Send "DEVO " Ringtones to your Cell 
| popmatters |
 As the Internet puts the weight of marketing further on the shoulders of the bands themselves, as they craft pages on MySpace and Facebook to create an aesthetic or artistic identity, long before they find a record label or a consistent live audience, the distance between the music and that image is starting to widen. Bands find “personality” in kitschy or ironic pages, aping retro movie lines or identifying mocking influences like neo-polka or electro-death-metal to come across as just strange enough to be marketable. It’s a matter of a relatively young and readily available means of marketing dictating—and hindering the creativity of—content.In some ways, the most widely known image of Devo falls victim to similar circumstances. Many of us hear Devo and think immediately of the goofy video for “Whip It”. Even if you love it, genuinely or with irony, you recognize it as a part of the awkward infancy of the music video both as art form and marketing tool. So Devo, to those outside of the devout fanbase anyway, come off as goofy one-hit wonders. And, well, “Whip It” gets one part of that right. Devo are goofy, nerdy, awkward—all those things. But framed in that young video media, it seems forced, even contrived. But on Duty for the Future Now, Devo fly their freak flag in the most honest way possible. They were nerdy first, and then they made music. It wasn’t about creating an aesthetic; it was about being true to their crooked selves....full text |
| Wikipedia |
| Duty Now for the Future was the second album by United States New Wave band Devo, released in 1979 (see 1979 in music). It was on the Billboard charts for 10 weeks, peaking at #73. The "Devo Corporate Anthem" music and video are a nod to the 1975 film Rollerball, in which games are preceded by players and audience standing solemnly while listening to a regional corporate anthem. "Secret Agent Man" is a cover (with modified lyrics) of the song by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri and performed by Johnny Rivers in 1965. "Devo Corporate Anthem" and "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise" videos were featured on the collection The Complete Truth About De-Evolution. The "Secret Agent Man" video was featured in the film The Truth about De-Evolution as an early document that was originally titled "The Beginning was the End" along with videos for "Jocko Homo" and other random Devo shorts and information. The majority of the songs on the album had been performed in Devo's live set as early as 1976 or 1977.Contents [hide] 1 Reception 2 Cultural Significance 3 US Cover Art 4 Track listing 5 Compact disc releases 6 Personnel 6.1 Technical personnel 7 Trivia 8 Notes [edit] Reception It was received less enthusiastically than their first release; Dave Marsh, writing in Rolling Stone, condemns it completely, feeling that "inspired amateurism works only when the players aspire to something better." [1] The Allmusic review, written more than a decade later, takes a longer view. Reviewer Mark Deming writes that "their second album captures the group in the midst of a significant stylistic shift" while acknowledging that the song "'Triumph of the Will' embraces fascism as a satirical target without bothering to make it sound as if they disapprove." [2] [edit] Cultural Significance A seminal New Wave synthpop album, Duty Now for the Future was eventually heralded as one of the first pop/rock or AOR releases of a major record label to rely heavily on synthesizers, which went on to be widely used in the subsequent New Wave genre of the 1980s. As an offshoot of Punk Rock, New Wave music had consisted primarily of guitar-based songs derived from traditional Rock and Roll and Blues scales and riffs, as represented by Devo's punk contemporaries The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash. Legendary Punk Rock icon Henry Rollins is among the many musicians that praise the album's innovations. Rollins' short-lived Infinite Zero reissue label (an offshoot of American Recordings) was responsible for the first U.S. CD release of Duty Now for the Future in 1994. The album had been continually overlooked by original label Warner Brothers. [edit] US Cover Art Featuring two sides almost completely covered with the album’s Uniform Product Code (UPC bar code), the artwork of the US release was intended to satirize the new requirements for compliance with the IBM UPC proposal circa 1979. Until that time, album covers were seen as an entire art form unto themselves. Consequently, the new mandates for UPC codes splashed across every work of album art were a subject of much protest as an infringement upon artistic integrity and an Orwellian symbol of the impersonal modern age. [edit] Track listingNo. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Devo Corporate Anthem" Mark Mothersbaugh 1:16 2. "Clockout" Gerald V. Casale 2:48 3. "Timing X" M. Mothersbaugh 1:13 4. "Wiggly World" Bob Mothersbaugh, G.V. Casale 2:45 5. "Blockhead" B. Mothersbaugh, M. Mothersbaugh 3:00 6. "Strange Pursuit" G.V. Casale, M. Mothersbaugh 2:45 7. "S.I.B. (Swelling Itching Brain)" M. Mothersbaugh 4:27 8. "Triumph of the Will" M. Mothersbaugh, G.V. Casale 2:19 9. "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize" M. Mothersbaugh 2:42 10. "Pink Pussycat" M. Mothersbaugh, B. Mothersbaugh 3:12 11. "Secret Agent Man" P. F. Sloan, Steve Barri, arr. M. Mothersbaugh 3:37 12. "Smart Patrol"/"Mr. DNA" G.V. Casale/G.V. Casale, M. Mothersbaugh 6:06 13. "Red Eye Express" M. Mothersbaugh, G.V. Casale 2:50 Note: On the original LP album release, side one comprised tracks 1-7; side two tracks 8-13.[3] [edit] Compact disc releases The 1993 UK CD issue on Virgin paired this album with New Traditionalists and included Devo's cover of Allen Toussaint's "Working in the Coal Mine" from the movie Heavy Metal that was included in the original LP album release of New Traditionalists. The 1995 (copyright 1994) US CD issue on Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings (the first American version on CD) came with two bonus tracks: the "Secret Agent Man" single b-side "Soo Bawlz" (written by Mark Mothersbaugh) and the Brian Eno-produced "Penetration in the Centrefold," (written by G.V. Casale and M. Mothersbaugh), originally the B-side of the UK release of "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize." The 2005 remastered re-issue on Collectables includes no bonus tracks. In 2008, the album was digitally remastered and released as part of the box set This is the Devo Box in Japan. While the original US issue and the Collectables re-issue label the final track as "Red Eye Express," the UK issue and most other reissues label it simply as "Red Eye." On March 29th, 2010, Warner Bros. Records announced it would be issuing a newly remastered and expanded edition of the album on CD. [4] With a release date of April 17th, the bonus tracks are scheduled to be the spoken word piece "General Boy Visits Apocalypse Now" (first available on the compilation Pioneers Who Got Scalped), the single b-sides "Soo Bawlz" and "Penetration in the Centrefold," the single version of "Be Stiff" and a live version of "Secret Agent Man."...full text |
| Itunes |
| While the most obvious flaw of Devo's Duty Now For The Future is that the material simply isn't as good as on their debut, their second album also captures the group in the midst of a significant stylistic shift. On their first album, for all their herky-jerky rhythms and electronic accents, Devo were pretty much a standard guitars/bass/drums rock band, albeit one with more than their share of eccentricities. Duty Now For The Future found them bringing the keyboards that were used as punctuation on their earlier material into the forefront, adding a new level of irony to their "little minds through big technology" philosophy. While Devo would later learn to use electronics with confidence and wit, they were still learning how to integrate them into their sound on Duty Now, and the results lacked the strength and coherence of their debut. Of course, it also helped that the first album had better songs; the two instrumentals on side one are merely filler, "Pink Pussycat" and "Clockout" are jokes that just aren't funny, and "Triumph Of The Will" embraces fascism as a satirical target without bothering to make it sound as if they disapprove. But "Secret Agent Man" is a wittier devolved cover than "Satisfaction," the band rarely sounded as cheerfully creepy as on "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprize," and the side two rave up, "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" is superbly potent (for all their progressive trappings, Devo were formalists enough to know you make a big rock move near the end of side two.) Duty Now For The Future is hardly a bad album, but it isn't as strong as what Devo had already brought to the table — or would offer later on. [When Duty Now For The Future was reissued by Infinite Zero in 1994, two bonus tracks were added: "Soo Bawlz" and "Penetration in the Centrefold."]...full text |
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