I’ll be brutally honest; I never got into Devo. I never understood why they were such a big deal in the 80’s and I guess I will never understand it now. I always found “Whip It” to be catchy and fun and not to mention something you would see used in a Homestar Runner cartoon. But, it got repetitive over time due to it being over used in television commercials and of course who couldn’t forget the time it was used on “The Simpsons” during the spin off episode, where Waylon Smithers sang it with a gay overtone. “Freedom of Choice,” which was played on MTV during the 80’s never charted and thanks to that, they are now classified as a “one hit wonder band.” Yes, Devo is now in the same classification with the likes of Vanilla Ice, Semisonic and … Wait for it… JESUS JONES!!! 
So now twenty years later, Devo has released a new studio album entitled Something for Everybody. The album starts off with “So Fresh” an upbeat new wave delight that will make every fan of New Wave and Alt Rock scream with joy. But after that that’s where things start to get boring, annoying and downright ugly. Throughout the entire album many of the songs sound like bad 8 bit Nintendo games that most kids of the 90’s grew up with. I have noticed this with other bands adopting this style of sound (La Roux) and to be honest it’s really irritating to say the least. The only person that pulled it off was Beck when he released his Gameboy Variations EP, but others need to knock it off!
Other times the songs are really annoying and not enjoyable to say the least. Especially with songs like “Please Baby Please” and of course who couldn’t forget the pile of crap that is “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man!) which features the ever popular internet meme “Don’t Tase Me Bro!” as their chorus. Really? “Don’t Tase Me Bro?” It’s bad enough that phrase is overused on You Tube but a song is going way too far. I also felt Devo ripped off Kraftwerk in most of the songs that are on this album.
Personally, I feel Devo has lost it. I was hoping for something on the line of their earlier work but this makes Prince’s 20Ten look like OK Computer.
Rating: 1 ½ out of 5
Written by: Xander Deccio
