“12 X U”, Wire-Pink Flag—NPA

This way: 12 X U

Near Perfect Album

Pink Flag is the debut studio album by English rock band Wire. It was released in November 1977 by Harvest Records. The album gained Wire a cult following within independent and punk music upon its initial release, later growing to be highly influential on many other musicians.

 

Reviewing in 1978 for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called Pink Flag a "punk suite", praised its "simultaneous rawness and detachment" and detected a rock-and-roll irony similar to, but "much grimmer and more frightening" than, the Ramones. In a 1978 Trouser Press review, Ira Robbins said that "Wire [push] minimalism to new heights" and said the band "dredges up images of...beat poetry--short fragments of impressions set to music." Robbins said that the 21 tracks are "not songs...There's no easy structure or meter. Each explores or describes or electrifies or challenges. There's no easy listening." He concluded, "I can't say this is an enjoyable album. Maybe it's just a stupid bit of rubbish. But you won't know unless you find out."

In a retrospective review, Steve Huey of AllMusic opined that Pink Flag was "perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk" and also "recognizable, yet simultaneously quite unlike anything that preceded it. Pink Flag's enduring influence pops up in hardcore, punk, alternative rock, and even Britpop, and it still remains a fresh, invigorating listen today: a fascinating, highly inventive rethinking of punk rock and its freedom to make up your own rules." Retrospectively, Trouser Press called the album "a brilliant 21-song suite" in which the band "manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy, coming up with a collection of unforgettable tunes". Pitchfork writer Joe Tangari summarized the album as "a fractured snapshot of punk alternately collapsing in on itself and exploding into song-fragment shrapnel." 

[Spotify] 12 X U

[Spotify, album] Pink Flag-LP