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Long Before Wireless, There Was Wire

Topics: Music | 4 CommentsBy admin | November 13, 2008

Wire the band

After my recent dissing of eighties music, I was talking with my walking musicological pop media reference library and friend Eric about whether or not there were any eighties bands that didn’t suck. We agreed on Wire, one of the least-acknowledged but most influential pop bands of the last 25 years. The clip at left is of their club hit “Ahead”. Early on (1977-79), Wire was kind of punk, but even then had more melodic tunes like The 15th. Whatever popularity they enjoyed peaked in the late eighties, and by the mid-nineties, they were being thoroughly plagiarized by bands like Elastica. Of all their releases, my personal fave is probably the rather accessible A Bell Is a Cup…Until It Is Struck, which includes one of the most brilliant pop songs of all time: Kidney Bingos. Really bad video, beautiful song, and proof that lyrics don’t always matter.

Read Comments

  1. Posted by Dojo Nick on 11.16.08 11:28 pm

    You guys must’ve been drinking. Wire sucked, too.

  2. Posted by Eric on 11.17.08 1:01 am

    …and what did you like Dojo Nick, Culture Club??

  3. Posted by admin on 11.17.08 1:13 am

    Before Dojo Nick has a chance to get in a jab about my rampant abuse of cosmetics in the 80′s,I just want to remind everyone that I wore makeup a good 5-6 years before Boy George, did it better, and didn’t end up looking like a punktard dock worker later in life.

  4. Posted by him again on 01.27.09 12:52 am

    Pink Flag and Chairs Missing were two of the best punk albums ever made. 154 was their best end-to-end effort, although they did some great tracks after that (“Ideal Copy” comes to mind). Take 2 caps of mescaline, turn down the lights and listen; you’ll see what I mean…