hypersongs

Pink Flag

Twenty-one songs in 35 minutes, the debut.
Wire, 1977

Mike Thorne produced, Paul Hardiman engineered and Ken Thomas assisted. Newman sang and played guitar, Gilbert played guitar, Lewis bass and Gotobed drums, with Kate Lukas on flute on "Strange", Dave Oberle on backing vocals on "Mannequin" and Thorne on piano. DeRogatis wrote in 2003 that the band had written and discarded an album's worth of material, and Thorne said they had not learned to tune guitars on entering Advision; it was largely recorded live with guitar overdubs. Later reissues credit the music to Newman and the lyrics to Lewis, unlike the original four-way credit. AllMusic's Steve Huey called it perhaps the most original debut album of British first-wave punk; Christgau called it a punk suite in 1978, and Rolling Stone ranked it 412th in 2012 and 310th in 2020. It was reissued in 2006 and 2018, the latter with mono mixes, and is in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Track listing

  1. Reuters3:03
  2. Field Day for the Sundays0:28
  3. Three Girl Rhumba1:23
  4. Ex Lion Tamer2:19
  5. Lowdown2:26
  6. Start to Move1:13
  7. Brazil0:41
  8. It's So Obvious0:53
  9. Surgeon's Girl1:17
  10. Pink Flag3:45
  11. The Commercial0:49
  12. Straight Line0:44
  13. 106 Beats That1:12
  14. Mr. Suit1:25
  15. Strange3:59
  16. Fragile1:18
  17. Mannequin2:37
  18. Different to Me0:43
  19. Champs1:46
  20. Feeling Called Love1:28
  21. 12 X U1:57

More from Wire

Chairs Missing (1978), 154 (1979), Document And Eyewitness (1981), Comeback In Two Halves (Everybody Wants Some History) (1987), The Ideal Copy (1987), A Bell Is A Cup... Until It Is Struck (1988), It's Beginning To And Back Again (1989), Manscape (1990), The Drill (1991), Send (2003), Honi Soit (2003), The Scottish Play: 2004 (2005), Object 47 (2008), Red Barked Tree (2010), 01 Dec 1987 The Town & Country, London (2010), 25 Oct 1978 Bradford University (2010), 08 Dec 2000 Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (2010), 19 Apr 2002 Fleece & Firkin, Bristol (2010), 21 Jul 1988 Astoria, London (2010), 12 Nov 1978, SO36, Berlin (2011), 02 May 2000 Great American, San Francisco (2011), 17 Dec 1985 Paradiso, Amsterdam (2011), Change Becomes Us (2013), 09 August 2009 Off Festival, Myslowice (2013), 10 Nov 1979 Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre, London (2013), 12 July 1991 Mean Fiddler, London (2013), 12 June 1987 Maxwell's, Hoboken (2013), 21 May 1990 Hibernian, London (2013), 04 April 2011 WFMU, Jersey City - 13 April 2011 KEXP, Seattle (2013), 17 February 1978 West Runton Pavilion, Cromer (2013), 05 March 1979 Carre, Amsterdam (2013), 23 February 2000 Nottingham Social (Recycling Sherwood Forest) (2013), 19 July 1979 Notre Dame Hall, London (2014), 09 March 1979 Pavilion, Montreux (2014), Wire (2015), Nocturnal Koreans (2016), Mind Hive (2020), 10:20 (2020)

Sources

  1. Pink Flag, Wikipedia
  2. Great albums: Pink Flag, Jim DeRogatis (2003)