Now, the complete truth can be told...Devo, the seminal New Wave audio-visual concept band made a career out of setting to music video their Dada-gone-camp theory of de-evolution and its riotous rebuke of corporate culture. Punk/New Wave mad scientists Devo were among the few bands to understand the music video's potential as art form during its infancy in the eighties. Their brilliant and bizarre videos were compiled on VHS and then on laser disc; that long out-of-print disc, The Complete Truth About De-Evolution, has finally arrived on DVD, which should please longtime fans of this eclectic outfit.
Production
DIY sci-fi sets that out-budgeted their actual budget.
Direction
Music video as conceptual art before MTV knew better.
Costume
Energy domes: instantly iconic, utterly inexplicable.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Devo coined 'de-evolution' as a critique of American regression, decades before internet irony poisoned discourse.
The energy dome was designed to capture escaping orgone energy—yes, they were that committed to the bit.
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