Total Devo
| Total Devo | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Devo | ||||
| Released | May 24, 1988 | |||
| Recorded | 1986–1988 | |||
| Studio | Devo studios, Marina del Rey, and Master Control, Burbank, California | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 41:30 | |||
| Label | Enigma | |||
| Producer | Devo | |||
| Devo chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Total Devo | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Robert Christgau | C+ |
Total Devo is the seventh studio album by the American new wave band Devo. It was originally released in May 1988, their first album on Enigma Records, four years after their previous album, Shout. The album was recorded between 1986 and 1988, with the basic tracks recorded at Devo studios, in Marina del Rey, and the additional tracks at Master Control, in Burbank, California. "Total Devo" was the first Devo studio album without drummer Alan Myers, who was replaced by former Sparks drummer David Kendrick. This was the last Devo album to include use of the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer, which was mostly used for pre-sequencing the album, as well as for sampling in the choruses of "Some Things Never Change" and "Agitated."
"The Shadow" has lyrics that contain numerous references to literary works. The chorus is partially lifted from T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" and it incorporates and paraphrases the catchphrase from the serials following the character The Shadow ("Who knows what lurks in the hearts of men?/The shadow knows!"). The song "Some Things Never Change" is partly based off a similarly titled song titled "Some Things Don't Change", which was a reject from their previous album Shout and would later appear on the compilation album Recombo DNA. The song "Baby Doll" was used that same year in the comedy film Tapeheads, with newly recorded Swedish lyrics, and was credited to (and shown in a music video by) a fictitious Swedish band called Cube-Squared, and "Some Things Never Change" (which also paraphrased a quote by the Beatles' "A Day in the Life") is used in Interplay's computer adventure game, Neuromancer, itself an adaptation of the 1984 novel of the same name by William Gibson.
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