DEVO
The Media Is The Mongoloid
By putting our physical bodies inside our extended nervous systems, by means of electric media, we set up a dynamic by which all previous technologies that are mere extensions of hands and feet and teeth and bodily heat-controls—all such extensions of our bodies, including cities—will be translated into information systems. Electromagnetic technology requires utter human docility and quiescence of meditation such as benefits an organism that now wears its brain outside its skull and its nerves outside its hide. (McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media, 1964, p68)
This was one of many obscurantist passages I read this morning as my Sydney bus (an extension of both the foot and the armpit) drew me towards my work (an extension of some other unprintable bodily part). McLuhan might have been on to something, but isn’t it all just a fancy way of describing human devolution into electronica?
And is this post not just a fancy if kinda-pretentious excuse for a linkdump of DEVO covers? McLuhan would have shaken his head and despaired at our narcissistic fixation on content over context.
Balls to that. Here’s a bunch of early 80s electronica reflecting itself back onto itself, with a few catchy riffs.
Uncontrollable Urge,
The (Italian) Girl U Want,
It’s Not Right,
It’s A Beautiful World,
Whip It,
Metal Mongoloid,
And last but not least, the cover band satisfactorily covering Head Like A Hole.