Wire (1)

Product Details

* Audio CD (July 1, 1993)
* Original Release Date: 1977
* Number of Discs: 1
* Label: Restless Records
* Catalog Number: 72360
* ASIN: B000003BGK
* In-Print Editions: Audio CD
* Average Customer Review: based on 40 reviews. (Write a review.)
* Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,512 in Music (See Top Sellers in Music)
Yesterday: #19,623 in Music

Listen to Samples
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1. Reuters Listen Listen
2. Field Day For The Sundays Listen
3. Three Girl Rhumba Listen Listen
4. Ex Lion Tamer Listen Listen
5. Lowdown Listen Listen
6. Start To Move Listen
7. Brazil Listen
8. It's So Obvious Listen
9. Surgeon's Girl Listen
10. Pink Flag Listen
11. The Commercial Listen
12. Straight Line Listen
13. 106 Beats That Listen
14. Mr. Suit Listen
15. Strange Listen
16. Fragile Listen
17. Mannequin Listen
18. Different To Me Listen
19. Champs Listen
20. Feeling Called Love Listen
See all 22 tracks on this disc
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Wire's debut is the smartest record of the '77 punk explosion, a formally seamless suite of 21 songs in 35 minutes, edited to the bone and graced with allusive, thoughtful lyrics, howled by Colin Newman like political slogans. The band's crisp, precise snap gets an awful lot of mileage out of their three-and-a-half chords, and their attack never lets up. The album's minimal structures and snarly guitar sound are still hugely influential ("12XU" has been covered many times, and Elastica's "Connection" is basically a rewrite of "Three Girl Rhumba"), and its sequence is so perfect that the band that opened for Wire on their reunion tour ten years later simply played Pink Flag straight through, including between-song pauses. --Douglas Wolk

Product Description
Classic 1977 debut album for British punk act. Includes 2 bonus tracks 'Dot Dash' & 'Options R'. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
EMI Import version far superior to Restless Retro edition!, September 13, 2002
Reviewer: C. Burkhalter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Its an indisputable fact that "Pink Flag" is a crucial piece of punk history, and even a crucial piece of the history of pop music in general. "Pink Flag" is an album almost any punk enthusiast should love, and one that even non-punks should be able to get into. The film-intellectuals-meet-minimal-composers-meet-Ramones-fans formula is unique (or was until half the bands in the world began showing the "Pink Flag" influence) and still thrilling. "Pink Flag" is without a doubt the spunkiest album of Wire's catalog, and an ideal starting place for recent Wire converts. I feel swell after swell of pop excitement at the openings of each of the album's better songs (which there are plenty of), and none of the tracks are anything close to dull. I imagine Wire take some criticism from the more staunchly political punk sects, because there is nothing *overtly* political here (which is not to say that "Pink Flag" is without socio-political critique), but that's never stopped me from loving this album, and I spend most of my time listening to The Ex. But enough about why "Pink Flag" is such a fantastic album. There are already enough highly intelligent discussions of Wire's virtues here, written by reviewers who know a good deal more about Wire than I do, and I will defer to them on those issues.

Mainly I want to explain why you should buy the EMI import version (available here on Amazon[.com], and not badly priced) of this flawless album instead of the Restless Retro version. First of all, the EMI import has one more bonus track than the Restless edition does, and its a really good song. But more importantly, the Restless edition plays at such a faint volume level that I found it tough to enjoy. The sound quality is fine, but its very, very, quiet. If you want to, I dunno, "rock out" at home, you hafta jack up the volume til the CD sounds distorted and fuzzy, and the music gets muddled by that white noise hum/hiss you get when you turn up stereos to high. On headphones its okay - unless you want to go outside and, oh I dunno, ride in a car or bus, or walk near traffic or in densely populated areas. It gets to be very frustrating. The EMI edition has none of these problems, sounds great, and has that enticing bonus track; put your money on this one.… (más)

Wire 25 October 1978 Bradford University, Bradford, England Soundboard > ? > Cassette > wav > CDR > EAC Secure > FLAC Frontend 1. Indirect Enquiries 2. Men 2nd 3. Lowdown 4. On Returning 5. Being Sucked In Again 6. I Feel Mysterious Today 7. The Other Window 8. Mutual Friend 9. Former Airline 10. Mercy 11. Stepping Off Too Quick 12. Strange 13.Another The Letter 14. Sand In My Joints 15. French Film Blurred 16. Ignorance No Plea [I Should Have Known Better] 17. Practice Makes Perfect 18. 106 Beats That 19. Reuters… (más)