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Wire

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Musicians

The Resume

    (1976- )
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Founding members:
    Colin Newman (September 16, 1954- ), guitar and vocals
    Graham Lewis (February 22, 1953- ), bass guitar and vocals
    Bruce Gilbert (May 18, 1946- ), guitar
    Robert Grey (April 24, 1951- ), drums (initially used the stage name Robert Gotobed)
    Broke up in 1980, reunited in 1985; broke up again in 1992, reunited again in 1999
    Gilbert left in 2004; replaced by Matt Simms
    Recorded the albums ‘Pink Flag’ (1977), ‘Chairs Missing’ (1978), ‘154’ (1979), ‘The Ideal Copy’ (1987), ‘A Bell Is a Cup’ (1988), ‘IBTABA’ (1989), ‘The Drill’ (1991), ‘The First Letter’ (1991), ‘Send’ (2003), ‘Object 47’ (2005), ‘Red Barked Tree’ (2010), ‘Change Becomes Us’ (2013), ‘Wire’ (2015), ‘Nocturnal Koreans’ (2016), and ‘Silver/Lead’ (2017)

Why they might be annoying:

    Gilbert liked to describe the band as ‘a living sculpture.’
    They were bumped from Top of the Pops – and replaced by Donny and Marie Osmond – due to a rumor that EMI was rigging the charts by having its employees buy multiple copies of Wire’s current single at shops that were monitored to compile the record sales chart (1979).
    When they first reunited, they refused to play their older material in concert and instead hired a Wire cover band to be their opening act.
    Grey quit the band a year before their official second breakup because he felt their music had become too reliant on drum machines; in his absence, the other three released an album as ‘Wir’ (still pronounced like ‘wire’).

Why they might not be annoying:

    AllMusic called ‘Pink Flag’ ‘perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk…. Recognizable, yet simultaneously quite unlike anything that preceded it.’
    Bands that cite them as an influence include Sonic Youth, the Minutemen, REM, the Cure, Helmet, Minor Threat, Guided by Voices, and Franz Ferdinand.
    Newman said, ‘If you compare our records over the years, they’re quite different, yet somehow they all sound like Wire.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 9 Votes: 11.11% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 4 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying