Dell Commercial Leads to New Devo Album

Posted on Jun 1st 2009 3:00PM by Steve Baltin
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It's been 19 years since Devo have recorded an album. That hiatus, however, officially ended earlier this year, thanks to Dell computers. "There was a slow build," Mark Mothersbaugh tells Spinner. "We talked about it for years and then we got asked to do music for a Dell commercial. They were going to just license 'Whip It.' And Gerry [Casale] is friends with the creatives on the project. He said, 'Hey, would you be interested in a new song from Devo?'"

Thankfully for Devo-tees, Dell said yes. Casale told Spinner there are a couple of tracks the band is really excited about. "There's a song called 'Don't Shoot, I'm a Man,' that's basically a plea for some modicum of humanity as we get into a more and more psychotic society," Casale says. "And then there's 'What We Do,' which is kind of, in its own way, as much a manifesto as 'Jocko Homo.' It's a real sing-along. It'll be a good karaoke tune."

Times have certainly changed in the past 20 years, in regards to the music business and recording technology. And Devo fully plan on embracing that new world. "An album doesn't have to be a piece of vinyl, 12 inches across with 12, 14 or 15 songs on it," Mothersbaugh says. "It can be something that comes out in pieces, installments."

"We're investigating that because certainly it is irrelevant to drop a CD -- here's the street date, they're dropped and then two weeks later nobody cares anyway," Casale says. "With the fact that there's almost too much content and people don't know what to look at, it's better to do something that can be digested and understood on a smaller scale ... like a taste treat."

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