Best Old Music: Wire - It's Beginning To And Back Again (1989)

Note: Because coming across so many top notch older albums has been more common than usual this year, I'm attempting to start a series where I can write about these albums as I'm inducting them into my own personal Pantheon/Valhalla. It would be a fascinating and incredible waste of time to one day organize this Honoured Hall...perhaps I'll get around to it.

Wire - "German Shepherds"

I've always assumed this would be a really ugly period to make music for a band like Wire. Even with the progress they made from Pink Flag to 154 (or perhaps because of that progress), they seemed vulnerable to making missteps in the late 80s. How could the distinct, now-dated production style of the era fit well on a band with such gritty, difficult tendencies?
It turns out that they are capable of sounding a lot more like a mainstream 80s pop band than I thought (albeit, still a fairly difficult one). It's Beginning To And Back Again sounds like the album Echo & The Bunnymen should've made after their self-titled one in '87. The vocal style here is that of a less skilled Ian McCulloch, and the rhythmic sounds range from "Maybe a drum machine?" to "Definitely a drum machine." The songs themselves are a great mix of classic pop and experimental kraut. The album opens with an updated version of "Finest Drops" from their previous album (IBTABA features 5 songs they reworked from 1988's A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck), and follows with two more excellent pop songs in "Eardrum Buzz" and "German Shepherds." Then things start to get weird. "Public Place," "Boiling Boy," "Illuminated," and "Over Theirs" are all at least six minutes, but mostly upbeat. It's an easy section to get lost in, with so much time to lock into the awkward grooves. However, if you don't have the stomach for stuff where sampled voices repeat phrases like "What do you like? What do you love?" over fake beats with no apparent structure for almost seven minutes, this might not be your favorite album. It would be a shame not to make it to the end of the album though, because the payoff is huge. It closes with three more pop songs on the same excellent level of the first three. And after experiencing the album's middle and having a better understanding of the feel they were trying to achieve, these closing songs feel more significant. Colin Newman's vocal delivery on "The Offer" is reminiscent of the graceful elegance of Disintegration opener "Plainsong," while "In Vivo" wouldn't sound out of place in a John Hughes movie. The other is a remixed 12" version of "Eardrum Buzz" with brighter synths and a cleaner overall sound.
I haven't found a ton of information about this album, and most things I've read express some degree of confusion. A Bell Is A Cup...is supposedly the "better" album (allmusic called it "a work of modern rock genius"), but I'm finding this combination of great hooks and impressive weirdness to be irresistible.

allmusic