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***Usually contextualised against a backdrop of 2 years of the growing cultural importance of punk rock-- Wire's debut Pink Flag, released in December 1977 on EMI's progressive label "Harvest" was in fact was something "other". To the keen cultural commentator the timing and label of its release will register two essential facts about it. Firstly, too late (a year after the Pistol's debut release) to be part of UK punk's first flush and secondly that the band were signalling something beyond punk by their choice of label. Further investigation would reveal 21 tracks, some of them clocking in at well under a minute and covering a range of tempii well beyond the buzzsaw rockabilly that had become, even by the 2nd half of 1977, punk's staple. Wire in fact proposed a form of expression which drew on formal structures taken from historic styles of rock & pop (including punk) but somehow subverted those structures by maintaining a sense of controlled distance from the form. A kind of modernist deconstructed rock made in what seemed at the time to be an almost mechanically precise way . Reviewers were quick to point up the differences between Wire & their contemporaries "Wire strike a marvellous course mechanical vein. No solos, just robot rhythm guitar, robot bass, robot drums and robot singer" wrote the NME in a typical series of back handed compliments which has the reviewer nervous of the "awkwardness" in the styling yet won over by the tunes. In fact some of the UK music press were not slow recognise the album's potential for a longevity the band, even in their wildest fantasies, could not have predicted. "The album has a scale and feel of its own-- totally unique. I can't recommend it enough. It's not like anything you've heard and it'll leave its mark for a long time" write Dave Fudger in Sounds. As a "new wave" band signed to a major label Wire were one of the very few contemporary Brit bands to see national US release. Whereas a British music fan would be spoiled for choice for new bands to choose from those in the US who did not have access to import stores were very limited in their choices regarding the new sound from the UK. Pink Flag began a process of seeping into US alternative culture through the process of national availability and a sound that was at least somewhat new to US ears compared to its UK contemporaries. It took a while for this to work through but by the early 80's Wire's minimalist approach had been taken up as a major influence on the US hardcore scene in LA, DC and Chicago. It seemed that the innately oppositional nature of Wire's rock deconstruction was more profoundly subversive amongst a nation of Rock Orthodoxy. Whereas the Ramones on their debut had joyously reduced rock history to a kind of 3 chord bubblegum speedcore the aim had been to celebrate and re-enforce rock's history and orthodoxies, Pink Flag had less charitable designs on the body rock and the hardcore guys innately knew it. A wave of influence spread through the US 80's indie scene starting with Black Flag and Mission of Burma and spreading through Big Black and on out to the likes of REM and the Pixies. This took Pink Flag's iconic afterlife well into late 80's. Then the influence shifted back to the UK. While the Americans saw Pink Flag as deconstructed rock a new generation of Brits were to receive it as deconstructed, critical pop. The Britpop boom of the 90's saw Wire in general and Pink Flag in particular held up as an influence and more on bands who were hugely popular. While Blur and Oasis slugged it out in 60's revival territory Menswear and most famously Elastica were mining seams of pure Wire. In the way those things work while the majority didn't know that "Connection" or the theme from Trigger Happy TV were direct steals from Pink Flag's "3 girl rumba" the cogniscenti of another generation could knowingly muse on the Wire connection. Songs from Pink Flag have received covers versions from an impressive list of artists across every musical generation since the mid 70's. The album has been cited by countless artists as an inspiration and source, making many a thoughtful music magazine's all time lists. Amongst other things it has also been the subject of a conceptual prank performance by the Ex-Lion Tamers and stands iconic as the blueprint for art house rock. "a direct expression of the determinedly enquiring, art school sensibility in England" wrote Michael Bracewell in Art Review, May 2005, nearly 28 years after the album's initial release. The magazine simply describing Wire as "the Art world's favourite band" |
