DEVO “Something For Everybody” reviewed by Rick

DEVO - “Something For Everybody”
By Rick Zeigler

Quick quiz: Name all the rock groups that you can think of that, after a critically and commercially successful career, call it quits for a VERY long period, then re-unite and put out an album of all new material that, while perhaps not equaling their previous peaks, nevertheless is an excellent addition to their canon.
This reviewer can think of only one answer: DEVO, and their new album, Something For Everybody.
Twenty years after their split, and almost forty years after their founding in 1973, the original Devo nucleus of the Mothersbaugh and Casale brothers, along with newly recruited all-star drummer Josh Freese, have returned in excellent form. With a batch of twelve songs that, while not containing anything as insanely catchy as “Whip It” or as unique as many of the songs on their first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo (e.g. the title cut, Satisfaction), Something For Everybody is a consistent pleasure from beginning to end. And true to their nature, Devo maintain their “band as brand” philosophy by having used “fan focus groups” to help select the songs, and even the mixes, presented here. Perhaps the hooky excellence of the album is attributable to the fact that Devo’s main men never really exited the music business. Gerald Casale has worked on music for commercials as well as directing music videos, while Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, as well as Bob Casale, have been heavily involved in producing music for children’s shows, most notably Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and Rugrats, as well as for movies such as those of Wes Anderson. Or perhaps it’s the excellent taste of those focus groups. Or maybe, as the group, itself, states regarding their theory of human-kind’s devolution, “The world is now in sync with Devo”. Whatever the explanation, Something For Everybody is a fine album that does not stint on the hookiness that has always been their trademark. Opener “Fresh” gets things off to a strong start with a superb bassline driving the fast tempo. Loud, cracking snare beats and other percussive “pows” dot the song, as spare lead guitar provide the verse hooks while their trademark synths provide those in the chorus. And there is even a wailing lead guitar poking its head out of the background at the end. “What We Do” comes next, with its swinging mechanized beat (a contradiction that, at their best, Devo has always been able to maintain) and vocal “Yows” punctuating this multi-part pop parfait. The song also lays out their “philosophical” credo, as they sing, “What we do/Is what we do/It’s all the same/There’s nothing new”. Punctuated with a nursery rhyme middle-eight and a call out to cheeseburgers, this is an album highlight. “Please Baby Please” has a great syncopated beat and their trademark electronic bleeps and boops, while “Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man)” is not only catchy as hell, but also contains the immortal hookline, “Don’t tase me, bro,” borrowed from the famed Youtube video of a guy being tasered during a Kerry Town Hall Forum. And that’s only the first four songs. “Later Is Now” demonstrates that Devo can still whip out a grand melody, while “No Place Like Home” has a stately piano carry the chord changes in almost orchestral fashion. While there are a couple of lulls in the songwriting (“Human Rocket,” “Later Is Now”), the overall “hit-rate” of the songs is amazingly high. And sprinkled throughout are wonderful “Devo-isms” such as, “You can’t have a painting/Without the pain”. In sum, there may be no bigger surprise in music this year than the return of Devo in fantastic form. Whether this bodes good or ill for the future of mankind (and for music), only time, and devolution, will tell.

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