12. Wire154
It’s a masterpiece. By the end of Pink Flag they’d already moved on. Chairs Missing has an edge to it but 154, it just destroys the notion of what pop music is. It’s so angular. It has so many sharp corners and rough surfaces. It never fails to blow me away. 154 is like watching a favourite film to me. If your favourite film is on TV or on round someone’s house, that’s it – you have to watch it ‘til the end. And 154 is like that. You only have to hear a little bit and then you have to listen to it all the way through. That’s the mark of a great album. It didn’t play up to what their audience wanted from them at the time but then Wire are the kings of challenging their audience. It flies in the face in the face of punk… but were they ever punk? I’m not sure. I think it’s taken a long time for people to think on it but I feel that now people are more likely to accept that it’s their masterpiece, even though a lot of people didn’t think so at the time.
