Duty Now for the Future

Duty Now for the Future
Studio album by Devo
Released	July 1979 (1979-07)
Recorded	1979 (1979)
Genre	New Wave
Length	38:56
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Ken Scott
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Robert Christgau (B−) link Rolling Stone (very negative) link
Devo chronology
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978) Duty Now for the Future (1979) Freedom of Choice (1980)
Alternate cover
International cover

Duty Now for the Future was the second album by United States New Wave band Devo, released in 1979 (see 1979 in music). It was on the Billboard charts for 10 weeks, peaking at #73.

The "Devo Corporate Anthem" music and video are a nod to the 1975 film Rollerball, in which games are preceded by players and audience standing solemnly while listening to a regional corporate anthem.

"Secret Agent Man" is a cover (with modified lyrics) of the song by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri and performed by Johnny Rivers in 1965.

"Devo Corporate Anthem" and "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise" videos were featured on the collection The Complete Truth About De-Evolution.

The "Secret Agent Man" video was featured in the film The Truth about De-Evolution as an early document that was originally titled "The Beginning was the End" along with videos for "Jocko Homo" and other random Devo shorts and information.

The majority of the songs on the album had been performed in Devo's live set as early as 1976 or 1977.

Reception

It was received less enthusiastically than their first release; Dave Marsh, writing in Rolling Stone, condemns it completely, feeling that "inspired amateurism works only when the players aspire to something better." ^[1] The Allmusic review, written more than a decade later, takes a longer view. Reviewer Mark Deming writes that "their second album captures the group in the midst of a significant stylistic shift" while acknowledging that the song "'Triumph of the Will' embraces fascism as a satirical target without bothering to make it sound as if they disapprove." ^[2]

Cultural Significance

A seminal New Wave synthpop album, Duty Now for the Future was eventually heralded as one of the first pop/rock or AOR releases of a major record label to rely almost entirely on synthesizers, which went on to be widely used in the subsequent, heavily–synthesized New Wave genre of the 1980s. As an offshoot of Punk Rock, New Wave music had consisted primarily of guitar-based songs derived from traditional Rock and Roll and Blues scales and riffs, as represented by Devo's punk contemporaries The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash.

Legendary Punk Rock icon Henry Rollins is among the many musicians that praise the album's innovations. Rollins' short-lived Infinite Zero reissue label (an offshoot of American Recordings) was responsible for the first U.S. CD release of Duty Now for the Future in 1994. The album had been continually overlooked by original label Warner Brothers.

US Cover Art

Featuring two sides almost completely covered with the album’s Uniform Product Code (UPC bar code), the artwork of the US release was intended to satirize the new requirements for compliance with the IBM UPC proposal circa 1979. Until that time, album covers were seen as an entire art form unto themselves. Consequently, the new mandates for UPC codes splashed across every work of album art were a subject of much protest as an infringement upon artistic integrity and an Orwellian symbol of the impersonal modern age.

Track listing

Note: On the original LP album release, side one comprised tracks 1-7; side two tracks 8-13.^[3]

Compact disc releases

• The 1993 UK CD issue on Virgin paired this album with New Traditionalists and included Devo's cover of Allen Toussaint's "Working in the Coal Mine" from the movie Heavy Metal that was included in the original LP album release of New Traditionalists. The final album track was refered to as "Redeye Express".

• The 1995 (copyright 1994) US CD issue on Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings (the first American version on CD) came with two bonus tracks: the "Secret Agent Man" single b-side "Soo Bawlz" (written by Mark Mothersbaugh) and the Brian Eno-produced "Penetration in the Centrefold," (written by G.V. Casale and M. Mothersbaugh), originally the B-side of the UK release of "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize."

• The 2005 remastered re-issue on Collectables includes no bonus tracks and incorrectly calls the last track "Red Eye Express" (after the chorus).

• In 2008, the album was digitally remastered and released as part of the box set This is the Devo Box in Japan.

Personnel

• Mark Mothersbaugh – guitar, keyboards, vocals
• Gerald V. Casale – bass, keyboards, vocals
• Bob Mothersbaugh – guitar, vocals
• Bob Casale – guitar, keyboards, vocals
• Alan Myers – drums

Technical personnel

• Ken Scott – producer, engineer
• Bernie Grundman – mastering engineer

Trivia

• The song "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize" was covered by American rock band Spinnerette as a b-side on their 2009 single "Baptized by Fire".

Notes