Last time that Devo made an appearance in this column, I made no bones about admitting that they were one of my favorite New Wave bands. Their debut (and that wordy title) had a profound impact on how I saw music as a teenager. It was almost too easy to cobble together words about their philosophy and sound. This may seem like a facetious thing to say about a record that constantly sounds like it’s falling apart, but it’s a near-perfect encapsulation of what happens when you mix the early days of punk rock with the ethos of the art kids. I love Devo. Mark Mothersbaugh is a national treasure, and I admire how they never “sold out” their de-evolution standing.
Which is all to say that the other record picked for this list may have higher highs, but in general, I find “Freedom of Choice” to have way too much filler. Whereas their debut was a cohesive listening experience, this has a lot of great ideas that may never stray from the Devo aesthetic, but I’m not sure who is listening to “That’s Pep!” impulsively. The back half has very little going for it if we want to talk about home run hits. It becomes funny to think of this as their pop album, the one they needed to make to not be dropped from Warner Bros. after their sophomore release, “Duty Now For the Future,” failed to capture any significant momentum.
I don’t usually cover unlisted albums in detail, but I get why “Duty Now For the Future” failed. Whereas you got into Devo because they did that weird cover of The Rolling Stones and created cult videos, it leans too far into esoterica to have a CD that relies heavily on militaristic tendencies, down to naming one of their motifs after a Leni Riefenstahl documentary. Yes, it’s subversive, and I defy anyone to not think that “Smart Patrol/Mr. D.N.A.” is not one of their greatest contributions to mankind, but those tracks don’t feel like a serious album if you’re Warner Bros. and wanting to bank on talent. Even Talking Heads, for all their oddities, at least had marketability.
So it makes sense that, in 1980, they sought to make a pop record made up of largely original tracks. The question was what would be sacrificed to get there. Was this the start of the band shaving off their edges to meet corporate approval? Short answer, no. In fact, I think they were very punk rock about “selling out” if it can be called that. None of these songs has a straightforward key change. In fact, a lot of them have layered counter-melodies of predominantly electronic instrumentation that don’t lend themselves to dancing. Sure, the synth has some moments where it gets a funky groove going, but Devo has always favored the hallucinatory sidestepping, where the lyricism lacks a streamlined reading. Even when critics compared the opener (“Girl U Want”) to The Knack’s “My Sharona,” it’s at best because both have a girl somewhere in there.
In my opinion, “Girl U Want” has always felt closer to a sci-fi plot than a typical love story. Mothersbaugh declares that, “she sends out an aroma of undefined love” and how it “drips on down.” At points, she sounds closer to mythology or even horticulture than a pin-up girl. It makes the attraction feel more genuine even in its objectification. Though nothing will be funnier than thinking in hindsight that this was pitched as the lead single because of the passion, again, being sidestepped by constantly checking the lyrics sheet. Even the way he sings in the chorus about mouths watering, it seems so unsexy.
Like most songs on here, there are a few fun takeaways that Devo knew how to play with their audience. There’s the opening guitar riff, itself sounding like it’s being pulled out of a bottle by a corkscrew. The thudding bass competes with the drums and guitar for the rhythm track, disorienting the listener as more sounds are added. The guitars become high-pitched while ricocheting across brief, incomprehensible melodies before doing the occasional campy nod of sliding the strings to insinuate arousal. While it includes a more traditional breakdown towards the end, it’s not an exceptional guitar solo, mostly ascending and descending the same five notes before ending the track abruptly. As far as openers, it’s effective at conveying the tone despite being arguably the weakest single.
If I had to suggest a cliché Devo riff that you’re likely to assume the general public knows, it’s the opening chords to “It’s Not Right,” which mostly finds a high-frequency synthesizer playing single notes in rapid succession with occasional veering into one that’s slightly higher. It begins to sound cartoonish as the guitars and drums kick in.
As far as “does it sound pop?” it fits the bill nicely. Despite being a futuristic sound for 1980 that strayed from more conventional rock orchestration, it is one of many throwbacks to 60s R&B to be found here, down to the repetitive use of “baby” to signify infatuation. If there’s a difference, the cycling lyrics and upbeat delivery hide a tragic desperation that said person “hurt me bad,” and how they cannot sleep at night. Whereas most bands would be capable of finding the romance, this sounds like a domestic squabble that recontextualizes the beat as neurotic more than playful, as if Mothersbaugh is in denial of how bad things are. It’s a perfect piece of satire that sets up the album’s conflicted view of American ideology by boiling it down to the follies of hubris.
For better or worse, everyone knows “Whip It” to the point that I loathe it for qualifying the band as a “one-hit wonder.” Even so, I think the design of the music is really clever and thankfully doesn’t find the band going in a lazy direction. For starters, the lyrics have been described as being influenced both as a reference to Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” as well as by Mothersbaugh giving then-president Jimmy Carter a pep talk due to their ongoing fear that Ronald Reagan would beat him in the election. Given that the title track is a criticism of said conservatism, it makes the whole comical exterior that’s been mistaken as being about masturbation all the more fun and ironic. Add in that the main riff is a bastardized take on Roy Orbison, and it becomes patently delirious.
It’s also amazing that this is the song that’s considered their biggest hit because of how structurally inaccessible it sometimes becomes. The lyrics are nonsense, full of empty buzzwords that sound good on paper. Meanwhile, the guitar has this erratic, quick build before an immediate halt to a slower melody, while whips are heard in the background. The drums, though they often are, sound mechanical as the synth complements with a smattering of beats. Add in that the chorus and verse often sound at odds with each other, and it’s odd how this spoke enough to audiences to make them famous. It could just be that “You must whip it!” is close enough to a rhythmic pattern that it’s considered catchy, but this is only a few steps removed from the beguiling, desolate charm of Gary Numan.
To understand my criticisms, do know that on first blush it’s easy to mistake “It’s Not Right” for something like “Snowball.” Even if the synths are in a different key and playing at a different tempo, there’s not a lot that’s unique enough for me to care. It’s got that reliable subversive charm where everything feels strangely clinical, but I’m not sure what this is really doing. I’m guessing it also sounds like an early version of MIDI files, which was a novelty that I never quite understood.
Maybe it’s because it doesn’t just use the rapid, percussive nature that’s driven the first half of the album, but I am more a fan of “Ton ‘O Love,” which has a jerky beat and a fun vocal performance where he sounds like a cartoon character detailing this story of a man who lost his girl. I am also a fan of how, again, for a pop record that they made to try and keep their contract, they are doing it by making these abrupt idiosyncrasies and stapling them together. It’s the way that just when the melody sounds monotonous, it shifts from fast to slow, allowing for a new style to take over. This is also one of the more “Duty Now For the Future” sounding songs, just because it feels like a winking nod to their days of making cult videos about their built-in world of characters. Given the level of satire on this album, some of the comic elements can seem weird and impersonal, as if the audience isn’t in on the joke. It’s good, but the non-hits aren’t necessarily producing many memorable hidden gems.
Then there’s the title track. “Freedom of Choice” deserves to be mentioned among the very best that Devo has put out, and I think it is that perfect blend of their pop direction with deeper theology. I especially love the bridge where they detail the dog in Ancient Rome picking between two bones. It’s a bit academic while fitting the theme. Another excellent touch is how, despite mostly repeating the title, the larger message is buried in the fadeout where they sing “freedom from choice is what you want.” There are so many small moments that pop, and I can only wish this was bigger than “Whip It” by a country mile.
To finally talk about the drums in greater detail, I love what Alan Myers is doing. It’s not flashy in the typical drummer role. In fact, the electronic sound is dissonant, sounding closer to a clanging noise than familiar cymbals and hi-hats. It’s all that’s heard throughout the opening and, because the transition comes at a very odd time signature, it never loses disorientation. The percussion is its own character in the story, sounding closer to the marching of assimilating troops, backing the more eccentric guitar riffs and wacky synth patterns that appear in the bridge. This is a different kind of hypnotic, and forces one to feel complacent before the warped styling comes across as a perverted patriotic message. Devo was, of course, very much against the conservative push of the upcoming 80s and regularly parodied it. Here, it sounds urgent even at its silliest moments.
The other flagship single that deserves every ounce of love it gets is “Gates of Steel.” Along with dropping the literal mission statement midway through (“the beginning was the end of everything now”), it has this conversation about man’s relationship to machine, asking what reality is. There’s a surprising amount of emotion that’s not often afforded to the band, and creates one of their most existentialist songs to date. It’s a call to be freed of one’s imprisonment, and the way Mothersbaugh sings the verses alongside the guitar is some of the best synchronicity in Devo’s history. There’s a unification that fits along with three clashing melodies that somehow are fragmented in isolation but together make this ethereal piece of clarity. It’s also one of their largest sounding songs and maybe the real track that sounds closest to a sincere pop single. The conclusion is also a nice touch as it takes the typical heightened playing and runs it through their own mechanical worldview before ending not with the familiar clang but a sense of peace.
From here, the album gets a bit muddled. “Cold War” is a fine enough song that mostly sounds like it exists to play with the “love and war” theme. It’s also very coy about mentioning the titular iconography, but it is constantly talking about how the central couple doesn’t owe each other anything. It’s another fun piece of covert commentary that gets lost in the tonal shuffle.
I’m starting to realize the things I like about Devo on this album are things that feel recognizable to their older sound. Even if the jerky pattern of “Don’t You Know” sounds similar enough to “Ton ‘O Luv,” it’s still doing enough originality to keep me engaged. The guitars are more playful and add another odd layer to the chorus that allows for their brand of subversive pop to sound like an erratic, if misguided, tribute to an older style of charting singles. It’s nostalgia without the memories. In fact, it’s strangely too contemplative even to fit that blissful read.
Then there’s “That’s Pep!,” which is taken from an old Grace C. Bostwick poem. The gimmick here feels like it’s mostly designed to use outdated slang over a garage rock riff that’s just as constipated in flow as everything else on the album. It’s one of the more noble standouts, given how bizarre the final two cuts are; it’s another song that gets lost in the shuffle easily. Still, it’s fun to see Devo questioning how ideas can transcend time and reinvent outdated fashion and language to make something appealing.
There’s a lot to like about “Mr. B’s Ballroom.” I enjoy how certain vocals are so dissonant from the rest of the band that it comes across like an old eccentric Speed Racer cartoon. The imagery also recalls the familiar trend of storyteller songs exploring couples who visit dance clubs and have adventures in their social lives. It’s a very docile performance from Mothersbaugh, but it has this enjoyable bounciness that at least makes one invested in his iconography.
I’m a bit perplexed by the closer “Planet Earth,” which comes across as the most political commentary song on the entire album, despite also being the most farcical. Ultimately, this is a look at someone talking to people on the planet and deciding to live there. It comes on the same wavelength as early B-52s and relies on the lyrics embodying alienation to enhance what makes Earth beautiful, but also a land currently suffering a few tragedies. I’m not sure that it’s the most urgent Devo song, but it captures a study of humanity that runs through most of the album and summarizes how this warped modern world must find some way to achieve peace. If nothing else, this is the perfect send-off for a record that’s asking hard questions about the value of choice and why it’s important to never lose that right. I’m also a fan of the bass, which features some of the most erratic melodies on a record full of them.
There are many reasons that “Freedom of Choice” caught on as an album. For starters, it was also the record where the band centered their most iconic image of red energy dome hats, along with a mix of fashion from different generations. The cover is supposed to be a reference to old R&B albums, along with clever nods to American flags bookending the background. There is this sense of order to everything, and the outfits speak to that unity. However, it’s also an ironic counter-messaging to the actual ethos, which is free will. Add in a major hit with “Whip It,” and the band cemented their status as New Wave legacy.
An interesting note is that despite being one of the most creatively ambitious groups from the era, they don’t follow certain tropes when it comes to the average band’s trajectory. Along with releasing eight studio albums between 1978 and 1990 (another in 2010), their hiatus was comparatively short-lived, running from 1991 to 1996. It was said that they watched This Is Spinal Tap (1984) on the tour bus and found it too relatable, so they had to stop. In that time, Mothersbaugh began doing film work through his company Mutato Muzika, which is still operating as of 2026, and most recently found him scoring music for the Pixar hit Hoppers (2026). Nevertheless, he’s racked up a significant amount of noteworthy credits that prove how vital his style remains.
The hiatus ended in 1996 following a series of reasons. The band played a reunion gig at Sundance that year before joining Lollapalooza for a run that was so popular they were invited back. They would also release a video game (you read that right) called “Adventures of the Smart Patrol.” It’s a footnote for a reason, with reviews being very unfavorable. As their career went on, they would branch out in odd ways, whether by touring or creating a Devo-centric equivalent to a Kidz Bop band called Devo 2.0. As of this publication, they’ve recently released a documentary through Netflix and have played the most recent Coachella.
I love Devo. Even if my opinions aren’t always the most flattering here, there’s a lot that makes them stand out among the competition. These may not be my favorite by them, but they’re far from copycats. It’s, at best, straying into odd ideas to see if they can land on something as iconic as their Booji Boy costume. I’m not sure it does. Then again, it has a handful of their greatest hits, and that’s enough for me. It’s short and to the point. Even if it doesn’t land as well as that 1978 album, it does enough right to call for a good time. It’s New Wave to its core, providing love songs that sound like they should be on National Geographic, and have their place in the Top 40. I just hope we can one day get past calling them one-hit wonders.
Coming Up Next: Nick Lowe – “Jesus of Cool” (1978)
Comments
Post a Comment