Wipers - Youth of America
#185
May 17 1981 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY
Wipers
Youth of America
Genre: Alternative
4.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Taking So Long
Can this Be
Youth of America
When It’s Over
I’ve written before about Wipers and Greg Sage. They are pretty hit or not such a solid hit. Sage seems to have invented Alternative music a decade before it became a thing. And in the pantheon of Wipers records, this is their Teenage Daydream. The title track is a ten minute fuzz tone assault that anticipates Sonic Youth and Nirvana and it’s raw and edgy and dangerous and I absolutely love it. And it ties the late 60s psychedelia to Thurston Moore, et al, in a way that I was not anticipating. But, also, the themes of Wipers’ songs are as relevant today. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” in that dystopian American version of Kraftwerk-by-punk guitars is terrifying and true, 39 years later. I would submit that Sage is taking Kraftwerk for a walk and demonstrating what it could and should have been.
The rest of the album flies in the face of my theory that “punk” belongs in amber as a touchstone from a certain time but not to leave that era.
This is timeless as well as perfectly OF it’s time.
Every college radio station from 1981 to 2020 should have a copy of this album. And, to the film editors out there: If you are cutting a high speed chase/action sequence, you NEED to lay it out to “When It’s Over”. Trust me.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/youth-of-america/1031831705
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