New Traditionalists

New Traditionalists was recorded on a then-new brand of 2" tape from 3M. Unfortunately, when Devo began recording the vocals for the album, the edges of the tape had begun to disintegrate. After asking Warner Bros. if they could start over and re-record the album from scratch and being denied, Devo transferred all the work they had done to digital reel-to-reel tape and finished the album via digital recording at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, California.[1] All of this resulted in New Traditionalists having a murkier and darker sound than previous Devo albums.

The name of the album was inspired by a Japanese ultra-right wing political group called the New Traditionalists. In the words of Gerald Casale, "We became the New Traditionalists but turned it on its ear. We appropriated the idea of that, meaning we were going to provide you with new traditions to forget about the old ones."[1]

New Traditionalists was originally packaged with a bonus 7" single of the band's cover of "Working in the Coal Mine." According to a 2008 interview with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo had originally intended to include the song on the album but were thwarted by Warner Bros.[2] The band was then approached by the makers of the animated film Heavy Metal and asked if they had a song to donate for a sequence in the film involving a house band in outer space. Devo offered them the unused "Working in the Coal Mine," and as a fluke the song ended up being the only charting song on the soundtrack album. Since the song was now a "hit," Warner Bros. pressed up thousands of two-sided 7" singles and included them with initial copies of the LP. Most CD and cassette pressings of New Traditionalists include "Working in the Coal Mine" as a bonus track.

The original LP bonus package also included a poster drawn by a member of the Church of the SubGenius. It portrays the band on stage, with some iconic American characters (a Native American, a Pilgrim, a cowboy, a hippie, a punk rocker and a modern housewife) in the audience.

Devo made three music videos for the album. "Through Being Cool" had Devo taking a limited role, focusing on a team of kids clad in Devo "Action Vests" attacking arrogant and ignorant people with "spudguns."

In "Love Without Anger," Devo acts as a Greek chorus to a bizarre love story between two humanoid chickens. It also features a stop motion video by Rev. Ivan Stang (Church of the SubGenius) of Barbie and Ken fighting each other and removing each other's body parts. A portrait of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs is on the wall above the couch.

"Beautiful World" is considered by many fans and critics to be Devo's greatest music video, setting the tune to a series of connected images from film archives. The video features the character Booji Boy prominently, as he initially watches scenes of beautiful women, futuristic cars and other happy elements, which by the end of the song have been replaced by images of race riots, the Ku Klux Klan, World War I, famine in Africa, car crashes and nuclear explosions, which puts a much darker slant on the song's lyrics. The video was slightly censored for broadcasts on the ABC-TV music show Countdown. A small segment of archive footage depicting a woman on fire was considered unsuitable for the show's early evening timeslot—despite the fact that the 'flames' were animated, not real—and this censored version is still screened occasionally on the ABC's music video series rage, including a mid-1990s episode hosted by Devo.

The New Traditionalists tour was a large undertaking. Devo performed on treadmills in front of an Ancient Greek temple styled structure. Behind the members, between the pillars, small screens displayed rear-projected images. Devo carried an impressive sound system on the tour as well. On stage, Devo wore what were called "Utopian Boy Scout Uniforms," consisting of a gray button down shirt, gray slacks and black patent leather shoes. Professional footage was shot during the tour, but it was destroyed due to an electrical short. However, Devo appeared on the TV show Fridays in 1981 and performed five songs with a full stage set. Several audio bootlegs of the tour are also available, varying in quality.

In 2012, Devo commemorated the New Traditionalists tour by releasing Live in Seattle 1981 as a double LP for Record Store Day. The album was culled from a cassette recording from November 1981. According to Gerald Casale, "DEVO archivist Michael Pilmer (aka Devo-Obsesso), found the tape in a shoebox full of cassettes in [keyboardist and guitarist] Bob 2's home fifteen years ago, which he immediately transferred to DAT."[3] It was later issued on CD with two bonus tracks from a performance in Boston, Massachusetts.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[6]
Robert Christgau	(B)[7]
Rolling Stone	[8]

New Traditionalists was slightly less successful than the Freedom of Choice album, peaking at No. 23 on the Billboard charts, whereas Freedom of Choice had peaked at No. 22. The non-album single "Working in the Coal Mine" (a cover of the Lee Dorsey song, written by Allen Toussaint) peaked at No. 43 on the Pop Singles chart. The album and its singles continued Devo's success in Australia, with "Beautiful World" peaking at No. 14 and "Working in the Coal Mine" at No. 20. "Going Under" appeared in an episode of the television show Miami Vice entitled "Heart of Darkness".

All tracks are written by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale, except where noted.

Additional tracks

Devo

• Gerald Casale – lead and background vocals; bass guitar; keyboards
• Mark Mothersbaugh – lead and background vocals; keyboards; guitar
• Bob Mothersbaugh – guitar; keyboards; backing vocals
• Bob Casale – guitar; keyboards; backing vocals
• Alan Myers – drums

Production

• Karat Faye – engineer

• In 1982, Toni Basil released a cover of "Pity You" for her debut album Word of Mouth, retitled as "You Gotta Problem." The instrumental track of this version was re-recorded by Devo and the album was engineered by Bob Casale.
• The song "Beautiful World" was covered by the indie rock band Harvey Danger, the synthpop band Information Society, and rap/rock group Rage Against the Machine on their final studio album Renegades.
• "Love Without Anger" was covered by the Aquabats for the We Are Not Devo tribute album.
• "Through Being Cool" was covered by They Might Be Giants for the soundtrack for the Disney movie Sky High with altered lyrics. Some of these altered lyrics were carried over into the Devo 2.0 project, also produced by Disney.
• Bands such as Pilfers, Polysics and the Kurt Baker Combo have all recorded cover versions of "Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth."
• The drum machine track for "The Super Thing" was reused in Devo's 2007 single "Watch Us Work It", which was remixed by Teddybears.

• New Traditionalists at Discogs (list of releases)