- Audio CD (16 May 2006)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Format: Import
- Label: Toshiba
- ASIN: B000EMH9Y4
- Other Editions: Audio CD | Vinyl | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 898,786 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
'Pink Flag' was Wire's debut album originally released in 1977 and now in its second/third reissue incarnation. Whilst a writer like Jon Savage celebrated them at the time, it appears that they were viewed with disdain for being signed to prog/Floyd-associated label Harvest (the later albums 'Chairs Missing' & '154' viewed like Magazine's second LP as prog!). 'Pink Flag' is something else entirerly, it's punk...but it's not punk - perhaps you could imagine The Ramones' brevity colliding with Captain Beefheart's angular-template 'Clear Spot' - which I always saw as the template for something like 'Marquee Moon' and this. 'Pink Flag' is a cult favourite and in the 1980s even attracted a tribute act the Ex-Lion Tamers who played it note for note live (Wire at the time didn't play anything from the Harvest years, preferring to play their latest LP, or its unreleased follow-up). The notion that all the songs are 30-seconds to a minute or so might be true of many tracks here - 'Mr Suit', 'It's So Obvious', 'Field Day for the Sundays', 'Three Girl Rhumba', 'Straight Line' (up there with anything on 'Spiral Scratch'), the mighty '12XU'...but this overlooks the more developed tracks which were heading for the plains explored on the subsequent two albums.
Opener 'Reuters' has more in common with later, sinister post-punk tracks like 'A Touching Display' or 'Heartbeat' - chiming guitars building to a mid-paced dirge as Newman sounds decidely unhinged. This is Joy Division before Joy Divison! Likewise, 'Strange' is not an angular-punk minimalist-thrash, but avant-pop that set the template Wire had for alien-pop (later examples of this would include 'I am the Fly', 'Outdoor Miner', 'Map Ref...', Newman/Lewis' 'Not Me', 'Kidney Bingos', 'Eardrum Buzz', 'Ahead' etc). 'Strange' probably found more fame when R.E.M. covered it on their breakthrough LP 'Document # 5' (1987) - shame as their version was awful! 'Pink Flag' has also been covered by others incidentally - Elastica's 'Connection' is basically 'Three Girl Rhumba' (I am sure this is reflected in the current publishing status of 'Connection'), Mudhoney made a reference to 'Lowdown' at the end of 1990's 'When Tomorrow Hits' and straight-edge pioneers Minor Threat covered '12XU' (as did Elastica). Meanwhile, Wire weren't unafraid to invoke prior material - 'Feeling Called Love' (a title that was reflected upon on Pulp's 'A Different Class') warrants its description by Jon Savage as " 'Wild Thing' sideways".
'Pink Flag' sounds fine today, it's packed with joys - 'Mannequin', 'Lowdown', 'Ex Lion Tamer', '106 Beats That' and the terminally great '12XU' which is one of the greater definitions of punk-rock: SAW YOU IN A MAG KISSING A MAN, SAW YOU IN A MAG KISSING A MAN...12XU!!!! Great material more than worth rediscovering, especially when art-punk, punk-rock, and post-punk are all in vogue with bands like Bloc Party, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol & Spoon (& reissues of work by Scritti Politti, The Fall, Orange Juice, Adam & the Ants, Delta 5 etc). Next stop: 'Chairs Missing'...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The are not many 30 year old albums that sound more smart, vital, and up to date than anything currently being churned out. Time has revealed this as a genuine classic - and makes much of the guitar-pap being churned out by today's indie-poppers seem juvenile amd irrelevant. It's all very simple - fuzzy, churning, bounding guitars (sounding just like what the electric guitar was invented for), brilliant drumming and bass lines, and edgy, intelligent lyrics. If you don't like one track there will be another along in a minute - they don't overstay their welcome and leave you wanting more. Despite the plethora of tracks this album is consistently brilliant - you will play it all the way through and then go back again to the tracks you love best. I do not play any album more than I return to this one, and many of the tracks consistently make my 'best of' playlists. Much copied, totally influential, but never bettered. The central riff of 1,2,XU is worth your money alone - treat the rest as a bonus.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is the embodiement of punk in some ways (short songs with no messing about), but to label it in such a simplistic way is to do this album a massive disservice.
Wire were and are a massive influence on a number of bands, they took the essence of punk, stripped it down even further and married it to the spirit of the Velvet Underground and the Ramones. If that sounds like a melee, well, it isn't. This is art pop at its finest. A minimal stripped back album where each song is a tale in its own right, short, sharp but eminently listenable.
Punk lasted but 100 days, it's legacy, it's effect allowed bands like Magazine and Wire to push their listeners into new avenues of pleasure and in Pink Flag, you find, arguably Wires best work.
It is ridiculously cheap so if you don't already own this work, what on earth are you waiting for? This is a stone wall classic and I don't just say this as a fan, I had no clue of this band until around 3 years ago and in the meantime, it has never left my ipod playlist and with the amount of music I buy, that is something in itself.
Wire were and are a massive influence on a number of bands, they took the essence of punk, stripped it down even further and married it to the spirit of the Velvet Underground and the Ramones. If that sounds like a melee, well, it isn't. This is art pop at its finest. A minimal stripped back album where each song is a tale in its own right, short, sharp but eminently listenable.
Punk lasted but 100 days, it's legacy, it's effect allowed bands like Magazine and Wire to push their listeners into new avenues of pleasure and in Pink Flag, you find, arguably Wires best work.
It is ridiculously cheap so if you don't already own this work, what on earth are you waiting for? This is a stone wall classic and I don't just say this as a fan, I had no clue of this band until around 3 years ago and in the meantime, it has never left my ipod playlist and with the amount of music I buy, that is something in itself.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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The best album to be released in 1977 and easily the best to come out of the UK 'punk' scene. All of which is highly ironic because in no way were Wire punks, instead they were... Read more
Published 16 months ago by L. C. Warne
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The first Wire fan I ever met told me that the great thing about this album was that if you didn't like a song you didn't have to wait long for it to end. Read more
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