Bob Casale (Bob2 of Devo) has died

[uwe]

What is the conventional forum wisdom on their best album? I ordered a Best of, but Best ofs can only take you that far. Their Sgt. Pepper, meine Herren?

[slinkp]

There are several compilation albums. I had "Greatest Misses", which had some brilliant stuff on it (and not the songs people knew from radio and video).

The debut album is definitely worth getting; it was pretty radical stuff for the time.  As a kid I had (wrongly) dismissed them as a purely visual gimmick with maybe a few interesting songs; when I heard that entire album from beginning to end, I came away amazed by how distinctive and creative it was.

I'm gonna have to go get some of the other ones....

[Dave W]

Devo was one of those bands a lot of people just didn't get back in the day. If you did, though, there was nothing else like 'em.

[gweimer]

Devo put out an album a few years back and they are as fresh as ever...no pun intended...and there's a little more guitar up front.

[ramone57]

What is the conventional forum wisdom on their best album? I ordered a Best of, but Best ofs can only take you that far. Their Sgt. Pepper, meine Herren?

for me it's a hard call, any or all of these:

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Duty Now for the Future

Freedom of Choice

New Traditionalists

[gearHed289]

Devo put out an album a few years back and they are as fresh as ever...no pun intended...and there's a little more guitar up front.

I saw a clip of them from one of the Lollapaloozas a few years back, and they were sounding fierce. Like an older, crankier DEVO with oscillators turned up to 11. 

[chromium]

What is the conventional forum wisdom on their best album? I ordered a Best of, but Best ofs can only take you that far. Their Sgt. Pepper, meine Herren?

for me it's a hard call, any or all of these:

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Duty Now for the Future

Freedom of Choice

New Traditionalists

My favs are also Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and New Traditionalists. 

The latter is more synth and drum-machine oriented, and lyrics are deeper, more cynical. 

[Dave W]

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and Freedom Of Choice for me.

I realize they're still around and occasionally touring, but people still go see them based on their 70s and 80s output.

[saltymonkey]

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and Freedom Of Choice for me.

My favorites too. I'll actually never forget listening to Are We Not Men for the first time on the day it came out. It blew me away and changed the way I thought about music. As I recall there was LSD involved which I'm sure enhanced the overall experience but we played the album several times in a row to try and wrap our heads around what they were doing. Ahhh good times….There are two Rhino double disc sets that are pretty great too. Recombo DNA is demos, rough mixes and alternate takes. It's really good. It's a leaner more stripped down Devo. Devo as more of a rock band if you will. Pioneers Who Got Scalped is an anthology but has a bunch of singles versions of songs. It's a great collection for the uninitiated or a big fan. I've played them both alot on long road trips. Devo's one of my favorite driving bands.

[uwe]

I know have their debut, a Live CD and a Greatest Hits compilation. Devolution commence!

[uwe]

I heard the compilation now and was surprised how accessible their stuff is - I thought they were more a labor of love to get into, a lot of the stuff is outright poppy and reminds me of The Sparks.

[slinkp]

They got poppy at times for sure. Listen to the debut and try to imagine it in the context of 1978... that was not so poppy

[uwe]

But 77/78 was Punk heyday and emerging New Wave, you could get away with a lot back then! Granted, the US took a little while to catch on, so it was a brave debut. I wouldn't be surprised though if the Devo guys had more Roxy Music and King Crimson LPs in their collections than Foghat and Grand Funk Railroad! And maybe even some Krautrock electronica.

I have a penchant for quirky stuff so maybe it's not that testing on me. I like music that demands attention.

[saltymonkey]

But most punk and new wave was still pretty underground in 77/78. You certainly couldn't find it in every record store outside of major cities. Devo was on a major label, in every record store, with radio airplay. They were on another planet as far as readily accessible mainstream music was concerned. I remember it very well. They were definitely an eye opener.

[slinkp]

They were also from Akron, Ohio.  Not a hotbed of the avant garde