Oh, No! It's Devo is the fifth studio album by Devo. By the time of its 1982 release, Devo were a fully-fledged synth-pop act. Most of the music on Oh, No! was created by electronic means which gave it a much different sound to, for example, their 1978 debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, which relied more on guitars than synthesizers. This alienated some fans despite the band stating since at least 1978 that their goal was to "de-emphasize" guitars. The album was produced with 'big name' producer Roy Thomas Baker, who had famously worked with Queen, The Cars, and many others. In recent interviews, Devo's Gerald V. Casale has said that some music critics in the early 1980s had referred to the band as "fascists" and "clowns," and that Oh, No! It's Devo was the band's direct response to that. [1]
The song "I Desire" brought the band controversy because the lyrics were taken from a poem written by John Hinckley, Jr. (the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in a bid to impress actress Jodie Foster). "Big Mess" was inspired by a series of letters sent by the personality "Cowboy Kim", believed to be schizophrenic. The original letters are in the possession of Devo fan Michael Pilmer.[2]
Devo took on another new look for this album, wearing black t-shirts and slacks with white "Spud Ring" collars. In concert these were augmented with Energy Domes, and the New Traditionalists shirt and ascot uniforms for part of the performance.
Promotional music videos
Devo produced three music videos for the album, "Time Out For Fun", "Peek-A-Boo!", and "That's Good". All three videos eschewed Devo's previous narrative style for a basic performance against a bluescreen background displaying related visuals to the song. This was intended to replicate the band's intention for the tour to those who would be unable to attend. The video for That's Good ran into censorship troubles on MTV. The juxtaposition of the image of the french fry and donut with a writhing, smiling nude woman, shot from the neck up, was considered too risque for airplay.
Tour
Devo's tour for the album replicated the look in the videos for at least the first half of the concert. Seven songs from the album were performed against a 12 foot, rear-projected background which presented synchronized video. In several songs, members of the band interacted with the visuals, such as being kicked down by a giant pirate at the end of "Peek-A-Boo", or shooting icons of unsynchronized dancing girls in "Out of Sync".
The first show of the tour, October 30th, 1982 at the Warner Beverly Hills Theater in Beverly Hills, California, was filmed and transmitted live in 3-D to college campuses around the country. It was billed as 3-DEVO, and featured Wall of Voodoo as an opening act. However, this performance was marred by technical mishaps. The film went out of sync with the backing track during "Speed Racer", forcing the band to abandon the performance of "Big Mess". Mark's radio microphone cut out during "Out of Sync", and he performed the rest of the first set with Bob Motherbaugh's microphone. In the second half of the show, the 3-D effects were ineffective, and the band attacked the company providing the video twice, once during "Jocko Homo" with a series of cheap 3-D tricks by Mothersbaugh, and a rant during "Beautiful World" delivered by Booji Boy. This concert was the only time Devo performed the song "Explosions" live.
The 3-DEVO concert was later rebroadcast in a severely edited form on Pay-Per-View television, making sure to omit the snide remarks, and the technical gaffes. Both versions are available as bootlegs, and several audio recordings of the tour exist in varying quality.
Track listing
- All Tracks written by Casale/Mothersbaugh except where noted.
- Time Out for Fun – 2:48
- Peek-A-Boo! – 3:01
- Out of Sync – 3:34
- Explosions – 3:01
- That's Good – 3:23
- Patterns – 2:57
- Big Mess – 2:42
- Speed Racer (Mothersbaugh) – 2:38
- What I Must Do – 2:34
- I Desire (Casale/Hinckley/Mothersbaugh) – 3:13
- Deep Sleep – 3:24
- In 1995, Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings reissued a remastered version of this album on CD with six bonus tracks: the "Peek-A-Boo!" b-side "Find Out," the previously unreleased "Part Of You," two 12" remixes of "Peek-A-Boo!" and, curiously, two remixes of "Here To Go" (even though the song was from 1984).
Credits
- Annerose Bucklers - Background vocals (11)
- Gordon Fordyce - Engineer
- Erik Arnesen - Cover photography
- DEVO INC. - Graphic concept
- Rick Seireeni - Art direction
- "Spudring" manufactured by Brent Scrivner
Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)
| Year |
Chart |
Position |
| 1982 |
Pop Albums |
47 |
