PHILOSOPHY OF DEVO: THE NERD OCCULT

Devo is well known for their aesthetics and it's easy to see why. Cohesive and imaginative, the group has branded a recognizable aesthetic. Most importantly there is more to their aesthetic than a cool logo or re-use of color schemes and common themes. A philosophy is transmuted through their choice of images, a message tucked into their plastic hair and chemical plant suits, tales of manufactured plastic humans.


While there were a bunch of New Romantics singing about love and a bunch of new wave freaks singing about fucking and a bunch of punks screaming about getting fucked up, Devo was making vast but vague statements about society under the guise of badass pop songs.

"We were constantly misunderstood by the record company, critics, and everyone around us. Our sense of humor was ironic humor, we were so far out and had such a vocabulary already put together by the time we became public because we worked for so many years in Akron, just coming up with our own choreography, music, philosophies, politics, wardrobe, the films, everything... our own slangs. People kept trying to put us in categories and we didn't really fit in with the punks and we didn't fit in with the new wave. We didn't party with all the rock n roll people. We didn't take drugs. We didn't do anything that would have really made it easy to figure out what we were about, and the irony in our humor often threw people off from what the message was. They thought "oh, they're just kidding or they don't take what they're doing seriously". The record companies thought of us as just clowns and quirky & they'd put out press releases that would say "that quirky, zany band." --- Mark Mothersbaugh

Devo was more than a band, they were an imaginative guild of solid intellectual wit. Their almost modern-occult symbolism on record, videos, and posters alone made Devo one of the most brilliant bands of the 1980's. As far as influences, punk was a mix between dystopian Futurism loosely taking stylistic cues from the French New Wave film movement and rock'n'roll glam heroes like New York Dolls or the earlier spazz-garage Kinks. By the 80's, new wavers were full on into futurism and Devo in particular really had their shit together on the Futurism train. Devo continuously maintained a sci-fi comic book comical alternate view of a society. Remember those nerds in Sixteen Candles? They probably listened to Devo. And they probably took Devo as serious as shit.


HiLobrow.com notes how "brazenly uncool" frontman Mark Mothersbaugh is. Mark is a totally endearing nerd who never stopped working on music and art throughout his years. Aside from Devo, he went on to do A SHIT TON of warm and fuzzy soundtracks for TV and film (including Wes Anderson's The Royal Tennenbaums, Peewee's Playhouse and Rugrats) + a few gallery shows - comparable to artists like Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman (primary composer for Tim Burton's films). Of course, Mark's foray into commercialism has received criticism for "selling out" due to product advertisements or product-funded concerts which he notes the fine line between art and advertisement and what it is to be an artist while trying to make a living (great interview about this via Fecal Face).


Regardless of the "punk businessman" accusations, Mothersbaugh holds a pragmatic kid-powered aura that makes him a notable good guy in the weird world of 80's pop. As a visual artist and a musician who claims to have collectively started Devo as an excuse to make short films, it makes sense that these boy geniuses with keyboards and guitars would use their weirdo scientific slants to create bubblegum punk through the sieve of a computer calculator. It's also no wonder that these boy robots would attract the attention of Brian Eno who helped Devo with their first record, Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! Art school nerds make the best rock stars thanks to their lack of cliche behavior and abundance of dreamscape output.


Some reoccurring themes used over and over again in Devo's report are:

ENERGY DOME HATS!!

Even the Energy Dome hats had an aesthetic purpose (joke) behind them:

"It was designed according to ancient ziggurat mound proportions used in votive worship. Like the mounds it collects energy and recirculates it. In this case the Dome collects energy that escapes from the crown of the human head and pushes it back into the Medula Oblongata for increased mental energy. It's very important that you buy a cheap plastic hardhat liner, adjust it to your head size and affix it with duct tape or Super Glue to the inside of the Dome. This allows the Dome to "float" just above the cranium and thus do its job. Unfortunately, without a hard hat liner, the recirculation of energy WILL NOT occur."

DE-EVOLUTION!!

DEVO comes from the word "de-evolution", the idea that humans can reach an intelligent peak but will de-evolve back to a more "primitive" unintelligent state. This idea is not new but one that Devo has emphasized throughout their entire musical career. And truth be told, this idea is not a work of fiction - it is a probable occurrence that relates to humanity as a whole and Devo's use of it in their music/art concepts is designed to make the individual listener THINK.

INDUSTRIAL JUMPSUITS!!


Matching industrial jumpsuits were often the attire of Devo. In the Future, everyone will be the same, a robot or a worker, surrounded by chemical waste and technological chaos.  (;

BOOJI BOY!!

Reoccurring character in the storybook of Devo, the "boogie boy" appeared in various Devo music videos:

"Obsessed with the idea of genetic mutation, Craig submitted to a botched operation in an effort to land a media deal with Big Media. Viola! Boogie Boy - a bizarre adult infant freak with pre-adolescent sexuality and Yoda-like wisdom."

DEVO, WE LOVE YOU. More to come...