Consumer Guide Album

Wire: Behind the Curtain [EMI, 1995]
For Pink Flag as opposed to Wire cultists, and of course there's a difference. We prefer them at their punkest, fastest, and shortest, as with the many titles on this 1977-78 outtakes comp that didn't make any of their first three albums or the On Returning best-of, all 17 of which fit easily on one side of a C-60. These include the five live songs not on Roxy London WC2--"Mary Is a Dyke"! "New York City"! "After Midnight"! (Eric Clapton's!)--as well as preliminary settings for riffs that will resurface in other guises. The other 14 tracks are punker, faster, shorter, louder, and/or rougher versions of songs Wire cultists have never forgotten and never mind hearing again. B+