Wire in the 80s- C/D?

The A List is a real strong collection of their 80s stuff.

Or their most recent albums, anyone? I saw them at ATP a few years ago, and it was good, but I couldn't really get a sense of whether their new stuff was worth checking out...

the eps are great. i guess the album was too but I didn't buy it since so much of it overlapped with the eps.

"Read & Burn '01" was marvelous. "Send" is a terrible disappointment. Imagine "154"-era drones, with feedback. With typical perversity Wire even omitted some of R & B's best songs (like "I Don't Understand").

I actually prefer The A List (the first 10 tracks) to 154.

The A List is all you need from the 80s.

Both Read & Burn EPs are must haves as far as their recent output goes. Can't really understand what they were trying to achieve with Send.

Hate Bell is a Cup but I LOVE "Ahead," "In Vivo" and "Eardrum Buzz". And "Drill".

The A List is all you need from the 80s.

Both Read & Burn EPs are must haves as far as their recent output goes. Can't really understand what they were trying to achieve with Send.

-- Brooker Buckingham (brooker...), March 11th, 2005.

Send is good as a "summation" of the Read & Burn EPs and I love it as an album. Still dont understand though why they couldnt have just put both EPs on an album instead.

Oh and A-List is great, plus it saves me money on their 80's output!

IBTABA at maximum volume is a wonderful thing.

personal take:

The Ideal Copy / Snakedrill ep: super nice
Bell is a Cup: more than a little boring
IBTABA: they're taking it easy but it sounds GREAT. album version of 'eardrum buzz' is the best.
Manscape: big oops.
The Drill: Actually really very nice and maybe my favorite Mk II album overall
The First Letter: has one catchy song: 'stop'

My favorite He Said solo album is 'Hail', which I didn't know was a Wire solo project when I bought it. It's a really weird pop album, beats every other He Said album by about forty feet and if you like any Wire Mk II it's worth hearing even if you hate things like 'Ambitious' and 'Torch It'

Not totally into Mk III, though my friend says that the LP version of Send is a condensed version that has shards of every track from both EPs cut'n'spliced together, fast like 'chairs missing'... want to hear that.

Classic enough.

The Lp versions of the "Read and Burn" tracks aren't exactly spliced, just edited a little/mixed differently (louder, more aggressive, I think). It rules. It's called "PF456REDUX", not "Send". Has all the RaB tracks.

I'm beginning to believe that after all these years, and my love of Chairs Missing notwithstanding, that It's Beginning To And Back Again that is really Wire at their peak. I barely registered it upon release, my mind was moving on to Stone Roses and MBV and whatever else was around in 1989...I virtually ignored it back then.

I consider it the last truly great thing Wire ever did, aside from one song on those two EP's later...

This revelation warms my heart.