Tag: Wire

Compare and Contrast: Wire Vs Ministry

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It’s been a while since my last ‘compare and contrast’ post. Years, in fact. And for no reason other than that I got sidetracked, waylayed… yes, stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before.

It was while turning to ‘Mr Suit’ by Wire that I remembered my amazement on first hearing the track. I’d been listening to Ministry for a fair while before I got into Wire, and was immediately struck on listening to Pink Flag that several of the songs sounded familiar. One of these was ‘Mr Suit’, on which one of the hooks sounded almost identical to a line from ‘Thieves’. Now, ‘Thieves’ is a great song in its own right as far as I’m concerned, but such cross-referencing has always been an interest of mine. If you’re going to appropriate, why not lift from something great?

I’m not making any kind of point here, this is simply a case of ‘listen, and observe the similarities’.

Wire: Mr Suit

Ministry: ‘Thieves’

Compare and Contrast: Wire vs Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

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Ok, so it’s broadly agreed that Wire have been immensely influential and are one of the few bands to have emerged from the punk scene to have been capable of producing genuinely clever and articulate songs. They’ve written a lot of seriously good tunes, too, so it’s small wonder that so many subsequent bands have ripped them off. I’ll be coming to Elastica later, but for now, here’s a compare and contrast with a song by Leeds band Red Lorry Yellow Lorry.

Formed in 1981, The Lorries are generally lumped in with the ’80s ‘goth’ scene on account of their geography and the fact that their original drummer,  Mick Brown, would subsequently leave to form The Mission (although whether or not they were strictly ‘goth’ is questionable, but that’s a whole other matter). Still, whether you consider RLYL goth or simply angry post punk, as I do, the vocal melody on the track ‘Hand on Heart’, from their 1985 debut album Talk About the Weather is undeniably similar to that of Wire’s ‘Reuters’ the first track on their classic 1977 LP Pink Flag.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

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