Anyone who knows me knows that I’m skeptical of reunions and reunion tours. That’s putting it mildly. More blunt and to the point, reunions (not absolutely, but more often than not) are one big fucking death nail once respectable bands can hang their formerly great legacies on.
History is riddled with bands who have made laughably inept stabs at recapturing former glory through reunion albums and tours. Van Halen could barely fake civility with David Lee Roth when their quickly aborted reunion fell through in 1996. The entirely unnecessary STP reunion came together for the right price, but its clear they still hate each other. And I have only the slightest bit of fleeting hope that this Soundgarden reunion will recapture even a faint twinkle of the grunge giants’ former greatness.
But then there are those few that manage to do it right, and there have been a few in recent years. It started with the likes of the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr, followed by the blockbuster news that Pavement are reuniting for festival dates and a US tour. Good stuff to be sure, but they’ve all got nothing on what has become the most surprising and awe striking reunion success story of 2010. That honor belongs solely has to Devo.
If you had asked me three or four years ago if I ever though Devo would get a second wind, I would have answered no outright without hesitation. A Devo reunion to me carried as much relevance as Adam and the Ants or the Thompson Twins reforming. They could, but where’s the demand? “Whip It” was such an inescapable and ubiquitous piece of the early 80’s pop music landscape that it seemed impossible for them to escape being seen as anything more than a novelty, a buzz band forever tied to one really big song that captured the zeitgeist of a musical era long passed. Devo reforming in 2010 would be like Robert DeNiro waking from his coma in Awakenings. They’re alive and rejuvenated, but how do they adapt and fit in?
But it’s coming together in a big way. Fresh off the release of their first new album in 20 years, Something For Everybody, the buzz around the band can’t be denied. This week alone they’ve appeared on the Colbert Report, Jimmy Kimmel Live and even Regis and Kelly. They’ve gotten strong reviews thus far from the likes of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. They’ve locked down prime spots on both the Coachella and Lollapalooza main stages. As odd as it sounds, Devo are right now a hot commodity, something they barely were on a mainstream level even during their 70s-80s heyday. But why? What gives?
More than anything else, the band appears to owe its resurgence to timing. We’re in the throws of a pop culture era that embraces irony and idiosyncracy to an obnoxious degree, so by that measure alone the Devo second coming would appear to work. Devo have always been oddities, proverbial square pegs in round holes. They’re cerebral and high minded, using its music as an extended thesis on how humans are creatures of convenience and are in a continuing state of devolution. Their image, from the matching haz mat suits to the legendary energy domes, further established them as curious outsiders, as did their stage shows, which included robotic-like choreography that further played on their overall worldview of a modern world cultivated by mindless drones and automotons. They’re quirky and weird, but quirky and weird work these days. In the Pitchfork driven, indie cool world we live in, Devo are seen as trendsetting elder statesmen.
All one has to do is take a look around to see the band’s influence on today’s generation of musicians. The Hot Chips, LCD Soundsystems and Girl Talks of the world owe unavoidable debts to what Devo were doing almost 30 years ago, something LCD’s James Murphy and other bands like the Black Keys have gone on record repeatedly about.
It just goes to show that every dog has its day. For years Devo has been resigned and marginalized to the realm of cult heroes, just a little too smart and maybe gimmicky for long term mass consumption. U2 they are not, but their resurgence stands as continued proof that good music done with the right amount of ingenuity and intelligence will always get its day in the sun, even if its a second chance.
RB
