This week's #TuneTuesday theme is #MyGenerationMusic. I was born in April of 1980, and there were SEVERAL great albums that came out that year.
But my top choice for that year has to be DEVO.
Devo released their third record Freedom of Choice in May 1980 with the magical song (and my favorite song on the album) 'Gates of Steel' opening up its second side.
@wendigo hell yeah! That one has their Secret Agent Man cover hahaha - and I see the bonus tracks for it are two of my favorite Devo songs too - "Soo Bawlz" and "Penetration in the Centrefold"
To all the brave university students protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, I see you, I hear you, and I applaud your resolve. Also, please protect yourselves.
It is my duty now for the future to point out that the band DEVO formed in the early 1970s "in response to the failed promise of utopian progress peddled by post-WWII politicians and consumer culture" and amid the turmoil surrounding Vietnam war protests in the US.
The core members of DEVO were friends with two of the four students who were shot by gas-masked National Guardsman at the May 4, 1970, Vietnam war protest on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. Three founding members of the band attended Kent State at that time.
Gerald Casale (co-founder, co-lead vocalist and bass player) said that was "the most DEVO day of his life." The theory that humankind is evolving in reverse. That was the first evidence that hit him square in the gut and the heart and the mind that this was true.
"In the next two years, I realized that the system was rotten to the core. That everything I believed was an illusion."
Now I have my own kid, I downloaded a whole bunch of animated TV shows I used to watch when I was a kid.
One of them is #Rugrats and watching it today, as an adult, there are clearly a lot of things I didn't understand in the show. It still holds up. It's really fun to watch with my daughter.
Often watching these old shows sends me down a rabbit hole of research about the production and I learnt that the soundtrack was made by Mark Mothersbaugh, lead singer of #DEVO (a band, who I also love).
"Whip It" is a song by American #newWave band #Devo from their third studio album #FreedomOfChoice (1980). It is a new wave and #synthpop song that features a #synthesizer, electric guitar, bass guitar, and drums in its instrumentation. The apparently nonsensical lyrics have a common theme revolving around the ability to deal with one's problems by "whipping it". Co-written by bassist #GeraldCasale and lead vocalist #MarkMothersbaugh. https://youtu.be/QDWlNv5XFFM
