Consumer Guide Album

Wire: And Here It Is . . . Again . . . Wire [Sneaky Pete, 1984]
Documenting the evolution of punk's quintessential self-conscious aestheticians from semicompetent but never exactly crude thrashers to polished but never exactly slick art-poppers. The seven-title selections from the near-perfect Pink Flag, all 12:15 of it, leads off with the fuzzed-up live Roxy London WC2 versions of "Lowdown" and "12XU" and has the effect of transforming that twenty-one-track marvel of seamless pacing into a string of sardonic punk blowouts. The succinct 1978 single "Dot Dash" and the all-out 1979 single "A Question of Degree" ease the transition in and out of the transitional Chairs Missing. And the three survivors from 154 sound like popular music--or at least popular art. A