Not through being cool!

January 23, 2006 9:16 AM

Devo is back! But in kid form.
posted by bonefish (59 comments total)

Please stop. You're hurting my father.
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 9:28 AM on January 23, 2006

I, um, don't quite know how to feel.
posted by TonyRobots at 9:29 AM on January 23, 2006

I can say this, though -- they are not men.
posted by TonyRobots at 9:30 AM on January 23, 2006

Are we not children?
posted by Robot Johnny at 9:31 AM on January 23, 2006

This is seriously worse than I had expected it to be.
posted by rxrfrx at 9:32 AM on January 23, 2006

How long until Steve Jobs is in charge of Disney?
posted by Robot Johnny at 9:34 AM on January 23, 2006

I am going to be thinking about Pogs all damn day now.
posted by herting at 9:37 AM on January 23, 2006

I must say... I'd much prefer my kids listening to this than Hillary Duff.

I don't fear getting older. At all. Really. This is a good thing. Right?
posted by AspectRatio at 9:38 AM on January 23, 2006

de-evolution in action
posted by quarsan at 9:41 AM on January 23, 2006

See this They Might Be Giants one too, now in heavy rotation with my two year old
posted by poppo at 9:42 AM on January 23, 2006

Oh god. Please tell me this is just a bad dream. Disney-kids singing Uncontrollable Urge? Gah!
posted by Thorzdad at 9:44 AM on January 23, 2006

What quarsan said. That even explains the band's willingness to sign on the dotted line.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:47 AM on January 23, 2006

God that was wretched.
posted by LarryC at 9:49 AM on January 23, 2006

I can't wait for the pink pussycat disney version
posted by damnitkage at 9:50 AM on January 23, 2006

This is not a good thing.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:54 AM on January 23, 2006

If I weren't at work, I'd cry.
It's just so damn wrong, I tell ya. Wrongwrongwrong.
posted by willmize at 10:03 AM on January 23, 2006

*Watches for The Four Riders....*
posted by JeffK at 10:05 AM on January 23, 2006

Are we not men? No, we're children.
posted by Rothko at 10:08 AM on January 23, 2006

It's Not For Me.
posted by everichon at 10:17 AM on January 23, 2006

This isn't particularly surprising given Mothersbaugh's other kid-friendly ventures (Rugrats theme, Clifford, etc), but that doesn't change the fact that it totally sucks.
posted by hypocritical ross at 10:17 AM on January 23, 2006

Motorhead is next. Just you watch.
posted by eatyourlunch at 10:21 AM on January 23, 2006

WHAT.
THE.
FUCK.
MARK MOTHERSBAUGH?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:30 AM on January 23, 2006

"It's Not For Me."

No, it's not.
I applaud the concept, but give it a C- for execution.
For starters - Nicole sucks on vocals.
And making the kids look "cool" is also a mistake. Devo attained coolness by being anti cool.
posted by 2sheets at 10:38 AM on January 23, 2006

disney makes the baby boojie boy cry
posted by evilgenius at 10:41 AM on January 23, 2006

You people are not getting how brilliant this is.
posted by thirteen at 10:45 AM on January 23, 2006

This has me pissed and slightly baffled.
posted by daveleck at 10:48 AM on January 23, 2006

Coming soon: The Small World Chorus covers the best of G.G. Allin.
posted by bashos_frog at 10:55 AM on January 23, 2006

Something tells me that they won't be covering "Mongoloid."
posted by [hifidigitalboy] at 10:57 AM on January 23, 2006

I'll hold out for the Disney Scraping Foetus off the Wheel tribute by adorable little aryan wunderkinder.

But I look forward to Nicole's inevitable morphing into a barely legal sex kitten in a few years with Disney's Britney 2.0.
posted by illovich at 10:58 AM on January 23, 2006

My knee-jerk reaction was to hate it, but on paper it certainly seems brilliant. Frankly, this is less jarring than some of the pictures from Devo's last tour... pudgy, balding, 50 year old guys playing Devo dress up is kinda creepy. Of course, 40 year old guys going to a Devo 2.0 concert might be a little creepier.
posted by MegoSteve at 11:04 AM on January 23, 2006

The "whip it" video kills me. There ain't no whip, they should just rename it to "whisk it". ...and the girl, she really doesn't have much charisma.
posted by tomplus2 at 11:09 AM on January 23, 2006

You know what's great about this, though? My daughter will hear the new versions, which will give me an excuse to expose her to the old versions. Such things have led my 10-year-old to utter the phrase "Daddy, will you put on the 'Beat on the Brat' song?" Can you imagine my joy, my pride? Next, she'll be asking for "the old version of Through Being Cool."
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:13 AM on January 23, 2006

Devo? Not so much. Capt. Beefheart 2.0? Now you're talking.
posted by hal9k at 11:14 AM on January 23, 2006

Try explaining "Golden Energy" to a ten-year-old.

Golden energy
For the guy or gal
Whose had a hard hard day
Golden energy
To help you meet the demands
Of an energetic mate
Or a red hot date
Golden energy dripping down on you
Golden energy
Natural aphrodisiac
Golden energy
Working hard to keep you on full
Pumping iron all the way
Keeps you from being too
Too tired

Rootin bootin sure fired
Golden energy meets all requirements
Posts no bills
Poots no guff
Needs no prescriptions
Golden energy handle if you care
If you dare
Help yourself to another share
posted by mds35 at 11:23 AM on January 23, 2006

oh noze!
posted by Hands of Manos at 11:23 AM on January 23, 2006

~Waits for the lead singer to run afoul of "Speed Racer"
I'm a Barbie doll, and I like sex."

Platinum record overnight...guaranteed.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:15 PM on January 23, 2006

weeps yet once again at the befoulment of his youth...
posted by Samizdata at 12:23 PM on January 23, 2006

You can read a pretty decent interview of Mark Mothersbaugh where he touches on the subject and Devo in general.
posted by furtive at 12:28 PM on January 23, 2006

I swear I just heard Mothersbaugh railing about corporate radio and the industry sucking the life out of music in an inteview on NPR.

Maybe I misunderstood? Maybe he was praising it?
posted by eyeballkid at 12:31 PM on January 23, 2006

Brillant, the Devo meme survives!
posted by PHINC at 12:31 PM on January 23, 2006

Brillant, the Devo meme survives!

In easy-to-swallow Aryan-flavored caplets!
posted by Rothko at 12:56 PM on January 23, 2006

Wasn't the fascism part of the original design?
posted by PHINC at 1:02 PM on January 23, 2006

To mock it, yes. Not to internalize it, repackage and sell it without comment, no.
posted by Rothko at 1:38 PM on January 23, 2006

man, all you naysayers are playa-haters- DEV 2.0 ROCKS!
posted by jettloe at 2:10 PM on January 23, 2006

Nice point. A very strange cultural development indeed.
posted by PHINC at 2:12 PM on January 23, 2006

Well this is just beating a dead irony.
posted by Spatch at 2:18 PM on January 23, 2006

I might support this blasphemy if the Devo2 kids are all forced to wear those "space age" conical red plastic hats the REAL Devo used to wear.
posted by troutfishing at 2:27 PM on January 23, 2006

No- make them wear the Reagan hair!

(BTW- the kids all have the red flower pot hats on the website)
posted by InfidelZombie at 3:04 PM on January 23, 2006

Don't they get it?! Did anybody think about what those songs mean?!

Argh! This is so evil. So Very Very Evil.
posted by phrontist at 3:46 PM on January 23, 2006

railing about corporate radio and the industry sucking the life out of music
"Peek-a-boo
I can see you".
should have seen it then - Devo sold out to the kids, someone has to think of them.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:52 PM on January 23, 2006

THEY CHANGED THE LAST LINE OF BEAUTIFUL WORLD!!!

From "It's not for me!" to "for me too!"
posted by phrontist at 3:53 PM on January 23, 2006

I missed the videos the first time. They take it from "bad idea" to something so bad that it actually becomes fantastic. I'm pretty sure that one kid hasn't even seen a guitar before, let alone played one.

Disney brand irony. That's awesome.
posted by Gary at 3:57 PM on January 23, 2006

And Mothersbaugh was (is?) one of the original Subgenius gang. Whaaaa happen Mark?!

The one that kills me is "Freedom of Choice".

"Freedom of choice, is what you got
Freedom from choice, is what you want."

Think the kids really get that one?
posted by zardoz at 4:04 PM on January 23, 2006

i really hate this, but as was said before by quarsan, this really is de-volution in action. Given Mothersbaugh's stance on the state of the record industry, isnt it only appropriate to duff-ify his very own creation as an extension of what they originally meant by "devo"? While it sucks objectively, we could just be experiencing the extension of this artistic statement.
posted by Kifer85 at 4:30 PM on January 23, 2006

I thought, when listening to the whole song on the video, that they changed "Freedom from choice, is what you want" to "Freedom of choice, is what you want." Which irritated me to no end. But then again, I might have misheard it.
posted by litlnemo at 5:06 PM on January 23, 2006

Ah, so the SubG co-option of the system begins here does it? Go figure. Disney.
....well, yeah, it's a soft spot....start with the children.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:14 PM on January 23, 2006

I thought, when listening to the whole song on the video, that they changed "Freedom from choice, is what you want" to "Freedom of choice, is what you want." Which irritated me to no end. But then again, I might have misheard it.

No, they changed it. You can even view the lyrics from the drop down menu on the audio player. I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mothersbaugh's recording of swiff it! (though it was discussed previously.
posted by Gary at 6:04 PM on January 23, 2006

That askme is interesting in that I learned that "Holiday in Cambodia" was apparently used to advertise jeans.
W.T.F.?!

No comment on these kids. Okay, one: yeech.
posted by kosher_jenny at 11:22 PM on January 23, 2006

And Mothersbaugh was (is?) one of the original Subgenius gang. Whaaaa happen Mark?!

c'mon. this is about as subgenius as it gets.

send me $5, pink.
posted by 3.2.3 at 9:32 AM on January 24, 2006