Devo’s philosophy of de-evolution feels prophetic: Society does seem to be slipping backward. So the time is ripe for 50 Years of De-Evolution 1973-2023, an anthology of the Akron art rockers who made their name pairing wiry proto-punk grooves with sly social critique. Fitting their embrace of irony—they opened 1979’s Duty Now for the Future with a regal instrumental called “Devo Corporate Anthem,” after all—the career-spanning compilation is available in a variety of incarnations, the splashiest of which is a 4xLP box set containing a variety of collectible tchotchkes.
The air fresheners, lithographs, and Brain Dead capsule collections add to the distinctly festive air surrounding 50 Years of De-Evolution. Unlike the previous double-disc set Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology, this compilation isn’t a chronological document, but a celebration of a complex, sometimes baffling body of work. Too long to count as a greatest-hits compilation, too reliant on the band’s standards to be of considerable interest to hardcore fans—all the rarities have been in circulation for a while—50 Years of De-Evolution nevertheless portrays an act that simultaneously inhabited its times and pointed the way to the future.
Few bands had as electrifying or confounding a first act as Devo. They were art school students who were radicalized by the May 4, 1970 shooting of student protesters at Kent State University, where core members Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh were witnesses to the massacre. Devo used the idea of de-evolution to convey their outrage at the country’s swing to the political right. Casale and Mothersbaugh and their respective brothers, both named Bob, distilled their grimy mix of fantastical futurism and eroding industrial dreams in The Truth About De-Evolution, a 1976 short film where they appeared in a variety of guises. One of the roles they played was a robotic rock band who sang “Jocko Homo”—the source of the group’s famous call-and-response chant, “Are we not men?” “We are Devo!”—and “Secret Agent Man,” a perverted cover of the 1966 hit by Johnny Rivers. They were kinetic transmissions from an alternate universe.
The Truth About De-Evolution won first prize at the 1977 Ann Arbor Film Festival, but the band soon gained enough momentum to eclipse its filmmaking ambitions. Locking in their lineup with drummer Alan Myers, Devo knocked out a handful of terse, nervy singles that refined rock’n’roll to its brutalist essence, which left plenty of space for smart-ass sci-fi musing. Early on, Devo used cover songs to illustrate the distance between themselves and other rock bands: Where their peers reveled in abandon and catharsis, they specialized in rhythms so tightly wound, they seemed mechanical. This difference was especially evident in their version of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” which stripped the Rolling Stones anthem of Keith Richards’ signature Fuzz-Tone riff and ramped up tension with guitars that scratched to a clockwork beat.
At their best, Devo seemed like aliens translating cultural clichés back to an unexpecting audience. Witnessing Devo on Saturday Night Live in 1978 or happening upon the video for “Whip It” during the early days of MTV only reinforced how unlike the group seemed from everything that surrounded them. Their regimented concerts put the lie to punk’s allegedly anarchic spontaneity; the cookie-cutter conformity of their uniforms—especially after they introduced their matching “energy dome” hats in 1980—seemed unnerving. And the Booji Boy mask could be genuinely unsettling.
Although it’s replete with period photos and memorabilia, 50 Years of De-Evolution doesn’t quite capture the thrilling sense of otherness Devo conveyed at their peak. Heard within the vacuum of their own catalog, Devo seem more eccentric than revolutionary. This is especially true of the increasingly computerized music they made after 1980’s Freedom of Choice, the album Mark Mothersbaugh retrospectively called “the end of Devo.” The band carried on for many years after that, yet their creative processes shifted. Instead of workshopping material in group rehearsals, Mothersbaugh built songs on his synthesizers. The stiff, clipped drum machines and plasticky keyboards—crystallized on the clanging din of “Shout,” the title track to a 1984 album beaten into submission by a Fairlight synthesizer—were in a sense a logical progression from Devo’s mechanical rock’n’roll, yet the airless arrangements made it seem as if the band were succumbing to the very things they once satirized. Devo sounded most alien, ironically, when they were clearly just humans attempting to play like robots.
Yet 50 Years of De-Evolution goes a long way toward disguising Devo’s self-acknowledged drop-off in the mid-1980s by effectively offering two paired compilations that retell the band’s story in quick succession. Each CD (or 2xLP pair) starts at the beginning, then follows the group’s rise and fall. The first disc runs through the big hits, then concludes with their 2010 comeback. The second disc starts over with ostensible rarities from the early years—not exactly hits, but still canon—and then retells the story, ending once again with their 21st-century return. (The gambit can be confusing: The original indie versions of “Mongoloid” and “Jocko Homo” are tucked away on the second disc, while the major-label remakes open the first disc.) It feels like the compilers got halfway through the comp before deciding it needed a dose of the demented energy of “I’m a Potato,” “Be Stiff,” and “Uncontrollable Urge.”
By re-tracing its steps, 50 Years of De-Evolution winds up shifting focus to Devo’s true strength: Underneath the futurism, they were a tough, lean rock’n’roll band. The first three records are underpinned by the heavy backbeat of Alan Myers, a “human metronome,” as Casale called him, who nevertheless retained a sense of funk. Devo didn’t quite disguise this debt to R&B: They hired Robert Margouleff, an engineer and synthesizer pioneer who made his reputation through his 1970s work with Stevie Wonder, to help record Freedom of Choice. R&B’s influence is readily apparent throughout the anthology, in both their early songs and material from the 2010 reunion record Something for Everybody, which featured Josh Freese on drums.
Freese may not possess Myers’ subversive swing, but he gives Devo a necessary pulse that contrasts markedly with the mannered music Devo made in the waning days of the ’80s. That’s the real revelation of 50 Years of De-Evolution: These Midwestern art rockers may have portended the future, but in their hearts, they pledged allegiance to the same working-class rhythms that fueled 20th-century rock’n’roll.
