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Avg: 4.0 (34 ratings)
- Date Released: January 1, 1978
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Alternative
- Label: Cooking Vinyl / IODA
An album light years ahead of its more fashionable contemporaries.
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We Say...
The 1977 debut album by Cleveland's Pere Ubu is an absolutely essential piece of rock history, a relatively unacknowledged milestone of the punk/post-punk era and light years ahead of its more fashionable contemporaries. Down at CBGBs, the hipsters were skinny, cool and wore shades. Pere Ubu's David Thomas was corpulent, uncool and stared at the world with a wild, wide-eyed surmise. The sheer, existential circumference of Pere Ubu tears way beyond the limits of rock's traditionally narrow perspective and required an expanded palette. Everyone plays their part in this. Tony Maimone and Scott Kraus's rhythm section sustain a hollow, portentous rumble, Tom Herman's slide guitar plays like a bottleneck across nerve wires, Thomas's vocals have a generous, plaintive, bulbous quality while Allen Ravenstine's analogue synthesizer adds a crucial, abstract dimension to Ubu's sound, conveying the inner chemical workings of these songs, their neurological impulses, their emotional pangs and adrenalin surges.
Opener “Non-Alignment Pact” sees Ubu conjoin forces in full, headlong rush for this anti-anthem that dumps the listener on the seat of their pants. But there's a bipolar frenzy about the manic energies which rail around what once was side one of this album, a false euphoria swept away in the post-nuclear gale of “Street Waves.” The sputtering, nihilistic “Life Stinks,” written by Thomas' ex-comrade, the late Peter Laughner, more crudely summarises Ubu's absurdist outlook. Thereafter, The Modern Dance descends into a brilliantly realised state of depression, culminating in the smashed tableau of inconsolable ennui and despair that is “Sentimental Journey.” But it's Tom Herman who has the last word on “Humor Me,” with a devastating solo of screeching eloquence, at last unleashing all the deferred, pent-up emotion of the album. -
They Say...
There isn't a Pere Ubu recording you can imagine living without. The Modern Dance remains the essential Ubu purchase (as does the follow-up, Dub Housing). For sure, Mercury had no idea what they had on their hands when they released this as part of their punk rock offshoot label Blank, but it remains a classic slice of art-punk. It announces itself quite boldly: the first sound you hear is a painfully high-pitched whine of feedback, but then Tom Herman's postmodern Chuck Berry riffing kicks off the brilliant "Non-Alignment Pact," and you soon realize that this is punk rock unlike any you've ever heard. David Thomas' caterwauling is funny and moving, Scott Krauss (drums) and Tony Maimone (bass) are one of the great unheralded rhythm sections in all of rock, and the "difficult" tracks like "Street Waves," "Chinese Radiation," and the terrifying "Humor Me" are revelatory, and way ahead of their time. The Modern Dance is the signature sound of the avant-garage: art rock, punk rock, and garage rock mixing together joyously and fearlessly.
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| 01. |  |
Nonalignment Pact (Album Version) |
3:18 |
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| 02. | |
The Modern Dance (Album Version) |
3:28 |
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| 03. | |
Laughing (Album Version) |
4:35 |
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| 04. | |
Street Waves (Album Version) |
3:04 |
|
| 05. | |
Chinese Radiation (Album Version) |
3:27 |
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| 06. | |
Life Stinks (Album Version) |
1:52 |
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| 07. | |
Real World (Album Version) |
3:59 |
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| 08. | |
Over My Head (Album Version) |
3:48 |
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| 09. | |
Sentimental Journey (Album Version) |
6:05 |
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| 10. | |
Humor Me (Album Version) |
2:44 |
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10 Total Tracks, 36:20 Total Length
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Credits
- Pere Ubu - Producer // Pere Ubu - Main Performer // David Thomas - Percussion // David Thomas - Percussion // David Thomas - Vocals // David Thomas - Vocals // David Thomas - Musette // David Thomas - Musette // Kenneth Hamann - Producer // Kenneth Hamann - Engineer // Tom Herman - Guitar // Tom Herman - ? // Scott Krauss - Drums // Tony Maimone - Bass // Tony Maimone - ? // Allen Ravenstine - Synthesizer // Allen Ravenstine - Keyboards // Scott Knauss - ? // Allen Rowenstine - ?
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