Comments for Wire, 154

Now THIS is their masterpiece, I think. The minimalism is encapsulated within a veriety of forms; the material is diverse and somewwhat cold, but I've never met anyone serious about music or serious about art who has heard and listened to this and not come away feeling that this record is a milestone of some sort.

A milestone indeed. In one of his last interviews in 1980, John Lennon cited Wire as one of the (few) new bands worth listening to.

Breathtaking. It took me a while to realize the subtle, almost subliminal genius of this record, having started my Wire fetish with Pink Flag, but this and Document & Eyewitness are the records that grabbed my head most in the long run.

this is sort of a transitional album, I think, between the sharper punk rock of pink flag and the more subtly disturbing 80s stuff. As such it retains a bit of the best of both worlds...lots of layered tweaky sounds, guitar, synth, bass, vocal dubs, a very dark and very beautiful album.

A landmark album, not a weak moment on it. Too bad then about the bonus tracks on the CD, that IMO are a unfitting anticlimax, and are even inferior to the bonus tracks on Pink Flag and Charis Missing. They really should have been left off.

There has to be a comment here from someone who prefers the minimalist version of Wire! 154 isn't at all to my taste, and I think that Wire conveyed what they were trying to convey much better in shorter sharper songs with telegraphic lyrics than in 154's songs, which are excessively extended in structure, too full of verbiage, and not very well sung. (I think that Chairs Missing shows a nice compromise between the two extremes, if that's what you like. PS: I also think the bonus tracks are nice.)