Pink Flag // Wire
When the first wave of punk broke out in London in 1977, it was all about fast, angry, simple songs with a message to carry. Wire took that to extremes with their debut, Pink Flag. Coming and going in 35 minutes isn’t unusual (especially for a punk album in 1977), but the fact that those 35 minutes contain 21 songs certainly is. Most songs here don’t last longer than 1 minute and 30 seconds
Wire were different from their peers in some ways: they were comparatively middle-class compared to bands like The Clash and The Sex Pistols, they hadn’t just gone to art school because it was a last resort, and they were much older than most of their peers. Nevertheless, Pink Flag still has an anger about it, but not the rallying cry of most early punk albums. Pink Flag has a cold, measured anger, intimidating and slowly staring you in the face as you continue listening. Listen to the building fury on ‘Strange’, the grim title track, and the dark, foreboding opener ‘Reuters’ to see where Goth music took root.
Surprisingly, Pink Flag can also be poppy. Listen to the bizarrely catchy mutant 60’s surf music on ‘Fragile’, ‘Champs’ and ‘Mannequin’, and note how ‘Ex Lion Tamer’ might have been a hit in a different time. ‘Three Girl Rhumba’ sets the blueprint for post-punk, and is so catchy Britpop band Elastica copped the riff in 1995 for their song ‘Connection’ . But for great punk, listen to the whole album, and pay particular attention to ‘Brazil’, ‘Surgeons Girl’, ‘Mr Suit’, ‘Feeling Called Love’, and ‘1-2-X-U’
Pink Flag was Wire’s finest hour, coming at just the right time in the right place to be so influential. Artists such as The Manic Street Preachers, Johnny Marr and the aforementioned Elastica were all largely influenced by Wire in one way or another, and I believe that such a diverse and important sphere of influence, as well as the amazing songs, makes Pink Flag my favourite punk album.
Words by Gabriel Rutherford
Feature compiled by Gabriel Rutherford