Devo: La banda más incomprendida de EE.UU.

Casual Pop-Music Fans with any Degree of Awareness will Most Likely Reference "Devo" as a 1-Hit-Wonder who Created "Surreal" Music-Videos Included on the "Playlist" of the Newly-Developed MTV,

The Reality is "Devo" was a Cleveland Based Band Formed as a Secondary, but Necessary, Outlet for the Bands Art-Fetish Exporting Biting, Cutting Edge "Social-Satire" through Succinct Visual Images Cut & Pasted from Pop-Culture, Corporate Domination, and the Expressive Landscape that Dominates, Over-Looks, and Controls the Masses through Multi-Media.

That Subverts Free-Thinking and Mesmerizes Everyone by "Manufacturing Consent". A Subconscious Capitulation to Things that May Not Be in Their Best-Interest.

At an Impressionable Time and Space-Place of the Band-Members, a Tragedy Struck on the Campus of Kent State University where Some of Them Witnessed First Hand...the National Guard was Deployed to Maintain Order on "Protestors", THEN...

The Guard Open-Fired and "4 Are Dead in Ohio" and Over a Hundred Injured.

Mark Mothersbaugh Sites this Horror as the Catalyst for Him and the Others to Not Be "Couch-Potatoes" No More. So They Shunned the Spud and "Devo" was Born.

Difficult to Describe other than Surreal, Bizarre, and Unique..."Devo" and its Art-Form of Music and Sound Combined with a Provocative, Stimulating, and Vibrant Aesthetic...A Thing most People Don't Get. Never Will. In the Long-Run what Penetrated was an Ultra-Simplistic-Diddy Called "Whip It"...

that was a Far-Cry from Their Usually Dense and Deep Lyrical and Musical Postulation on the Problems of a "Devolving" Species. An Anti-Darwinian Exclamation of a Reversal of the Theory of Continual "Progress" of a Life-Form for Survival.

Everything about "Devo" is a Complicated Cornucopia...a Primal-Scream of Pain from Human-Being Confronted with an Obvious but Ignored Decline of Everything and Anything About Life as Living in 20th Century America.

"It's a Beautiful World", They Sung..."For You, For You...Not Me".

The Band's Legacy will Stand the Test of Time, if there is any. Because it is Nothing Less than...

THE TRUTH

A Must See Documentary of the Band who Documented with Music and Images the Glaring "Rot" in America and Dared to Ask the Question...

"Are We Not Men?"

This has to be one of the best and most well put together movie down to the overall feel with the music and the aesthetic of DEVO absolutely is amazing. I wish this documentary would be released to the public and not just in film festivals because it has truly inspired me and I've been trying to find this documentary since i saw it for the first time. This has also striked my idea on what my style is and has changed it for the better. I love how unique DEVO is as a whole and they are truly inspiring with their visuals and music. I truly hope that this eventually comes out and this is my last resort to write a review in hopes the director sees this!

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Chris Smith creator of "American Movie" creates a fun documentary about the band DEVO who are widely misunderstood with interesting choices of music, background observations and conversations. DEVO's background and story is pretty interesting as the documentary does a good job on exploring the band with some fun insights.

Since I am not the biggest music documentary person, I found certain aspects feeling slow and uneventful towards the second act. Including some of the conversations feeling a little dry. Overall, there are some really nice fun moments together.

This documentary tells Devo's story to the drum beat of Devo. It stays true to the Devo's creative, brilliant and very quirky traits.

The story is mostly told by leading band members Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale. A lot of stuff they talk about would be known to Devo fans, maybe some stories were new or defined better. They talk about their evolution from art students to bumbling musicians and how they came up with the raw Devo concept.

Right from the start Devo were very cynical and frustrated with the world, and stayed that way throughout their Devo journey. I'm not sure if they ever really thought they would alert the world and change it for the better. They take you through their clumsy early years as a band during the early to mid 1970's playing in small clubs and getting booed. Then in 1978 they gain a huge audience by playing on a TV show. A couple of years later Devo peaked with their hit song Whip it, and with some frustration they slowly faded away. Devo were innovative and excellent musicians tight and sharp, but the documentary doesn't give too much credit to this.

Once again, the documentary confirms that it is very difficult to put Devo into a musical genre, they just don't really fit anywhere. Once you see this documentary you might understand why. If you were/are a fan of Devo you should enjoy this. If you don't know or understand what Devo was all about, this might confuse you more!

As a teenager, I first heard Devo's music in 1978. I didn't know what I was listening to, but I liked it. I was drifting away from pop music and needed something else. Devo was a total different world of music. Tell people you liked Devo and most people would roll their eyes.

Don't get me wrong: music with a message like Devo's remains important for its subversive qualities, but this documentary doesn't exactly avoid backfiring with self-indulgence and potential hypocrisy.

Yes, mindless consumerism and toxic capitalism is bad, but the same society they lampoon has awarded them a career. They know this (the doc nods to it in the second half) and while they're by no means the most shameless paradox in music (looking at you, Rage Against The Machine), you still can't help but cringe at the bigger picture unfolding in front of you with this film: privileged Me Generation ultimately changed nothing with their complaining and became the system they hated at varying degrees.

Especially when, during one particular archived interview, the members basically concede their pleasure in profiting from their fans and justifying it by audience numbers... the same logic used by their corporate and government peers.

Another flaw: the lack of insight to their core musicality. Mostly the film likes to cover social and thematic aspects of Devo, but almost no insight is offered about their actual music, the equipment, the historical place they have during post-punk and onward.

Devo's place in pop culture shouldn't be undercut but it also shouldn't be overstated. Ethos aside, in the greater story of music, they are still mostly that one-hit wonder band that made "Whip It". This doc tries to walk the middle-ground but can't totally get away with what it's trying to do, and frankly it's on the fringes of a puff piece.