DEVO Song Study: Press The Red Button If You Feel We Must Repeat

By Matt Keeley

DEVO’s been proven right about everything, and now they’ve joined with Mother LA to focus group the future.

DEVO has long been one of my favorite bands. In fact, my original art collective, TODCRA, was almost killed in the womb when the co-founder and I discovered that DEVO’d been basically saying everything we were saying, but in a much better way and for longer. (But given the Devolutionary Oath, we kept on keeping’ on.) And, luckily, DEVO have also kept on keeping’ on, whereas TODCRA eventually sacrificed itself so Kittysneezes may live.

Finally, after initial studies about color and whether or not people would hold the new song, “Fresh” with their feet, we’ve come to the meat of it: the Song Study!

How it works: You’re given sound clips of 16 songs and you can vote for your top 12. Here, go do it now, just open http://songstudy.clubdevo.com in a new tab, vote, and come back. Do it now.

Voted yet? Good.

What ones did you like? See, I wanted you to vote before I tainted your fresh ears on these new songs. As for me—short answer: It’s a very welcome return.

I’m not sure what my favorites are. . . but definitely “Fresh” and “Watch Us Work It,” and I quite liked “Mind Games,” “Don’t Shoot,” and “Human Rocket.”

My least favorites were “Cameo,” “Knock Boots,” “Let’s Get To It,” and “March On,”, but dang, even subpar DEVO is still DEVO. I still listen to Total DEVO. Also, the good news is that the losing songs won’t be lost forever, even without the efforts of the fine folks at Booji Boy’s Basement.

Because Jerry’s said on Twitter that the songs left-behind will surface as bonus tracks.

DEVO is currently preparing for upcoming shows at both Lollapalooza and Coachella, in addition to the release of a new album in June. Stay tuned for more updates!