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Pink Flag

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Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [4]
Pitchfork Media(10.0/10) [5]
Robert Christgau(A) [6]

Pink Flag is the first album by the band Wire, released in 1977. Upon its release, Robert Christgau called it a "punk suite" and praised its "simultaneous rawness and detachment" and detected a rock-and-roll irony similar to but "much grimmer and more frightening" than the Ramones.[7] Trouser Press called it "a brilliant 21-song suite" in which the band "manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy, coming up with a collection of unforgettable tunes".[8] Although the album was released to critical acclaim,[9] it was not a big seller. Today the album is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest albums of all time.[10][11][12][13][14] Music journalist, Stuart Maconie, described it as "by the standards of the time it was extraordinary. But I now realise that by the standards of any time, it's extraordinary".[15] The album was listed at number 410 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.[16]

The sleeve concept is credited to B.C. Gilbert and Graham Lewis. The cover is a photo by Annette Green of a flagless flagpole with the pink flag painted on.

Influence

The album's wide-ranging influence is exemplified in the number of bands that have covered songs from it. R.E.M. reworked "Strange" on their 1987 album Document. Henry Rollins (as Henrietta Collins & The Wife-Beating Child Haters) covered "Ex-Lion Tamer" on the 1987 album Drive By Shooting. Other notable covers include Minor Threat's version of "12XU" on the 1982 Dischord compilation Flex Your Head, Die Kreuzen's cover of the title track on a 7" single in 1990, and fIREHOSE's version of "Mannequin," which appeared on its Live Totem Pole EP in 1992. Elastica also used a riff similar to that of "Three Girl Rhumba" for their song "Connection". The New Bomb Turks covered "Mr. Suit" on their 1993 album Destroy Oh Boy! and noticeably slowed it down. The Amherst, Massachusetts, hardcore band Ampere also cover "Mr. Suit". It can be heard on their split LP with Das Oath. "Reuters" was covered by Therapy? as a b-side to their Troublegum album. The Minutemen took influence from this album, especially their idea of short songs. The Lemonheads covered "Fragile" on their 2009 album Varshons. Moneybrother covered "Mannequin" on his 2006 album Pengabrorsan (the lyrics and title were translated into Swedish).

Track listing

All songs written by Bruce Gilbert, Graham Lewis, Colin Newman and Robert Gotobed, except as indicated.

Side one
  1. "Reuters" – 3:03
  2. "Field Day for the Sundays" – 0:28
  3. "Three Girl Rhumba" – 1:23
  4. "Ex Lion Tamer" – 2:19
  5. "Lowdown" – 2:26
  6. "Start to Move" – 1:13
  7. "Brazil" – 0:41
  8. "It's So Obvious" – 0:53
  9. "Surgeon's Girl" – 1:17
  10. "Pink Flag" – 3:47
Side two
  2. "The Commercial" – 0:49
  3. "Straight Line" – 0:44
  4. "106 Beats That" – 1:12
  5. "Mr. Suit" – 1:25
  6. "Strange" – 3:58
  7. "Fragile" – 1:18
  8. "Mannequin" – 2:37
  9. "Different to Me" (Annette Green) – 0:43
  10. "Champs" – 1:46
  11. "Feeling Called Love" – 1:22
  12. "1 2 X U" – 1:55
CD reissue bonus tracks
  2. "Dot Dash" – 2:25 [1994 reissue]
  3. "Options R" – 1:36 [1989 reissue, 1994 reissue]

The bonus tracks were removed from the 2006 remastered reissues, because, according to the band, they didn't honour the "conceptual clarity of the original statements". [17]

Personnel

Wire
Additional personnel

References

  1. ^ http://www.wireviews.com/reviews/pink_flag.html
  2. ^ https://www.allmusic.com/album/r22101
  3. ^ http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/23215-pink-flag-chairs-missing-154
  4. ^ https://www.allmusic.com/album/r22101
  5. ^ http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/23215/Wire_Pink_Flag_Chairs_Missing_154
  6. ^ http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=wire
  7. ^ http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=1682&name=Wire
  8. ^ http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=wire
  9. ^ Critics at Sounds rated the record the 11th Best Album of the Year and at the NME it was 26th in their end of year albums list.
  10. ^ Larkin, Colin (1994). All Time Top 1000 Albums. Enfield: Guinness Publishing. p. 236. ISBN 0-85112-786-X. Abrasive and disjointed, these 21 tracks exude a fury impossible to ignore and one enhanced by their very brevity;
  11. ^ Steve Gardner (1996) Hiljaiset Levyt: 100 Best Punk LP's;
  12. ^ Du Noyer, Paul (1998). Encyclopedia of Albums: 1,000 Best-Ever Albums. Bristol: Dempsey Parr. p. 170. ISBN 1-84084-031-5. The artily unintelligible lyrics and dense production marked Wire out as a sort of New Wave Roxy Music;
  13. ^ Dimery, Robert (2005). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. London: Cassell. p. 420. The most original album of punk's first wave... The resulting sound was far colder and more brutual than anything else around at the time;
  14. ^ NME (January 2006) 100 Greatest British Albums Ever! - 'Pink Flag' was placed no.83;
  15. ^ Maconie, Stuart (2004). Cider With Roadies (1st ed.). London: Random House. p. 108. ISBN 0-091-89115-9.
  16. ^ "410 Pink Flag" "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" 1 November 2003. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
  17. ^ Villeneuve, Phil (April 11, 2006). "Wire Reissuing First Three LPs And Early Live Recordings". CHARTattack. Retrieved April 5, 2011.
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