Anyone who regularly reads my blog (probably just me and the editor) will know that over the last year or so I have been constantly banging on about the emerging 80’s revival. We’ve had a return to trashy action movies (The Losers, The Expendables), a resurgence in musical trends (The Editors’ Joy Division pastiche and La Roux’s synth-pop,) some worrying fashion comebacks (I saw a woman on TV the other night wearing shoulder pads without a hint of irony,) and off course a Tory government (this time with added Lib-Dem spinelessness.) You may be asking yourself if anything good has come out of all of this. Well the answer is yes. All hail the return of DEVO.  

One of the most idiosyncratic bands of all time, Devo emerged in Ohio in the mid-seventies, formed by a bunch of art students from Kent State (site of the infamous shootings) and were inspired by the theory of de-evolution, an idea stating that herd mentality consumerism is actually evolution working in reverse. Melding jerky garage rock with Kraftwerk inspired synthesizers these guys arrived on the scene just in time for the punk movement, and while they didn’t play four chord thrash, they did sit comfortably alongside more left-field acts like Talking Heads. Their Brian Eno produced debut Q: Are we not men? A: We Are Devo appeared in 1978 and was a masterpiece in minimalism, when compared to other bands using synths at the time. The album won them a legion of fans, established their mock-corporate aesthetic (second album Duty now for the future featured a track called The Devo Corporate Anthem) and sent them hurtling towards the mainstream. The band are probably best known for their 1980 single Whip it, but they continued to release quality material up until 1990 when they decided to take a break from recording.

Flash-forward to 2010 and this month sees the release of Something for everyone, a triumphant return by anyone’s standards. Lead single Fresh, is a powerful chunk of old-school new wave, with a belting production, while Don’t Shoot (I’m a man) is the kind of snide cultural commentary the band has always been loved for. Keeping it strictly for the fans (they even allowed the die-hards to choose which tracks they thought should go on the album), the band have made no effort to pander to a contemporary audience, and in doing so have ironically ended up sounding more vital than they have since the early eighties.

In a time when, apparently, the best contemporary music has to offer is Justin Bieber or Dizzee Rascal dueting with James Cordon (AKA that fat bastard from Gavin and Stacy) we could do with a few more older bands stepping up to the plate to show the kids how it’s done. All together now WE ARE DEVO.