Devo Album: “Hardcore Devo, Vol. 1: 74-77”

If your expecting songs like "Whip It" you aren't reading the title. This is a compilation of awesome stripped down songs that contain truly great melodies and socially cutting, humorous lyrics. Songs like "Automodown", "I'm A Potato", "Midget", "Ono", "Stop, Look, And Listen", "Soo Bawlz", "Social Fools", etc... contain the most adventerous, funny music ever produced. I love this album, and would love to hear in a different context if Eno produced it. It would be my favorite album of all time. As it is it is just a lot of fun and a great hidden treasure in an awesome career.

In spite of what the apparently retarded David Cavanagh thinks of the album (he obviously gets paid per whine), Hardcores I & II dredge the basest instincts and drives from my frustrated intellectual and hormonal adolescence and crams it back into my ear...easily some of their best work, before the Pinks, Grinks, Groinks and Glorps at the record companies made them more palatable to the pond-scum masses...

Amazing. If you like Trans Am or Ween, and want to see where this type of rock blended with electronics originated, Hardcore Devo is the cornerstone. Both volumes are outstanding. Fun, chunky, beepy, fuzzy music that sounds fresh 30 years later.

I got both this and and Vol. 2 when they were initially unleashed on an unsuspecting world by Rykodisc in the early 90's. Keep in mind that at that time Devo was considered washed up and left for dead by the public at large. Perhaps it was a last-ditch attempt at regaining some credibility that they dug deep into the vaults to assemble these 2 collections of pre-major label home recordings, but boy did it work! They truly did shove the poles in the hole this time.

In my opinion these are the ultimate Devo recordings... raw, bizarre, untampered-with, pure, and brutally honest. As the liner notes stated, this was the sound of a world falling apart. I couldn't agree more. Some of these recordings were actually originally released on the UK-only "Be Stiff" EP in 1977 (Jocko Homo, Mongoloid, Satisfaction). The rest are previously unreleased (though a few have appeared in bootleg form), and were recorded between 1974 and 1977, when the spudboys were honing their concept in the relative obscurity of mid-70's Akron.

By the time "Are We Not Men..." was released in early 1978, the sound and concept had been refined. Not that I have any problem with that amazing debut. It blew me away back then and still holds up well to this day. However, I find these early crude recordings much more endearing and enjoyable. This was the essence of what Devo was all about, and the lack of slick production and major label influence only adds to it's honesty. Admittedly, there are a few half-baked ideas, but this is a document of a band developing a very focused sound and purpose... and there were bound to be a few experiments gone awry.

My only gripe is that the 1975 version of "Secret Agent Man" (featured in the original short film) is not included on either disc. The fact that these two collections have been out of print for so long now boggles the mind. Especially with all the recent renewed interest in Devo. I still have my copies, but I would really like to see these made available again. There is a whole new generation of Devo-tees that need to experience the same catharsis I did when I first heard these discs.

I had a tape copy of what eventually became this CD. I have no idea from whence it came. It was an nth generation copy with all the hiss. Nice to see it on CD now so I can hear everything!

This is the original, pre-eno, pre WB Devo. Fresh out of art school,full of vitriol and unafraid of the consequences. Does anyone remember them on SNL? That scared the pants off of me when I was a kid!