Devo / Something for Everybody
Artist Devo
Album Title: Something for Everybody
Album Cover:
Primary Genre Alternative & Punk: General Alternative
Format CD
Released 06/15/2010
Label Warner Bros. Records Inc.
Catalog No 523975-2
Bar Code No 0 9362-49668-1 4
Packaging Jewelcase
Tracks
1. Fresh (2:59)
2. What We Do (3:17)
3. Please Baby Please (2:41)
4. Don't Shoot (I'm a Man) (3:26)
5. Mind Games (2:30)
6. Human Rocket (3:22)
7. Sumthin' (2:46)
8. Step Up (3:00)
9. Cameo (2:49)
10. Later is Now (3:52)
11. No Place Like Home (3:18)
12. March On (3:50)
Date Acquired 07/06/2010
Personal Rating
Acquired from Electric Fetus - Duluth
Purchase Price 11.99

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Reviews
All Music Guide Review:

Review by David Jeffries
Coming in way above their previous effort, 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps, Something for Everybody is the album Devo's fans had craved for 28 long years, or maybe 29, if you fall on the sour side of the iffy Oh, No! It's Devo. The synthetic, compressed, and punchy production -- courtesy of producer and Bird & the Bee member Greg Kurstin -- is a modern take on the sound of 1981’s New Traditionalists, and if you judge by hooks, this is right in line with their 1980 breakthrough, Freedom of Choice, although there’s certainly no “Whip It”-sized megahit here. Instead, there’s the opening “Fresh!” a herky-jerky, infectious number with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh stuttering as if he just created New Wave’s “My Generation.” The wicked highlight “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man)” (“They’ll hunt you down/And tase you bro/For playing with the rules”) is the album’s other key track, thanks to Mothersbaugh’s perfect framing of de-evolution’s give (hybrid cars) and take, take, take (Beltway snipers, overzealous cops, etc.). Both highlights are co-produced by Santigold who, like Kurstin, checks her ego at the door, allowing the five spud boys to sound like a functioning band. The twangy guitars of Bob 1 are perfectly balanced with the synths and electronic percussion from new member Josh Freese, while Mothersbaugh’s ironic downers are complemented by co-frontman Jerry Casale’s more snide and silly songs, and the two attempts to re-create the sarcastic grandeur of their masterpiece “Beautiful World” -- with “Later Is Now” and “No Place Like Home” -- come pretty darn close. While some will complain that the satirical social commentary just isn’t as razor-sharp, and that the wild, primal nerdiness of their first two efforts is long gone, the purposeful Something for Everybody is proudly not a nostalgia trip and is, instead, filled with age-appropriate subversion, right up to its ironic title. "Something for Veteran Fans" is more like it with "Something Surprisingly Vital" being an even better choice.

Pitchfork - 6.6

— Marc Masters, June 17, 2010

There are a few bad omens hovering around Something For Everybody. It's been two decades since Devo last attempted a full album of new music-- and 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps wasn't memorable. Then there's the fact that the band seems more interested in their marketing campaign than the music-- a scary enough preference to begin with, but even worse considering said campaign is basically simple crowd-sourcing presented as some kind of conceptual art.

Given those red flags, it's hard not to enter Something For Everybody with expectations set on low, and there are some easy targets right away. The first few songs verge on self-parody-- opener "Fresh" is based around what sounds like the Devo preset on a 1989 Casio, while "Please Baby Please" offers an annoyingly bouncy cadence recalling the worst of Was (Not Was). Lowest on the ladder is "What We Do", filled with labored yelps and buzzword rhymes that come off less like ironic commentary than lazy verbal clip-art: "Gamin', Prayin', Believin', Maintainin', Textin', Electin', Rejectin', Infectin'."

Endure those initial hurdles, though, and the rest of Something For Everybody contains some pretty good music-- the kind that actually sneaks up on you a little rather than ham-fisting you over the head. The switch comes in track five, "Mind Games", which melts video-game synths into classic Devo riff pinball. From there, the melodies get sharper and more skewed, the beats and synths more diverse and rangy-- evoking everyone from LCD Soundsystem to Mouse on Mars. And most of it is good enough to remind you how most of that "everyone" owes something to Devo.

Note that we're talking good music here, not words. The lyrics improve compared to the albums' first three clunkers, but they're still rife with clichés ("It's not over 'till the cows come home/ It's not over 'till the fat lady sings"), dated politics ("I keep tryin' to turn it all around/ But the New World Order wants to take me down") and self-conscious Devo-isms ("I am a human rocket/ On a mission of deployment.") Yet when the band is locked in sonically, those lines sound better than they read. Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale can still bite off words with nervy smarts, like the art-punk/tech-nerds they will forever be.

Something For Everybody probably stands closest to 1982's Oh No, It's Devo! in their oeuvre. That record got mixed reviews, and this one probably will too, but I think Oh No is unfairly maligned. It may have been weaker than the band's classics, but its best moments combined art with pop in a way that could sound as good in a gallery as on an episode of a sitcom. There's no similar zeitgest that Devo fits into nowadays, despite their blatant attempts to court "everybody." But in the considerable sub-strata made of people who still care about this band, Something For Everybody holds some truth in its name.



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