Pink Flag - Wire (1977)

This is the first record from a band that has had a long and varied career. I wish I knew more about them, but I’ve never started digging into their work in detail. My surface impression is that they started as a punk band, and then began to knock the interior walls down and renovate, building something that the other punks of the late 70s weren’t really doing. A big part of that seems to come from the fact that, while they’re more accomplished musicians than a lot of their peers, they also have a wide-ranging vision for what they wanted to do and what their music should sound like. This vision is really what sets them apart from their peers from the start. And while they’d change sounds over and over again, this first album shows the process and the inventiveness that would be their hallmark.

Unlike a lot of other UK punks (um, looking at you, Sex Pistols), Wire already had a great sense of songcraft by 1977. They clearly have some familiarity with everything from The Who and The Troggs to Springsteen and T Rex. They have a sense of dynamics, and build tracks up gradually to big crescendos.

So yes, it’s attitude-heavy, snarling UK punk, but it’s also more than that.

Tracks I Liked

Three Girl Rhumba - great tune, if too short

Lowdown - a slow burner that sounds like Springsteen or Patti Smith

Strange - I knew the REM version from Document for years before I found out it wasn’t an REM song