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Duty Now For The Future

Duty Now for the Future was the second album by Devo, released in 1979. It was on the Billboard charts for 10 weeks, peaking at #73. The "Devo Corporate Anthem" music and video are a nod to the 1975 film Rollerball, in which games are preceded by players and audience standing solemnly while listening to a regional "corporate hymn." "Secret Agent Man" is a cover (with modified lyrics) of the song by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri and performed by Johnny Rivers in 1965. "Devo Corporate Anthem" and "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise" videos were featured in Devo's first home video release The Men Who Make the Music and later in the collection The Complete Truth About De-Evolution. The "Secret Agent Man" video was featured in the film The Truth about De-Evolution as an early document that was originally titled "The Beginning was the End" along with videos for "Jocko Homo" and other random Devo shorts and information. The majority of the songs on the album had been performed in Devo's live set as early as 1976 or 1977.
Reception
It was received less enthusiastically than their first release; Dave Marsh, writing in Rolling Stone, condemns it completely, feeling that "inspired amateurism works only when the players aspire to something better." In their review of the album, Smash Hits described it as "unimpressive", but noted that the "change of style definitely grows on you". They went on to say that, although the album was more accessible, it was "lacking the zany magic of old".


Cultural Significance
The Allmusic review, written more than a decade later, takes a longer view. Reviewer Mark Deming writes that "their second album captures the group in the midst of a significant stylistic shift" while acknowledging that the song "'Triumph of the Will' embraces fascism as a satirical target without bothering to make it sound as if they disapprove." KROQ/LA long-time DJ Jed The Fish, admittedly a huge fan of Devo, sees the album as playing "catch-up," fleshing out many more songs from their immense volume of demo recordings. A seminal New Wave synthpop album, Duty Now for the Future was eventually heralded as one of the first pop/rock or AOR releases of a major record label to rely heavily on synthesizers, which went on to be widely used in the subsequent New Wave genre of the 1980s. As an offshoot of punk rock, New Wave music had consisted primarily of guitar-based songs derived from traditional rock and roll and blues scales and riffs, as represented by Devo's punk contemporaries The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash. Legendary Punk Rock icon Henry Rollins is among the many musicians that praise the album's innovations. Rollins' short-lived Infinite Zero reissue label (an offshoot of American Recordings) was responsible for the first U.S. CD release of Duty Now for the Future in 1994. The album had been continually overlooked by original label Warner Brothers.
U.S. Cover Art
The American 12" album cover was jokingly dominated by the album’s Universal Product Code. The colorful Janet Perr artwork satirized the new requirements for these bar codes. Until that time, album covers were seen as an entire art form unto themselves. Consequently, the new mandates for UPCs splashed across every work of album art were a subject of much protest as an infringement upon artistic integrity and an Orwellian symbol of the impersonal modern age. The rectangular image of the band originally came perforated and could therefore be removed from the "offending" barcodes surrounding it. The inner sleeve included the lyrics of all the songs printed in a single block of closely printed text. In addition to other artwork, the sleeve also featured a West Hollywood address from which one could request information and news about the band.


Track listing
1. "Devo Corporate Anthem" Mark Mothersbaugh 1:16
2. "Clockout" Gerald V. Casale 2:48
4. "Wiggly World" Bob Mothersbaugh, G.V. Casale 2:45
5. "Blockhead" B. Mothersbaugh, M. Mothersbaugh 3:00
6. "Strange Pursuit" G.V. Casale, M. Mothersbaugh 2:45
7. "S.I.B. (Swelling Itching Brain)" M. Mothersbaugh 4:27
8. "Triumph of the Will" M. Mothersbaugh, G.V. Casale 2:19
9. "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize" M. Mothersbaugh 2:42
10. "Pink Pussycat" M. Mothersbaugh, B. Mothersbaugh 3:12
11. "Secret Agent Man" P. F. Sloan, Steve Barri, arr. M. Mothersbaugh 3:37
12. "Smart Patrol"/"Mr DNA" G.V. Casale, M. Mothersbaugh 6:06
13. "Red Eye" M. Mothersbaugh, G.V. Casale 2:50 Note: On the original LP album release, side one comprised tracks 1-7; side two tracks (from Wikipedia)