

Most of their archival stuff is good to amazing - especially from this period!

It's almost impossible for me to believe that Devo didn't write "Penetration In The Centerfold" in anticipation of Pussy Galore. It's somewhat uncanny what a good fit it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZVYbtwDKyU

i only every had the albums as a teenager, didn't dig any deeper than the hardcore devo stuff. but found this a few years ago... suspect provenance aside, it's just a great coiled-ball of later synth-pop devo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_A8Xe9M0NY

also have a guilty pleasure with post-post modern man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCJoe_4eYU4

Ballot submitted. Going to enjoy seeing the results. Perfect July 4th binge listen band.

I hope that the mid to late 80s material gets some love. imo Shout is excellent (it sounds *very* 1984, probably the most "of it's time" sounding of their albums, but that's not a bad thing imo), Total Devo very uneven but has some great tracks, and Smooth Noodle Maps is flawed but I really like it - it sounds like a continuation of their cover of Are You Experienced, this mix of 60s pop, a kind of new-agey vibe.,synths and stadium sized bombast. (there are a few videos on youtube of them playing these fairly small looking venues between 1988-90, and it's interesting how the music gets bigger as the gigs get smaller.

it's weird how a lot of the best tracks were not on the albums and ended up as b-sides or even unreleased: I particularly like Part Of You (which was reworked into Watch Us Work It, but was better in its original form imo), Growing Pains and I Wouldn't Do That To You (which was relegated to the soundtrack of a film by the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes guy that is so obscure it doesn't even have a wikipedia page)

I'll probably put "Theme From Doctor Detroit" in my top 5. I really do love that song. Otherwise I think those final 3 albums in the 80's are mostly garbage - I admit Shout! is mostly fun, I kinda like the way it puts a very plastic, digital sheen on 60's songwriting mores - "The 4th Dimension" surprised me in that it was not a cover of something old and obscure. Could not at all get into Total Devo, as for Smooth Noodle Maps I can't say I ever want to hear it, but yeah it's slightly better. No idea if "Post-Post Modern Man" will make my ballot, not sure how I feel about it really. It doesn't sound like Devo.

Curious to see how the Something for Everybody tracks do. I wish they'd pulled back on the brickwalling but it's a pretty good album overall.

some tracks on Shout have a kind of exotica sound to them as well

like "Please Please", I dunno what else sounds like that

anyway - sent my ballot in, it was hard but man, it's tough not putting like the entire Q: Are We Not Men and Freedom of Choice albums in there. I'm guessing my top 3 will wind up the top 3 overall which is kinda boring, but these guys really did knock it out of the park sometimes

some tracks on Shout have a kind of exotica sound to them as well

― soref

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnxQ1Pmuc9A

def voted for "post-post modern man"

I think Shout is ok but really the only keepers are Here To Go, which sounds like it belongs on Oh No It's, and Are U Experienced.
Smooth Noodle Maps is also ok but has a couple of real horrible songs (Jimmy and When We Do It). The only keeper is Devo Has Feelings Too.
There's nothing I like on Total Devo. A complete absence of anything that made them a great band. A creative desert. Particularly when you consider what others had done with Fairlights by 1988.

there's another bootleg where the songs are interspersed with snippets of what sounds like an interview with Jerry where he says's something like "we weren't dumb enough to be ad-executives and we weren't pretty enough to be David Bowie", so maybe they were just making the best of what they had. I can't think of another band that made sex sound as disgusting as Devo? that Johnny Rotten quote about how "love is two minutes and fifty seconds of squelching noises", always makes me think of some of the hardcore tracks that literally are x minutes of squelching noises.

also appealing, I think, to me as a teenager was the music's simultaneous insistence on its own importance (music that sounded like sirens and klaxons with these shouted instructions like "Stop Look and Listen!" "Find Out!" "Please Pay Attention!") combined with fatalism ("it don't matter, it's all the same!" and all that talk about rebellion being an obsolete concept). (this tension between being self-importantly hyper-engaged with the outside worlds and also self-absorbed and anti-social seems kind of proto-something-or-other as well, maybe).

I think another part of the appeal is that they seemed definitely provincial, autodidacts to some extent, I can't imagine a group like this coming from New York or LA

I would hesitate to tar DEVO with the MRA brush, that seems unfair. But they are undeniably a pivot point in "nerd culture", they're a break from the space-age poindexter engineer archetype of previous generations and a turn towards something more mysanthropic, with the sexual aggression/frustration foregrounded. Almost want to draw some analogy to Barry Malzberg's jaundiced portrayals of the space program as being driven by distorted idealism and frustrated sexuality.

they used a lot of New Frontier gone sour-style imagery, they definitely seemed to be the "disappointed idealist" variety of cynics, eg. Jerry's frequent comment in interviews about how the Kent State shootings marked the momnent he stopped being a hippie

but the sexual frustration aspect of it, i don't know, it disturbs me more these days. i see a lot of devo's attitude in mra people these days.

― the event dynamics of power asynchrony (rushomancy)

they were a gift to bookish, squeamish teen boys with a superiority/inferiority complex, simultaneously regarding the rest of the world and its inhabitants with both supercilious contempt and terror

...I guess s(?)elf-disgust is their big theme and homoeroticism = would mean eroticism, would mean having to consider the male body/your own body and sexuality as something that can be beautiful rather than source of shame and revulsion?

...I can't think of another band that made sex sound as disgusting as Devo?

― soref

conceptually, i think they handle this material quite well. their sweaty, angry, self-loathing sexual themes seem authentic on a human level, which can be uncomfortable, but these concerns are also key (maybe the key) to their art as social critique. devo not only are in themselves, as Οὖτις says, "a break from the space-age poindexter engineer archetype of previous generations and a turn towards something more mysanthropic", they address that break in their work.

it seems to me that they wrestle with the legacy of midcentury american techno-optimism as if the 60s never happened. devo portray their would-be-conformist protagonist, the modern man, as aspiring to a condition of robotic perfection, transcending fleshly concerns and failings, but at the same time failing, malfunctioning, irresolvably divided against himself. he leaks fluids, his mind fractures under the stress of late capitalist cognitive dissonance, and he can't hide his grotesque and distinctly un-robotic meat protrusions from the world. in this structure, our chaotic inner urges, incompatible with assembly-line existence, expose the failure of the american project.

it's an interesting and compelling portrait, though less so now than in its moment, and i don't think its critical edge is dulled by the band's first-person commitment to/identification with the identity they satirize.

I would hesitate to tar DEVO with the MRA brush, that seems unfair. But they are undeniably a pivot point in "nerd culture", they're a break from the space-age poindexter engineer archetype of previous generations and a turn towards something more mysanthropic, with the sexual aggression/frustration foregrounded. Almost want to draw some analogy to Barry Malzberg's jaundiced portrayals of the space program as being driven by distorted idealism and frustrated sexuality.

― Οὖτις

oh to be clear there is no way I would actually say DEVO is a representative of MRA folks. their deep cynicism about techno-futurism and about consumer capitalism puts them deeply at odds with the prevailing ideologies among MRA folks, which are, i would argue, marked by a post-communist embrace of both those things. within their generational context, and the context of their times, DEVO's work is disturbing but effective. in the cultural climate of 2016, that balance tilts more towards straight "disturbing".

I think the "aspiring robotic perfection but squelchy human impulses keep leaking out" is right, but sometimes they also come at it from the angle that these sexual and other bodily impulses are what makes a person robotic, these repeated automated, involuntary responses that make the body behave like a machine. (again, speaking from personal experience, I think that as well as being the perfect band for a particular type of maladjusted teenage boy they are maybe the perfect band for OCD sufferers)

Listening through some Devo to vote in this. Pretty tempted to vote for every song on Duty Now For The Future, even the instrumentals.

My problem is that once I've voted for everything on the 1st album, that only leaves 9 places to fill :(

that's still a good chunk of the 2nd

I'm pretty sure I'll be the only person who votes "Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin')" as their #1, but it's one of my favorite songs ever by any band.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Friday, July 1, 2016 1:14 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't be too sure about that tbh.

my image making skills are pretty basic - does anyone want to volunteer to make images for the results? if not, then I'll just go ahead with hotlinked pictures from google images.

Submitted!

Doing a little more listening now, will vote Saturday or Sunday.

this feels like a band that deserves some proper image results, given the vast amount of awesome graphics they produced - but I'm def not the one to do it. Put Moka on it!

I can extend the deadline if anyone needs more time

Yes, please. Can't do it this weekend.

if we extend it to this Wednesday (13th July) is that alright for everyone? or would people prefer until next weekend?

I'll get a ballot done on monday

Are we allowed to vote for Devo 2.0?

Are we allowed to vote for Devo 2.0?

― etc

since different versions of songs aren't counted separately, in most cases it wouldn't matter. are there songs on that record that weren't done by devo first?

Casale and Mothersbaugh wrote 2 new songs for Devo 2.0:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdKa1LPYnFk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DaY69lLUME

I'd say that original Devo 2.0 material is eligible if you want to vote for them

feel like Devo's personal philosophy and whatever thoughts bubble up in their material is far far more nuanced and considered that the modern "nerd culture" brush can handle. there is a self-awareness. there is, if not gender-bending then a steady current of trans-humanism at work.

just a reminder for those who hadn't seen - voting has been extended. new provisional deadline of Wednesday night (the 13th), but I might not start the roll out until the end of the week anyway, so if anyone isn't able to get a ballot in by Wednesday then post itt and I'll try and give you a bit longer

Man, the second 1/2 of DNFTF...

"i'm not sure why (what i perceive as) the drop-off after oh, no! it's devo seems so severe"

That'll happen when you force one of the top ten all-time drummers out of your band.

Sent it. Sent it good.

xp to be fair they weren't really using him much since FoC, I just think they lost their reason for being after Oh No - exhaustion from touring + Warner edging them in a cleaner synthpop direction in order to get another hit probably made them all wanna call it quits

xp i guess so, cuz it really is a desert post-'82

have a tentative ballot together, but i keep thinking there must be some way to squeeze in another 5 tracks

Mine's is kinda boring and predictable :(

xp to be fair they weren't really using him much since FoC

is this true? it's my understanding that though drum machines appeared on new traditionalists, he was still very much involved at that point.

if a mod is reading this thread then is it possible to edit the thread title to replace "voting closes 10 July" with "VOTING EXTENDED"? thank you.

How many ballots do you have in? Mine's coming tonight.

13 so far, including my own

Mine's more or less done -- just pondering the ranking for another hour or two before sending it.

voted

voted

Sending mine in later tonight/tomorrow morning at the latest.

i did my voting duty now for the future

Speed Racer #1

Voted!

voted

Mine's in, and should push "Midget" into the top spot.

Sent!

Assembled mine hastily and just sent it off

I've got 23 ballots now! I'll probably start rolling out the results tomorrow afternoon (UK time) unless anyone specifically requests more time (I'll include any further ballots that I receive today or tomorrow morning, of course)

in the past this information has been suppressed, but now it can be POLLED - Devo ballot poll results thread

fuck -- missed it

I'm only doing the albums at the moment, if you wanted to send a tracks ballot at some point over next couple of hours then I'll have time to add it to the total

funny thing is i've had a C90 since high school that someone made me with about 30 Devo songs on it and that's my main frame of reference for the band and mostly put songs from that on my ballot, but i've only really listened to a couple of albums front to back, so i didn't even do an albums ballot.

i did listen a bit the past couple weeks and find some new favorites for my ballot though.