87. Wire - Pink Flag

Wire was one of those bands where I didn't know what to make of them. Were they punk? It seemed like it sometimes, but sometimes I felt like the music was too rich to be punk. Punk was stripped down, bare bones. Wire was full on sound, rich and deep, though Pink Flag is more punk-ish than the rest of their catalog.

There was a distinct weirdness to this album, an underlying current of strangeness that would stay with me long after I listened to it. There was a certain manic feel present in the music, a subversiveness that a lot of the early punk rock was missing, or was manufacturing. Wire had not a Sex Pistols "look how bad we are" image, but a real, authentic subversiveness about them that was embedded in the music.

I haven't listened to this album in so long until right now and it's even better than I remember it.

Favorite song: Strange
Minor Threat cover of 12XU
New Bomb Turks awesome cover of Mr. Suit