Wire in the 80s - Classic Or Dud?

I was referring to "The Drill" remix album. The original song is an all-time monster.

DUGGA DUGGA DUGGA

(xp) So was I.

it is also fun to imagine him standing there glumly on stage repeating "drill drill drill" while the rest of the band goes nuts all around him.

surprised at all the dislike at the top of this thread. sure manscape was kind of eh but the rest? top notch.

I've posted this before but it bears repeating, some sort of weird live jam remix of an Erasure track by Wir(e) with next to no Erasure content (irony) and it is bloody marvellous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RJPizlCrI8

Someone on this board posted in 2005 and I spent a week listening to it.

lol at the credits

Fingers & Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day) (Figures In Crumbs (Wire Remix))

Bass – Graham Lewis
Engineer – Paul Mysiak
Guitar – Bruce Gilbert, Colin Newman
Mixed By – Erasure, Gareth Jones, Wire
Programmed By [Drums & Sequence] – Vince Clarke
Vocals, Other [Concept] – Andy Bell

I think Manscape was one of the first half-dozen CDs that I owned, so I gave it a lot of spins despite not loving it... it never occurred to me that it wasn't a good record. I made early use of my CD player's ability to repeat one track with "You Hung Your Lights in the Trees/A Craftsman's Touch".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra96xqZuyLA

okay 1990 but w/e

Colin Newman shaking his mop top!

Is this Wire or Wir?

I don't see Robert, this is the Manscape tour, the ticket at the start says Wire tho'

If it's Manscape it's Wire. But, yes, Robert could probably have stayed at home.

I'd given up on them by this stage but I saw them a lot in the 80s and thought they were great live - much better than on record. A trifle disheartening therefore to read the Wire biography and find out Colin Newman thought they were shit.

(xp) Apparently he did stay at home, in fact he quit just before the tour - a tour where the rest of the band didn't want him playing drums anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

"kidney bingos" is a song i've known over half of my life and it is still one of the most confounding things i've ever heard.

when trembling blue stars covered it, i was somehow even more creeped out, but it still manages to be an irresistible bop-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9hMLBzs0j0
trembling blue stars - "kidney bingos" (2011)

p cool song i reckon. good beat, u can dance 2 it

Sometimes I wonder if A Bell is a Cup Until It Is Struck is the best Wire album.

It's been noted that Elastica redid (?) "Kidney Bingos" as "Nothing Stays the Same", right?

is there anything more wistful than the kidney bingos outro

my long-held assumption is that 'kidney bingos' is a reference to the idea of there being a 'postcode lottery' for health care provision in the UK i.e. your access to certain services or treatments depends on where you live

never really tried to decipher the verses before but they're cut-up 80s uk media stories afaict

Sometimes I wonder if A Bell is a Cup Until It Is Struck is the best Wire album.

God, no.

It’s great, but I wouldn’t say best. It took me years to realize that ‘80s Wire were almost great too, just different. I like Manscape even! The First Letter is not so hot, though.

-almost-

Much prefer The First Letter to Manscape tbh.

is there anything more wistful than the kidney bingos outro

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel),

My favorite Graham Lewis vocal performance too.

Much prefer The First Letter to Manscape tbh.

They're about equally modestly underrated. Manscape is cluttered and busy, with occasionally gripping textures; the first letter is cleaner and clearer and actually has some hooks.

My favorite Graham Lewis vocal performance too.

The coda of this song was possibly the highlight when I saw them in 2011.

I prefer the minimalism of their 90s output