Fair enough but I am very selective in my purchases and in the early 80s I was listening to the 60s revisionism movement that came out of California called the Paisley Underground.I still dig all those bands.I was also into the Nomads out of Sweden and a band out of New York called Plan 9.Like I said I have a few essentials but to say that any era is equal to the 60s is not justifiable IMO.Good some great records but on par with the Beatles,Dylan,Stones&Velvets sorry but I disagree.
The NME reviews, in particular, shows that some journalists had absolutely no clue on what or how to write about music like Pink Flag.
Fast forward 40 years, and we've gotten to the point where all that matters is whether they were Punk or Not. Progress!
I hadn't heard Pink Flag in 15 or 20 years when I reacquired the CD a few years ago, and I'd forgotten how well it flows. I'd also forgotten how catchy Ex-Lion Tamer and Champs are, two of my favorite cuts.
Whoa...beyond excited for this thread! love almost everything these minds came up with including dome. colin solo, etc. Just a shout out to REM's strange and a band here in boston Salem 66 that did fragile. This should be good. Looking forward to it.
One of the greatest guitar tones ever on this album. Pure filth, but I just wish the drums weren't so polite in places. Minor niggle though.
The Punk Police are tedious on this forum. Most of them probably weren't even born in 1977 when Pink Flag came out.
The 'punk was garbage, even though I've hardly heard any of it, therefore if I like something it can't have been punk' attitude prevalent on this forum is tedious too.
Well.... when somebody says "1977 punk rock", I think of The Damned, The Clash or the Pistols. "Pink Flag" - while using punk rock vocabulary - sounds so.... modern. It goes beyond, it cracks the mould. I'm not saying you are wrong but like "Marquee Moon" for the US this is really something else.
The (supposed) existence of a mould is the problem. When I think of The Damned, The Clash or the Pistols, I hear similarities, but when pressed I wouldn't say that any of them sounds just like the others.
These bands definitely don't sound alike and I love them all but Wire definitely drew a sonic line. They sound so modern while the others still worshipped Iggy and the Dolls. Which I both love too.
If punk was about upending the norm, then certainly Pink Flag, by not sounding like anything else out there at the time, is punk by definition. Hell, by going against whatever the norms of punk were, it was punk squared.
I don't think its a good idea to let this Wire thread be dominated about what was Punk and what wasn't! Let's just focus on Wire.
Here's a tidbit: When Wire were touring Pink Flag in the States they played CBGB, and it was one of the very few times that there was separate admission for the two sets. They were terrific, but they threw the audience for a loop when a lot of the set was from the then unreleased Chairs Missing. They took the blueprint of what you do with guitar/bass/drums and threw out half of the diagrams, resulting in that severe, clipped, almost metronomic sound. I'm sure a lot of that was due to their limitations as musicians at the time, but they made it work by not following the rules. By the time they got to Chairs Missing they were on another level altogether. Great as Pink Flag is, when I heard that 2nd album for the first time my jaw dropped. The fact that their restlessness as artists not only made them unique but was a defining characteristic of their entire career is a testament to how special they were and still are.
