Actually I did check out "Change Becomes Us" on YouTube, sounded pretty good, but we'll get to that eventually, there was a Graham Lewis track I particularly liked. I've kind of taken against Colin Newman since he started doing all that Maccaesque, "That was my idea", stuff and Wire now seems like it's his band.
My personal favorite of the post-Send/post-Gilbert albums is the self-titled one from 2015. I don't think everyone on this board was quite as enamored with it as I was, but I think it's their best, most consistent work since ABIAC. Change Becomes Us is quite good too.
Well, it certainly couldn't have been more Colin heavy. I don't get it. Wire from the get-go was about breaking from form, tension from within, art vs. commerce, minimal aesthetics. Why do you (and so many others here) seem almost relieved now that Colin has free rein to just keep putting out interchangeable guitar pop albums? Also, thoughts on Githead?
I thought it may be a mistake jumping ahead. There is a real danger of the thread becoming disjointed. It's started...
A few corrections / addition to this list of singles: The 'Buzz Buzz Buzz' 12" single was all live, including 'Eardrum Buzz' on the A-side. There's also the limited edition 7" of 'In Vivo' with 'Stillbird' as its B-side. 'Stillbird' is subtitled 'Excerpts from "Drills" ' and it is indeed a medley of various very different versions of that track (the song title is an anagram of 'Drillbits'). Basically, it's the Stars on 45 version of The Drill album! There are also a couple of additional mixes of 'In Vivo' on the US commercial and promo 12"s. By the way, it seems a bit mean to relegate The Drill to a by-the-way mention in the entry for an album it has no real relation to. I consider it a proper Wire album, albeit one of their most perverse, and I listen to it more than Manscape! There was also a 7" single from it, included in the box set configuration: In Every City (Edit) / (A Chicago) Drill (Edit) The A-side was also released as a promo CD single in the US.
I love that version of the album. Send was already one of their most concise and explosive albums, but this filleted version makes it even more intense. I used to think of 1999-present day Wire as Wire Mk III, but after reading Read and Burn, the version of the band including Gilbert that produced Send and its attendant EPs, singles and live documents is a very different beast than the band after Gilbert left (which I now consider MK IV), even in terms of its central creative processes. Send seems to be the only Wire album on which Newman and Gilbert worked intensively together (as opposed to against one another, or as part of a grand passive-aggressive gestalt), and it's really quite different to anything else they did, while still referencing all the phases of the band. It's a terrific collection of songs, played with great ferocity and humour.
I can concede that one or two Graham-sung tracks on the self-titled album might have been nice - I do really like the man's voice. (But let's remember, he wasn't singing lead on Pink Flag, and no one calls that album "Colin heavy.") I can't speak for other contributors to this thread, but for me, it's all about the music, and the music they were making with Bruce before he left was incredibly lacking and uninteresting to me. And if Bruce's leaving meant they could move beyond one-dimensional, two-chord, mid-life-crisis punk and make albums that I actually like, well, that's great! More good music out there for me to consume and enjoy! But your comment is rather presumptuous. I ultimately don't care who is in the line-up or who actually writes the material (so long as it's good), nor did I ever feel "relief" that Bruce departed, thereby giving Colin freer rein, as you put it. I only felt relief that Wire were beginning to make music that I liked again. And even then, it took a while, IMO, before things really got going with the post-Bruce lineup (I'm not a huge fan of Object 47, and I only like about half of Red Barked Tree). But all that matters to me, ultimately, is the music, and it happens to be the case that if Bruce had stayed and if they kept making stuff like Send, I'd be totally uninterested.
Well, it's not like I'm doing some in-depth song-by-song analysis of that album, or discussing it in any meaningful way at all other than saying that I like it to someone who isn't familiar with that era of the band's work. Stuff like that happens in these album-by-album threads all the time when we're sort of between albums. Hardly a capital offense!
*I* think—and I know for a fact your man Colin agrees—that Pink Flag actually predates the quintessential Wire sound and as such isn't even top tier Wire. But re: Graham... Because the quintessential sound included him more, not featuring him now makes it feel like an important ingredient has been removed. Apologies... I wasn't targeting you so specifically as using your post as a springboard for the question. But since you mentioned it: Then what is Wire to you, if not this particular combination of these particular people, making music together? Thus why I asked about Githead. It seems to me there are plenty of outlets for Colin to make likable music; where does Wire end and Githead begin (or even the earlier stuff under his own name) if you don't care who is playing the music and only care about the output?
So why name the record label Pinkflag? Is that one of Colin's pragmatic business decisions (lotta fans of Pink Flag in the USA)?
It's theirs, it's iconic, and it's pretty obvious that when they launched it in 2000 they were riding pretty hard on its reputation. (And let's face it, Pinkflag is an awesome name for a Wire label.) But Colin has expressed frustration with Pink Flag fans who don't recognize that Chairs Missing and 154 are *better*, and more quintessentially Wire. Google it, you'll find a quote somewhere.
Its reputation in America, it's never had anything like the same reputation in the UK. Naming your record label after an album you don't even like that much seems like the height of cynicism to me. Colin Newman is mercurial, to put it diplomatically.
Also, after Stereogum posted their ranking of the albums a few years back, he offered his own version: PREMIER LEAGUE (in order of release) Chairs Missing, 154, Send, R&B 03, RBT, CBU, WIRE FIRST DIVISION (in order of release) Pink Flag, Ideal Copy, A Bell Is a Cup, Obj 47 SECOND DIVISION (in order of release) IBTABA, The Drill, Manscape Hard to place - The First Letter, in some ways it's not really a Wire album - I know that might seem weird to some coming from someone who is happy promote albums made without Bruce way above some that were made with him but it's just how it strikes me. I see Rob as the most essential Wire member in many ways. Having said that "Ticking Mouth" is brilliant.
AGREED (because the band considers it an album) but look how many people actually commented on it anyway... NONE.
I forgot it's release was delayed a few years and it should have been included with the listing for Manscape. I can't go back and edit at this point.
I love 'Wire' a lot. Even better when assessed alongside Nocturnal Koreans from the same sessions. I like the songs on that even more.
Well, sure, I agree with that too, but it seems a lot of people do view it as quintessential Wire, which is partly why I mentioned it, and Wire themselves really played that album up when they reactivated around 2000. I don't know how to answer this other than Wire is their music. It just so happens that two slightly different groups of people have been able to make great music together under the Wire moniker. I feel that they've proven they can still be "Wire," whatever that really means, without one of the original members. Look, bands that have been around for a long time often change and evolve over the years - sometimes to the point where their newer material is almost unrecognizable as the same band that made the debut - and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, per se. Mark E. Smith claimed that even if The Fall were him and your granny on bongos, it would still be The Fall. While I wouldn't go that far with Wire, I do feel that in their current incarnation, they've gone in some truly interesting directions and made some very compelling music, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be called or considered Wire. It's not the exact same Wire that made 154, but it's a version or phase of Wire that is making good music. I haven't actually heard any Githead. Or if I did, I don't remember it. And something that's worth pointing out here is that Lewis and Grey do contribute to Wire in ways which, in my opinion, make the compositions distinguishable from say, a Colin Newman solo album. True, Newman looms large on the post-Gilbert work, but Lewis and Grey are not mere studio musicians who only just show up and play what they're told. My point in saying I didn't care who was playing the music wasn't meant to be taken completely literally; it was more a way of saying that I kept an open mind about Wire's music after Gilbert left, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results, which were so good that to me it absolutely wasn't worth getting hung up on questions of whether this was really Wire. They proved they could make great, creative music without one key original member, and that's all that really matters in my view.
Very well regarded art pop from Colin, Malka, and the guy from Scanner. Active alongside the reactivated 2000s version of Wire; one EP (2004) and four albums (2005, 2007, 2009, 2014). Not too different from Wire post-Send, when Colin sings. Certainly not all that different from where Commercial Suicide and It Seems were headed, as those were collabs between Colin and Malka as well. I think you'll enjoy them.
One thing I never realized about Wire before reading Read and Burn, and something that's long been obscured by their collective writing credits, is that Newman doesn't (or very rarely) write lyrics, and that Wire's songs are generally non-song texts generated by Lewis (or Gilbert) that Newman sets to music, or crams into music he's already written. This certainly accounts for why their songs are so lyrically, and sometimes structurally, unusual, and it also explains their working practice, pace and rhythm (Newman might be waiting for Lewis to provide him with texts and hold off writing any Wire music, or alternatively compose a bunch of music having no idea what words might eventually fill any gaps he leaves) and provides a clear demarcation between Newman's Wire music and his other projects (where he works with outside lyricists or eschews lyrics altogether). In a way, Wire are more like the classic songwriting teams (Bacharach / David, Rodgers / Hart, Gershwin / Gershwin) in their division of labour. I think it's pretty rare in rock and post-rock music to find a songwriter who doesn't contribute to the lyrics of their songs to this degree.
I did hear a Githead track on BBC 6Music a few years ago. I didn't hear the DJ introduce the track, so I was listening blind. As the track played, I guessed it it was by a band who weren't disguising their Wire borrowings very well. Much as I enjoyed his solo work up to It Seems, I haven't found much of interest in his Swim output. I did have Bastard, but sold it. I am enjoying the debate in this thread, and am looking forward to hearing about the albums after Object 47, which is the last Wire album I bought. I am generally sceptical about bands "returning to form" (having read that about The Fall too often), but I will try to give Wire the benefit of the doubt.
I think the normal way of writing credits is the lyricist first and music writer second. I suspected that Newman had more investment in tune writing as he talks about the need for more musical development (addition of minor chords, was it?) in the guitar playing from Gilbert in the early stages of the band to carry the ideas. But there is at least one album where Colin Newman has almost no song-writing credits. What I find interesting is that from Change Becomes Us, the writing credits take on an unusual format, according to wikipedia. This is where they separate the lyricist and the music, but then rather unusually they split the music credit into 'song and music' attributions. I read this as a way give Newman the sole credit for the tune and the other band members credit for the arrangement without using the term 'arrangement'. Must a have been a royalties split requirement from Newman and I believe it was this that led to Gilbert's departure, which has may have been mentioned earlier. I do not think it at all unusual for a music-writer in a song-writing partnership not to contribute lyrically in the field of rock music. It's a quite normal and often satisfactory arrangement found in much of the best rock bands. Pere Ubu, The Fall, The Stooges, The VU (when members contributed to the music), The Residents (as far as we know it was one member of the partnership). Joy Division and New Order. The Smiths and Elton John are key examples in the mainstream.
The box set of the first three albums (plus live ones) is almost phorensic in the writing credits for "Pink Flag" and so on. Definitely splits out the Colin lyrics from the rest.
Pretty sure there are no Wire albums where Colin Newman has 'almost no song-writing credits'. He was always the tunesmith in the band, but I think it rankled, in certain quarters, that he insisted on separate credits for reissues of "Pink Flag", apparently miffed because, when "Three Girl Rhumba" was used in an advert, he had to split the royalties - which seems a depressingly rock 'n' roll move from this most avowedly un-rock 'n' roll of musicians, however justified. I think he prefers to be credited as 'melody composer', a title that hardly seems apt for his work on "Manscape" or "Send", for instance. McCartneyesque, and, no, I'm not referring to his composition of melodies.
