Devo - New Traditionalists
#382
By Stephen Romone Lewis
August 26 1981
Devo
New Traditionalists
Genre: rock, pop, dance, new wave
Allen’s rating: 3 out of 5
Stephen’s Rating: 5 out of 5
Highlights:
Beautiful World
Through Being Cool
Jerkin’ Back ‘n’ Forth
How do you feel about sushi?
“It’s stupid. It should have been abandoned 8 minutes after the discovery of fire!”
“I love it!”
I did an informal poll. There’s very little middle ground with sushi. One guy said he only ate it for the wasabi, but everyone else loved it or hated it.
DEVO is aural sushi. You think they are innovative, pop wizards or novelty one-hit wonders. No center ground. Reviewing their album means that readers either have no interest or already love it. How do I feel about them? I believe they belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I love New Traditionalists, and I love sushi. I wonder if there’s a correlation. What do you think? Sushi or no sushi? Are they idiots with flowerpots on their heads or geniuses of marketing and media?
New Traditionalists is nearly perfect. Ten songs. Thirty Four minutes. Not a second wasted. Every song got airplay or should have gotten airplay. Great for treadmill playlists, road trips, dance parties or road-trip dance-parties (give the big rig drivers something to stare at).
Side one:
First song/2nd single. “Through Being Cool” was featured in Heavy Metal. An animated DEVO performed a parody of the Star Wars cantina band while the dragonrider lady, you know the one dressed in daggers and thigh high boots, fights off handsy aliens.
Second song/third single. “Jerkin’ Back ‘n’ Forth” I hate songs about relationships; they are whiny and selfindugent, but it’s impossible to sound whiny and robotic at the same time, so DEVO gets a pass.
You might remember “Pity You” by Toni Basil. It’s titled “You Gotta Problem” on her Word of Mouth album. DEVO is all over that record: they played, they wrote, they engineered.
“Soft Things” is the less sexually frustrated follow-up to “Girl U Want”. “There's a certain way it shivers when she shakes… And now I'm calling out for soft things, something soft when times get hard.” Cringeworthy lyrics in the hands of most bands, but DEVO’s deadpan delivery turns it into a parody of a randy, heavy-metal tune.
LASER SOUNDS!!!! How can anyone not love LASER SOUNDS?!? The slightly ominous “Going Under” finishes the side with tons of LASER SOUNDS! See how long you can listen to it without bouncing to that bass line.
Side Two:
“Race of Doom” deserved airplay. We sure loved apocalypse songs in the 80’s , especially if we could dance to ‘em. There are explosions scattered through the lyrics, are they nuclear bombs or “Love bombs”? Both? It doesn’t matter.
"Love Without Anger'' should have been a single. The band probably thought so too; they made a video for it. The video has a great stop motion animation scene where Barbie and Ken tear each other limb from limb.
"The Super Thing" is the epitome of a great album track; it provides the perfect palate cleanser between the 7, up-tempo, riff-heavy, pop tunes that kick off the album and the 2 socially conscious songs that end it. It features the album's only guitar solo: a grinding, loopy, distorted melody. The lyrics are ambiguous, and the music is darker and less hooky than anything else on New Traditionalists.
Track 9. “Beautiful World”. What band puts their best song on track 9? A band more interested in crafting a great album than promoting a single.
New Traditionalists finishes strong! "Enough Said" is a fantasy about watching the world’s leaders slug it out in a deathmatch and you can dance to it. Flip the record over and begin again. Enough said!
https://open.spotify.com/album/69RnQKuF0WHKl2NcaB8z7t?si=r9o6CF4kTXauBecYXD0dZg
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