The ultimate beginner’s guide to Wire
While punk’s roots are firmly planted in the United States, the genre exploded in England with the emergence of bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash. These days, when asked to think about 1970spunk, most people will likely conjure up images of a snarling Sid Vicious, Vivienne Westwood clothing, or the anti-establishment art of Jamie Reid. Yet, this initial wave of British punk was merely a short phenomenon, a quick blast of light that soon burnt out.
It’s easy to overlook the other punk bands which emerged during the late ’70s when bands like the Sex Pistols brought so much drama and intrigue with them. However, the punk scene fostered some incredible groups who have long outlived the genre, continuing to make music into the present day.
One of these bands is Wire. Formed in 1976, Wire released their debut album, Pink Flag, the following year. 1977 was a seminal year for punk, with some of the most iconic releases of the era emerging just months apart from each other. From Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols to The Clashand The Damned’s Damned Damned Damned,punk was at its peak. WhilePink Flag is recognised as an essential record from this period, Wire are rarely heralded in the same way as their contemporaries.
Yet Wire, still active today, quickly proved themselves to be a cut above many of their fellow punks, diving headfirst into experimentation with their second and third albums. The first sparks of punk might have died out, but Wire were far from finished. Over the next few decades, the band continued to release music between several hiatuses and lineup fluctuations.
So, for anyone new to Wire, look no further than this beginner’s guide, which should teach you everything you need to know to become a fan of one of the greatest British punk bands of all time.
The beginner’s guide to Wire:
Where are Wire from?
The band formed in London, although the members came from different parts of the country, including Wiltshire, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire.
Who is in Wire?
The initial lineup consisted of vocalist and guitarist Colin Newman, guitarist Bruce Gilbert, bassist Graham Lewis, drummer Robert Grey (also known as Robert Gotobed) and lead guitarist George Gill. However, Gill left the band shortly after it began, and Gilbert left in 2004, with guitarist Matthew Simms joining in 2010.
How many albums have Wire released?
A total of 17 studio albums make up Wire’s discography, beginning with 1977’sPink Flag.For those who have never seen the band live, fear not – they have 26 live albums. Wire have also released 11 EPs.
A brief history of Wire
After the band formed in 1976, they played their first gig at the Roxy in London on January 19th, 1977. Most of the members had backgrounds in art, with the early machinations of Wire coming together at Watford College of Art and Design. Here, Gilbert worked as a technician while honing a career as an artist. He met Newman, a student at the school, and began making music with him, eventually recruiting Lewis and Grey later on.
Discussing the early days of Wire, Newman toldSongwriters on Process, “I’ve characterised [songwriting] before as taking an axe to rock n roll and leaving the ‘n roll’ out. A reductionism, really. I realised that I could write a song that consisted of one chord and shouting. It was perfectly acceptable. Back then, you had to have a second chord, but it was absolutely the wrong one.”
With the release ofPink Flag, Wire were praised for their fast-paced, striking tracks. The band were capable of imbuing their songs with witty lyricism or unconventional structure, no matter how short they were. Simultaneously, they were fond of sticking to simple minimalist chords, proving they could make interesting and memorable songs with a simple instrumental palette.
They followedPink Flag withChairs Missing and154, showing a penchant for synthesisers and greater experimentation. However, this slight musical detour, combined with their strange promotional ideas, including a stint in the theatre, made Wire drop by EMI. This led to the band’s first split three years after their formation, although they reemerged in 1985.
However, fans of the band’s first three albums would have no luck in witnessing the hits for quite some time. Wire decided to move forward in a new direction, armed with more synthesisers, abandoning their earlier tracks. A hiatus ensued a few years later, following the release of 1991’sThe First Letter, which was made without Grey.
Luckily, the band reunited in 1999 and has released nine more studio albums since then. These newer records have seen Wire experiment with different genres, with 2003’sSend honing a dark, electronica-inspired sound, whereas 2020’sMind Hive feels like a more eclectic mix of genres, from post-punk to ’90s industrial.
The defining albums by Wire:
Pink Flag (1977)
As far as punk albums go, Pink Flagis pretty perfect. Coming in at 21 tracks, the record blasts through songs as short as ‘Field Day for the Sundays’ (28 seconds), with the longest cut being ‘Strange’, coming in at three minutes and 58 seconds. However, on average, each song is between one and two minutes, with each featuring jolting guitars and prominent punky riffs. At this point in their career, the band’s sound could be pinpointed by distinctively fuzzy, raw guitars, which accompany Newman’s sprechgesang-inspired vocal delivery.
Highlights include ‘Three Girl Rhumba’, an addictive track with a riff you might recognise from Elastica’s ’90s hit ‘Connection’ and ‘Lowdown’, a repetitive, almost krautrock-esque cut. We couldn’t forget ‘Fragile’, with its nostalgic singalong sensibility, or ‘1 2 X U’, the most stereotypically ‘punk’-sounding track on the album, with Newman playfully singing words of sexual ambiguity.
Chairs Missing(1978)
Chairs Missing is an essential recording from Wire’s discography, signalling their move from classic punk to something more ambitious. Instantly, with the opener ‘Practise Makes Perfect’, Wire makes us aware that this isn’t just a re-do of album one –Chairs Missing is bolder, braver and darker. The album introduces Wire’s first experimental sensibilities, moving away from strictly short, snappy tracks (although most of the songs are still just a few minutes long), boasting the capability to make songs as long as six minutes, like ‘Mercy’.
Snyths whirl and psychedelic grooves emerge, with the band demonstrating influences ranging from ’60s garage rock to ambient music. This is the sound of a band that refused to be pigeonholed into one style, highlighting that, despite their punk roots, they had the imaginative scope to reach above and beyond the genre. Highlights include ‘Another the Letter’, ‘Outdoor Miner’, ‘Practise Makes Perfect’ and ‘I Am the Fly’.Chairs Missing was a stepping stone towards Wire’s future output, which is not resigned to any one genre, although it always circles back to their punk beginnings.
ChangeBecomes Us (2013)
Wire’s post-2000 work is frequently overlooked, but you only have to listen to an album like 2013’sChange Becomes Us to know that the band have never lost what made them so brilliant in the late 1970s. The album takes some of the material they included on their 1981 live album,Document and Eyewitness, and completely reworks it with updated influences.
It’s a solid record which never abandons Wire’s penchant for raw guitars, often relying on simple yet powerful lyricism such as “Resistance is futile/ He awaits the kill/ He prepares the arrival/ He’s perfectly still” on ‘Doubles & Trebles’.Change Becomes Us feels more refined and full than their earlier work, with genres like shoegaze infiltrating their post-punk sound through thick layers of guitar.
The defining songs by Wire:
‘Mannequin’
While it’s difficult to pick one song that defines Wire’s earliest years, ‘Mannequin’ is hard to resist. With its Beach Boys-esque “ohh ohh” backing vocals and lyrical attacks on shallowness, the song is one of the band’s most recognisable. Newman bitingly quips, “Well, you’re a waste of space/ No natural grace” and “Well, you’re an energy void/ A black hole to avoid/ No style, no heart.”
Despite the negative lyrics, with Newman also shouting, “You’re a disgrace!”, the song will most likely put a smile on your face or, depending on how much you’ve drank, lead you to wrap your arms around your friends’ shoulders as you sing along to the “La la la las.”
‘Another the Letter’
While the band released one of their most well-known songs, ‘Outdoor Miner’, in 1978 as part of their second album,Chairs Missing, we have to highlight ‘Another the Letter’ as one of the band’s defining tracks from this period. Appearing third on the album, which came just a year afterPink Flag, the song incorporates rapid, dizzying synthesisers into their punk palette, signalling a new era for the band.
Chairs Missing showed Wire weren’t simply one-trick ponies – they wouldn’t die out after the initial wave of punk was over. Instead, they refreshed their sound, welcoming in the soon-to-be dominant genre of post-punk.
‘Read and Burn’
Skipping forward to 2003, the band released a criminally underrated gem of an album in the form of Send.The album has echoes of industrial rock, gothic rock, shoegaze and electronica, all wrapped together in one bass-heavy mix. ‘Read and Burn’ is a furious electronic freakout that blends modern alternative rock sensibilities with echoes of their classic ’70s sound.
Building with frenetic rhythms, the band shout simple lines such as “They can/ They might/ They can/ They will”. This amalgamation of punk simplicity and modern electronica suits Wire well, and it remains one of their most accomplished releases of the 21st century.
Why are Wire so important?
Despite the tendency for people to overlook Wire when reflecting on the bands that defined the late ’70s punk scene, they were actually a huge influence on the wave of hardcore bands that emerged in the next few years. Moreover, their unorthodox approach to songwriting paved the way for post-punk, with their electronic experimentations developing the expectations of classic punk.
Bands such as Black Flag and Minor Threat have cited Wire as an essential influence, alongside Minutemen, with Mike Watt explaining that the band massively inspired him and his bandmates. He explained toRolling Stone: “It was like that NYC band Richard Hell and the Voidoids without the studio gimmickry, but Wire was way more ‘econo’ with the instrumentation and the radical approach to song structure.”
He added: “And the way Wire wrote words were artistic without being elitist; some of the slang was trippy, too. All the ‘old’ conventions from all the other ‘old’ bands went out the window after we heard Wire. They were big-time liberating on us.”
Elsewhere, bands such as Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü and Big Black all looked to the band, inspired by Wire’s disregard for punk conventions, arguably the most punk act of all.
Wire remains severely underrated these days, with most of their post-2000 releases going largely unnoticed compared to their work from the ’70s. Yet, their continuous dedication to making new music and experimenting with new styles only demonstrates that Wire are one of Britain’s most vital bands, constantly pushing themselves to new creative limits.
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