dropped because there was always something better to bring in.” Consequently, there was a need for haste: Thorne had to commit the songs to vinyl before Wire lost interest in them. As Newman maintains, “We were already beyond
Pink Flag
when we made it.”
Prior to going into the studio, Thorne met with the band to establish the record’s contents. Lewis remembers the producer advising them to hold back their newest work “We had a list of 30-odd titles, and Mike said, ‘Whoa, slow down here, guys. That’s great, but you’re starting to go somewhere else. The material you’ve already got is really good. It holds together and would make a fantastic record,
and
you’re going to get 21 tracks on it.’”
At the same time, Thorne was determined that quantity wouldn’t become a mere novelty. He recognised that track order would be key if the material’s true strength were to come across. “We spent a creative afternoon in my flat getting the running order together,” he recalls. “We went around the houses a fewtimes, but, eventually, we had it: all 21 songs strung together.” Also critical was Thorne’s awareness that pre-determining each track’s placement would have a bearing on how it should be performed and recorded. And whereas part of the trick of sequencing was grouping tracks that complemented one another, Thorne considered it equally important to establish contrasts. As Lewis comments, “Another strength of Mike’s was to separate things with similar chord progressions and similar characters.”
I didn’t learn the song titles or decipher the lyrics. I listened to it as one long suite of songs—I didn’t always know when one started and one ended.
Robert Poss
In spite of its brevity (35 minutes) and seeming fragmentation—an impression accentuated by the abundance of miniature, hyper-speed songs—
Pink Flag
is surprisingly multidimensional. The running order and range of dynamics imbue it with an unlikely feeling of space and measured pacing. “Although there are 21 tracks, it’s remarkable how unhurried the whole thing feels,” reflects Lewis. “It feels so inevitable and so well-paced. Mike’s sequencing is extremely good. Now, one can’t imagine the songs being put together any other way.”
The album became greater than the sum of its parts: early appraisals of the band’s work often noted its overall unity. Covering a December 1977 gig for
Sounds
, Jane Suck reported: “They do a 24-song set (cough) but it’s more like ‘Sister Ray’ with gaps in it.” In the
NME
, Phil McNeill called
Pink Flag
“a 21-track set which delivers a staggeringly coherent picture.” Christgau described it as “a punk suite comprising parts so singular that you can hardly imagine them in some other order.” Numerous interviewees for this book emphasised that they didn’t listen to the album as a series of individual tracks but as a broader, unifiedwork. Even some of those involved in making
Pink Flag
considered it an extended piece: “The whole thing was just one big song,” observes assistant engineer Ken Thomas. Mission of Burma’s Peter Prescott agrees: “It’s 21 songs, but in a way it’s one. It feels so unified that I’d always listen to it all the way through.” Richard Jobson also appreciates the overarching unity. “It’s not a
concept
album—I find that term abhorrent—but the beauty of that album is that it takes you on a journey. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Pink Flag
was the first album I’d heard since Lou Reed’s
Berlin
that had that completeness.”
Although not a concept album in the progressive rock sense of there being a greater thematic unity,
Pink Flag
is an album that’s conceptual in nature, its unity deriving from Wire’s conceptual principles: the sustained minimalist, reductionist aesthetic across all areas of their work, coupled with their attitude towards it as an object to be contemplated and finessed. This relationship between the
Pink Flag
when we made it.”
Prior to going into the studio, Thorne met with the band to establish the record’s contents. Lewis remembers the producer advising them to hold back their newest work “We had a list of 30-odd titles, and Mike said, ‘Whoa, slow down here, guys. That’s great, but you’re starting to go somewhere else. The material you’ve already got is really good. It holds together and would make a fantastic record,
and
you’re going to get 21 tracks on it.’”
At the same time, Thorne was determined that quantity wouldn’t become a mere novelty. He recognised that track order would be key if the material’s true strength were to come across. “We spent a creative afternoon in my flat getting the running order together,” he recalls. “We went around the houses a fewtimes, but, eventually, we had it: all 21 songs strung together.” Also critical was Thorne’s awareness that pre-determining each track’s placement would have a bearing on how it should be performed and recorded. And whereas part of the trick of sequencing was grouping tracks that complemented one another, Thorne considered it equally important to establish contrasts. As Lewis comments, “Another strength of Mike’s was to separate things with similar chord progressions and similar characters.”
I didn’t learn the song titles or decipher the lyrics. I listened to it as one long suite of songs—I didn’t always know when one started and one ended.
Robert Poss
In spite of its brevity (35 minutes) and seeming fragmentation—an impression accentuated by the abundance of miniature, hyper-speed songs—
Pink Flag
is surprisingly multidimensional. The running order and range of dynamics imbue it with an unlikely feeling of space and measured pacing. “Although there are 21 tracks, it’s remarkable how unhurried the whole thing feels,” reflects Lewis. “It feels so inevitable and so well-paced. Mike’s sequencing is extremely good. Now, one can’t imagine the songs being put together any other way.”
The album became greater than the sum of its parts: early appraisals of the band’s work often noted its overall unity. Covering a December 1977 gig for
Sounds
, Jane Suck reported: “They do a 24-song set (cough) but it’s more like ‘Sister Ray’ with gaps in it.” In the
NME
, Phil McNeill called
Pink Flag
“a 21-track set which delivers a staggeringly coherent picture.” Christgau described it as “a punk suite comprising parts so singular that you can hardly imagine them in some other order.” Numerous interviewees for this book emphasised that they didn’t listen to the album as a series of individual tracks but as a broader, unifiedwork. Even some of those involved in making
Pink Flag
considered it an extended piece: “The whole thing was just one big song,” observes assistant engineer Ken Thomas. Mission of Burma’s Peter Prescott agrees: “It’s 21 songs, but in a way it’s one. It feels so unified that I’d always listen to it all the way through.” Richard Jobson also appreciates the overarching unity. “It’s not a
concept
album—I find that term abhorrent—but the beauty of that album is that it takes you on a journey. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Pink Flag
was the first album I’d heard since Lou Reed’s
Berlin
that had that completeness.”
Although not a concept album in the progressive rock sense of there being a greater thematic unity,
Pink Flag
is an album that’s conceptual in nature, its unity deriving from Wire’s conceptual principles: the sustained minimalist, reductionist aesthetic across all areas of their work, coupled with their attitude towards it as an object to be contemplated and finessed. This relationship between the
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