Comments on: Pretty much devolved by this point.

Pretty much devolved by this point.

Item — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:43:25 -0800

It's 1984. Let's spend 32 curious minutes with Devo as they convince us to purchase a Pioneer Laserdisc system.

By: Item

Item — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:45:29 -0800

Ok, so Akron's finest only occupy the first 12 minutes of this video, but still...

By: Poolio

Poolio — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:47:03 -0800

LOLBUCKETS /obligatory

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:01:48 -0800

Let's not and say we did.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:10:58 -0800

VIDEO FOR THOSE WHO REALLY CARE ABOUT AUDIO

By: Lord_Pall

Lord_Pall — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:13:13 -0800

That's a great video.

By: katillathehun

katillathehun — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:19:01 -0800

Somewhere on the interwebs, there's probably a Devo fan club, and some of its members own this video and watch it regularly. Just think about that for a minute.

By: Item

Item — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:24:16 -0800

*cries*

By: tepidmonkey

tepidmonkey — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:25:38 -0800

Oh my goodness, katillathehun, I had the exact same thought. I think it was because of the video description that says "you can hear this in stereo and with better picture quality if you download and then play it!" And I was like, why would anyone do that? And then I thought of people watching this regularly, and felt sad.

By: Item

Item — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:31:27 -0800

Saying "somewhere on the interwebs, there's probably a Devo fan club" is like saying "somewhere on the interwebs, there's probably porn".

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:35:08 -0800

I remember being annoyed that Devo sold "Whip It" to Swiffer. Then I remembered that Devo are SubGeniuses, and that while they may be pink, their money's still green.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:37:59 -0800

Ok, so Akron's finest only occupy the first 12 minutes of this video Wow, someone made it past the four minute mark? I'd want the free iPod if I had to watch the whole thing.

By: Item

Item — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:39:17 -0800

They didn't just sell Whip It to Swiffer, they re-recorded it themselves for the commercials. Swiff it good!

By: tracert

tracert — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:23:53 -0800

MUST. BUY. LASERDISC.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:29:17 -0800

After Ray Charles, it went straight downhill.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:33:20 -0800

I know that Willem Dafoe owned a Laserdisc player, back in the day, cuz I was behind him in the checkout line at Tower Video in on Lafayette street, 1980-something, and he was buying some laserdiscs.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:35:03 -0800

Now listen to Ray Charles compressed on Google Video through a laptop speaker.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 03:56:17 -0800

Great item, item! Since jonmc hasn't entered this thread yet, I guess it's up to me to present Frank Zappa for General Electric.

By: doctorschlock

doctorschlock — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:47:06 -0800

..We were no longer little women...we were DEVO!!

By: bhnyc

bhnyc — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:58:33 -0800

Yes hal9k, it's strange how far backwards we have come with video quality. An interesting about thing about video disc is that the video signal is analog. Instead of 1s and 0s, it's the distance between the pits that carries the information.

By: MtDewd

MtDewd — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:02:25 -0800

We had these at work from the late 70's (IIRC) to the late 80's for training. This was a big, big improvement over the previous training method, which was essentially a teletype. Ray Charles does not sound good on teletype.

By: bhnyc

bhnyc — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:04:48 -0800

oops "An interesting about thing about laserdisc...

By: mistersquid

mistersquid — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:14:49 -0800

Not to pull old geezer rank, but it seems that no one so far gets the promo. It's a tricky place to be, for sure, even if you're DEVO, but DEVO made an industry of mocking corporate media, even while they recognized they were of it. I think the only time they failed to ironize the material they were delivering is a blip in a Diet Coke commercial back in the 80s. This said, DEVO is making fun of the entire process. At the time the video was made, they might have been hard up for cash. But regardless of the financial incentive, if you pay careful attention (and even not-so-careful attention) you will see that their mocking their corporate overlords, the features of the Pioneer device, and their own role in promoting a new-fangled gadget. The video is funny even as it is demoralizing. Try it with your irono-meter on.

By: fungible

fungible — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:26:45 -0800

I think it's great. I mean, sure, if you have some little band with "integrity" that wants to never sell out and do only your little thing, wonderful. But DEVO was more about getting involved with the culture, in order to destroy it.

By: kaseijin

kaseijin — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:47:16 -0800

Let's not forget DEVO's Dell Commercial That one's new and, as I understand it, Mutato Muzika's doing fairly well...so it's not like they're hard up for cash. I, for one, am absolutely stoked that this song probably heralds a new album. Let's hope it's a far sight better than Smooth Noodle Maps. I hope they tour more for it, too. Saw them last year in Dallas, and they were still amazing. Regarding selling out? Maybe an issue when they were younger and hungrier. I think at this point in their career, they've earned the right to both have fun playing and make money from their efforts.

By: brevator

brevator — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:55:09 -0800

I'm wondering how people pronounce "DEVO"? I've always put the accent on the DE (as they do in "Jocko Homo" when they say "We are DE-VO") but in this video they put the accent on the VO.

By: foxy_hedgehog

foxy_hedgehog — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:08:45 -0800

I'd argue that its true purpose of the promo is to serve as a definitive compendium of every nightmare-inducing 1980s pop culture reference. This is the most disturbing thing I've seen in a very long time. I think it might even beat out Goatse. I'm not going to sleep very well this week. I also just broke out in hives.

By: Dead Man

Dead Man — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:33:45 -0800

Was Pioneer completely out to lunch in choosing Devo to be their spokesmen? Everything that comes out of Devo's mouth in this commercial sounds utterly sarcastic.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:00:41 -0800

I always wanted to send away for one of the items DEVO had on offer in the catalogues contained with their LPs. Weird postcards so you can "correspond with innocent strangers" or the yellow suit for protecting yourself from dangerous human radiation. I could always understand why DEVO could do commercials. They were unselloutable.

By: killdevil

killdevil — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:18:14 -0800

Metafilter: try it with your irono-meter on.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:56:16 -0800

Not long ago, DEVO released a DVD with a bunch of their music videos on it. Interspersed among the videos are snippets from this laserdisc promo. The self-mockery of putting these clips on a DVD is quite arch and quite amusing. Within the past year, I ran across a laserdisc player in a thrift store, asking price $20. I thought really hard about getting it, but declined.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:12:10 -0800

Yikes, it's like some surreal time capsule. Devo: Beautiful World

By: spoobnooble

spoobnooble — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:33:13 -0800

I just like the thought of Devo hanging out with Ray Charles.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:43:54 -0800

The only laserdisc I ever played with was a copy of the Aspen Movie Map. That one is worth trying out.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:49:09 -0800

Devo promoting DiscoVision...

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 08:54:32 -0800

A DVD of this promo video, and much more can be found at Booji Boy's Basement.

By: meehawl

meehawl — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:19:29 -0800

The Dell advert is a bit of a rip of the second, pornoish video for Benassi's Satisfaction (you know, glossy women, power tools, and so on). Which is kind of ironic, because the original video for Satisfaction was all Devo-ish.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:01:30 -0800

"Somewhere on the interwebs, there's probably a Devo fan club, and some of its members own this video and watch it regularly." (Please note: said site may not actually contain this exact video content)

By: progosk

progosk — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:05:18 -0800

I'm wondering how people pronounce "DEVO"? Noticed that too. (Subgenii at play?)

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:34:38 -0800

"Somewhere on the interwebs, there's probably a Devo fan club, and some of its members own this video and watch it regularly." It does.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:05:21 -0800

The band themselves have pronounced it "deVO" in interviews and such as long as I can remember. IIRC they once explained that pronunciation in a magazine interview, but darned if I can remember their reasoning.

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:18:26 -0800

Rock on with your irono-meter on.

By: Rashomon

Rashomon — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:22:07 -0800

It should be noted that the films in the video are shown in a full screen aspect ratio [1:33 to 1] rather than letterboxed. Letterboxing was not yet in fashion. A short history of letterboxing can be found here. The first video to feature letterboxing was Amacord released in January 1984 on a format called CED [Capacitance Electronic Disc]. Eight months later came Woody Allen's Manhattan on LaserDisc.

By: nekton

nekton — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:31:40 -0800

Not as good as Spirit of '76... We had a LaserDisc player. We owned the following discs: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Silkwood, a compilation of J. Geils band videos, some Disney cartoons, Star Wars, Grease, and a disc of Korean interpretations of classic fairy tales. We had to go to a local Radio Shack (or independent version thereof) to rent others.

By: vronsky

vronsky — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:53:40 -0800

I lived 2 blocks north of that store in the 90s f@m:) Saw Spike Lee, Kid and Play and even Laurie Anderson on different occasions.

By: Reggie Digest

Reggie Digest — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 18:31:41 -0800

Don't forget that "really stupid idea" known as 3-D video. (FFWD to 4:30 for very interesting real-time commentary from Booji Boy.)

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:46:05 -0800

I lived 2 blocks north of that store in the 90s... Wait a minute... if you were 2 blocks north, you weren't in the 90's, you were down around Astor Place! Har har har!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:48:49 -0800

And yeah, I'd agree with mattoxic, they were "unselloutable". They were beyond "selling out". They were... DEVO.

By: Dirjy

Dirjy — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:30:33 -0800

NO OAR = NO SALE!!!

By: vronsky

vronsky — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 11:49:35 -0800

"Har har har!" more like Groan, groan, groan! ;)