Wire in the 80s - Classic Or Dud?

Never been able to get that into a whole album by 80s Wire/Wir but several tracks are excellent: "A Serious Of Snakes", "Ahead", "Kidney Bingos", "The Point Of Collapse", "You Hung Your Lights In The Trees". They did that quite-indie, quite-difficult-to-do thing of singing lyrics which seemed to have minimal literal meaning and making them high-impact, even if the impact was always pretty much the same i.e. tense, blocky menace. Matched the music though.

The Ahead 12" is the record to get, I'd say.

I haven't listened to Ideal Copy in ages. I should probably have gone with my instincts and recognized the suckage.

There's no disputing that the 70's albums are monumentally great, though.

Haven't heard "Eardrum Buzz" in about five years, but from memory it was a *fantastic* pop single.

Sounds a bit like New Order, yes, but especially if NO was covering Joy Division. The more synth-happy they got, the creepier they became.

And Fischerspooner. Oh, boy. A multi-media performance troop that looks like refugees from the "Wild Boys" video shoot. (They list costume designers and makeup artists as members of the "group".) Their version of "The 15th" sounds just like Wire's version. JUST LIKE. (Nice website, though. Unless you're trying to find out anything about their record.)

Looks like too much PoMo RoMo posing for me - as far as the music goes, I'll take the reclusive & recursive studio synth stylings of Mr. Trevor Kampmann, AKA hollAnd, thanks.

I even like most of "Manscape"... though parts of it got a little too overdramatic. Graham Lewis was certainly the Klingon of the band, and whenever his songs started, the lights dimmed, the spotlight came on, and along came the DARK ARIA OF LEWIS! Boy, that got tiring after a while.

The videos for "Ahead" and "Silk Skin Paws" were great though.

Destroy the song "Ambitious" (sorry, Graham), and Wir.

And I forgive Lewis because most of HE SAID was quite good, although it could have dated a little better.

'jutting jaws/and the stubble burns...'

Didn't she ask them, "what kind of a name is (whirr) anyway?"

overall not nearly as good as the early and solo stuff, though
(the later singles are mostly just awful)
late-80's Wire fans are mostly American nerds on loan from R.E.M. (ouch!)

AC Marias - One Of Our Girls Has Gone Missing is better late (Gilbert-) Wire.
bring back Angela Conway!

For posterity, the Wire live on Suzanne Somers show, 1987.

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Hmm, let me try:

"hitting the top of the music charts" LOL

Wow -- great version! I used to think Graham Lewis was hawt; then the mullet happened.

It's something.

And yeah, the thing about the clip aside from obvious context/interview roffles is how spectacularly good it all sounds -- I've read a couple of comments on a similar clip elsewhere from people saying it was seeing this on the original broadcast that was something of a life-changer, at least in terms of 'you mean there's other kinds of music out there?'

I'm not sure how Wire could have bettered that performance.

I've read a couple of comments on a similar clip elsewhere from people saying it was seeing this on the original broadcast that was something of a life-changer, at least in terms of 'you mean there's other kinds of music out there?'

This happened in late '88 when I saw Robert Palmer on Arsenio Hall's show, and after he played the Heavy Nova tubthumpers he busts out with "Looking For Clues."

re-playing "the drill" for the first time in abt 20 years and loving it tbh -- reminds me more of early depeche mode than i expected

I remember.. I remember ...

schnake

"Manscape" has grown on me over the years. Some duff bits but some really strong tracks like "Torch It".

I finally picked up a copy of "A Bell is a Cup" a month or so back but I feel like I've known it my whole life. It's... the ideal copy, er, original of a huge swath of my listening.

Kidney Bingos should have been a hit.

^this

"Eardrum Buzz" nearly was.

Just been listening to IBTABA (which remains a beautiful wintery sort of album, a live album with all the "live recording" touchstones remixed out of it, leaving beautiful ghostly crowd noises in a weird studio emptiness) and decided to give "(A Chicago) Drill - Live" from The Drill a spin... it made me so happy, you can tell how much fun they are having playing this bizarre track they've done endless variations of.

I don't think Colin Newman was having much fun with it. "One of Bruce's" he dismissed it as.

"The Drill" is relatively unessential but still a fun listen. They sure bent, twisted and otherwise mangled the song into lots of different sounds!

I don't buy it, they sound exuberant on that live recording, even Colin

If he didn't think of it, he doesn't like it, seems to be the, er, drill.

DRILL DRILL DRILL

I was referring to "The Drill" remix album. The original song is an all-time monster.

DUGGA DUGGA DUGGA

(xp) So was I.

it is also fun to imagine him standing there glumly on stage repeating "drill drill drill" while the rest of the band goes nuts all around him.

surprised at all the dislike at the top of this thread. sure manscape was kind of eh but the rest? top notch.

I've posted this before but it bears repeating, some sort of weird live jam remix of an Erasure track by Wir(e) with next to no Erasure content (irony) and it is bloody marvellous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RJPizlCrI8

Someone on this board posted in 2005 and I spent a week listening to it.

lol at the credits

Fingers & Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day) (Figures In Crumbs (Wire Remix))

Bass – Graham Lewis
Engineer – Paul Mysiak
Guitar – Bruce Gilbert, Colin Newman
Mixed By – Erasure, Gareth Jones, Wire
Programmed By [Drums & Sequence] – Vince Clarke
Vocals, Other [Concept] – Andy Bell

I think Manscape was one of the first half-dozen CDs that I owned, so I gave it a lot of spins despite not loving it... it never occurred to me that it wasn't a good record. I made early use of my CD player's ability to repeat one track with "You Hung Your Lights in the Trees/A Craftsman's Touch".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra96xqZuyLA

okay 1990 but w/e

Colin Newman shaking his mop top!

Is this Wire or Wir?

I don't see Robert, this is the Manscape tour, the ticket at the start says Wire tho'

If it's Manscape it's Wire. But, yes, Robert could probably have stayed at home.

I'd given up on them by this stage but I saw them a lot in the 80s and thought they were great live - much better than on record. A trifle disheartening therefore to read the Wire biography and find out Colin Newman thought they were shit.

(xp) Apparently he did stay at home, in fact he quit just before the tour - a tour where the rest of the band didn't want him playing drums anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

"kidney bingos" is a song i've known over half of my life and it is still one of the most confounding things i've ever heard.

when trembling blue stars covered it, i was somehow even more creeped out, but it still manages to be an irresistible bop-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9hMLBzs0j0
trembling blue stars - "kidney bingos" (2011)

p cool song i reckon. good beat, u can dance 2 it

Sometimes I wonder if A Bell is a Cup Until It Is Struck is the best Wire album.

It's been noted that Elastica redid (?) "Kidney Bingos" as "Nothing Stays the Same", right?

is there anything more wistful than the kidney bingos outro

my long-held assumption is that 'kidney bingos' is a reference to the idea of there being a 'postcode lottery' for health care provision in the UK i.e. your access to certain services or treatments depends on where you live

never really tried to decipher the verses before but they're cut-up 80s uk media stories afaict

Sometimes I wonder if A Bell is a Cup Until It Is Struck is the best Wire album.

God, no.

It’s great, but I wouldn’t say best. It took me years to realize that ‘80s Wire were almost great too, just different. I like Manscape even! The First Letter is not so hot, though.

-almost-

Much prefer The First Letter to Manscape tbh.

is there anything more wistful than the kidney bingos outro

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel),

My favorite Graham Lewis vocal performance too.

Much prefer The First Letter to Manscape tbh.

They're about equally modestly underrated. Manscape is cluttered and busy, with occasionally gripping textures; the first letter is cleaner and clearer and actually has some hooks.

My favorite Graham Lewis vocal performance too.

The coda of this song was possibly the highlight when I saw them in 2011.

I prefer the minimalism of their 90s output