Duty Now for the Future is the second studio album by American new wave band Devo, released on June 1, 1979, by Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Ken Scott, the album was recorded between September 1978 and early 1979 at Chateau Recorders in Hollywood.
Composition
Both Duty Now for the Future and its predecessor, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978), contained material from a backlog of songs the band had written between 1974 and 1977. By December 1976, Devo were already performing "Clockout", "Timing X" and "Blockhead" live, following the expansion of the band's line-up from a quartet to a quintet, with the addition of drummer Alan Myers (replacing Jim Mothersbaugh) and multi-instrumentalist Bob Casale. Performances of "Clockout" took advantage of this newly expanded line-up and featured Bob Casale playing bass instead of Gerald Casale. "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" was already being performed by November 1977. Bob Mothersbaugh later stated that "We had been touring extensively after the first album; maybe we rushed to get another album out." "Triumph of the Will" takes its title from Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film of the same name, although the song is about desire.
Recording for the album began in September 1978, a month after the release of their first album. Scott discussed his role in the recordings and how Devo came to choose him for the album: "I know they chose me because of the Bowie records I did, but I don't know if it was a direct recommendation from Mr. Jones. Devo always wanted to learn. That's why they worked with each producer only once."
Duty Now for the Future found the band bringing synthesizers more into the forefront than before. Additionally, guitar sounds were often manipulated; in a 1979 interview with BAM magazine, Gerald Casale stated, "A guitar can only do what a guitar does. It's like only one tiny piece of a synthesizer. On this album, we did much more with the guitars, too. Sometimes you don't know that they're guitars." The band's cover of Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man" features a rare lead vocal from Bob Mothersbaugh. Mothersbaugh ultimately felt that the results were not as satisfying as playing the material on the following tour. The logo was rediscovered by Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh in 1976 on a pamphlet in Akron and the two began using it in their own art, accompanied by the phrase "Duty Now for the Future", coined by Casale. Initial pressings of the Virgin album also featured the US cover postcard as an insert. Alex would later be featured on the back cover of Devo's 1984 album Shout.
A short clip of the band standing at attention and then saluting was filmed to accompany "Devo Corporate Anthem", which was used in concert performance.
Reception
Commercial
Duty Now for the Future was on the Billboard charts for 10 weeks, peaking at No. 73. In Canada, the album reached number 87.
Critical
Dave Marsh, writing in Rolling Stone, condemned the album, feeling that "inspired amateurism works only when the players aspire to something better." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice panned side one as "dire" and "arena-rock", but felt that "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize" and "Secret Agent Man" were "as bright as anything on the debut, and the arrangements offer their share of surprizes." The Boston Globe dismissed Duty Now for the Future as "largely a failure." Among positive reviews, The New York Times deemed the album "undeniably catchy and fun."
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, reviewer Mark Deming opined that the album "captures the group in the midst of a significant stylistic shift", while contending that "Triumph of the Will" "embraces fascism as a satirical target without bothering to make it sound as if they disapprove." except where noted:
Technical
- Ken Scott – producer, engineer
- Brian Leshon – assistant engineer
- Phil Jost – assistant engineer
- Bernie Grundman – mastering
- Janet Perr – cover art
- Devo Inc. – graphic concept, package design
- Yale Greenfield – dust sleeve production stills
- George L. Kaufman – "Science Boy" design
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References
Bibliography