Is Wire’s ‘Pink Flag’ the post-punk ‘White Album’?
Even though it is slowly approaching 60 years since it was unleashed upon the world, The White Album is still regarded as a pillar of rock history, and is an album that fledgling bands still look to as a source of inspiration. Over the course of 30 songs, The Beatles managed to explore virtually every influence of theirs, from psychedelic pop to folk balladry and from music hall to avant-garde tape experiments – and that doesn’t even cover all bases. Very few albums at the time could match its level of ambition, and very few have since.
However, there are, of course, plenty of styles that were never explored over the sprawling double album, some due to oversight, and others due to the simple fact that nobody had coined such a style in 1968. For all of the genres that hadn’t been birthed at that time, there was a distinct window of opportunity for a trailblazing act to write their own scene’s equivalent of The White Album; bursting with ideas, presenting an extensive tracklist, and providing a major reference point for all future acts to look to as the artistic high point.
Punk was barely a concept in the late 1960s, so given that, post-punk wasn’t even a twinkle in its forefather’s eye at this point. The progeny of punk’s brief fling with mainstream culture wouldn’t arrive until the late 1970s, and post-punk (that’s Punk Jr or Punk the Second to you) was determined not to follow the same trajectory and chose to pursue its own path in life. More heavily informed by art school and academic ideologies than it was outright rebellion and containing far more nuance, post-punk sought to embrace a far broader range of influences in its sound.
Detractors will say that post-punk tried too hard for its own good to be clever and that it had an air of snootiness about it, looking down on the primitivity of punk as being brainless music without any artfulness, but if anything, it was the logical progression of where the genre needed to go to ensure survival. Post-punk carried the name of its parent, and while they may have endured a fractious relationship, they shared plenty of common ground.
Given its propensity for being more elaborate than punk and that it actively encouraged toying with different styles, a post-punk equivalent of The White Album was bound to be created at some point. However, unlike The White Album, which arrived towards the tail end of The Beatles’ career, its parallel within the genre was an album that its creators came hurtling straight out of the gates with on their first attempt.
Wire’s Pink Flag was released in 1977, when post-punk was still in its infancy, but judging by the album’s scope and ambition, you wouldn’t expect it. The album is a fully formed counterpart to The Beatles’ magnum opus that not only demonstrates a sense of musical identity but also showcases a musical dexterity over the course of its 21 songs. Granted, it isn’t quite as sprawling in its overall length, with the record barely lasting a third of the duration of The White Album, but the way it dips its toes into various other styles, incorporating scrappy garage rock and taut kosmiche drum beats while laying the foundations for noise rock, indie and new wave, is hugely comparable to how The White Album became the light that guided various strands of rock music in the years after its release.
Many post-punk acts that emerged in the last two years of the ‘70s cited Wire as a significant influence, simply because few bands of the same ilk before them had made anything quite so daring. Throughout the ‘80s, it became a touchstone for the emergent college rock acts overseas like REM, Hüsker Dü and Pixies, and the raw guitar tones of Colin Newman would be adopted by several Britpop acts in the ‘90s such as Blur and Elastica. You can’t even listen to modern post-punk acts without hearing the impact that a record like Pink Flag had, with the likes of Parquet Courts and Iceage being modern acts that have built their sound on the bedrock laid by the London group’s debut.
Just like it’s impossible to discuss the development of pop and rock music without mention of The White Album, you can’t talk about post-punk’s evolution and not make nods to Pink Flag. These are two groundbreaking records that prove with age that their influence will be everlasting, and demonstrate just how far the parameters of their respective genres can be taken. Many may argue that their respective sequels, Abbey Road and Chairs Missing, are better, and overall more polished records, but it’s the sheer ambition, variety and unfathomable range of reference points that these two sprawling releases have packed into them that proves how vital they are to their respective canons.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.