Devo

With their upside-down flowerpot hats — sorry, energy domes — turbo-nerd cool, and irresistible herky-jerky hooks, Devo was the personification of new wave; everything about them screamed, "Wherever rock's been, it ain't going back!" They gleefully dismembered classic rock's sacred cows with their hectic, hiccupping assault on the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". They created their own brand of sci-fi B-movie mythology, with the chant of "Are we not men? We are Devo!" ("Jocko Homo"), inviting everyone who ever felt like some kind of alien to come and join their quirky crew. And when they broke through to the big time with the subversive pop smash "Whip It", the whole world became part of the band's grand experiment in "de-evolution". Enter electronic Eden with Devo, in Next Steps.

From their rocking-robot stage moves to their lab-assistant look, Devo wielded the electronic axes of a new era. They were forward-looking soldiers of synth-pop, whose score for the short film The Truth About De-Evolution (1976), admired by high-profile fans David Bowie and Iggy Pop, had landed a record deal with Warner Brothers — Brian Eno-produced debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo!, featuring "Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin')", earned a cult following became a cornerstone of American new wave. Follow-up Duty Now for the Future (1979), mixed the frenetic experimentalism of cuts like "Pink Pussycat" with genuinely catchy fare like "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise". In Deep Cuts, Devo blazes an electro-rock trail for future disciples to follow.

The daring adventurers of Devo were so far ahead of their time, the rest of the world is still just catching up to them. Listening to the synth bleeps and man-machine beats of 1981 track "Going Under", you can hear the buzzing, humming seeds of everything from techno to electroclash, while out-there composition "S.I.B. (Swelling Itching Brain)", with its schizoid diversions into dissonance, retains a nightmarish digital energy more than three decades after it first arrived on vinyl. Now that the band's often misunderstood brilliance has been placed its true groundbreaking context, it's satisfying to discover that 2010's overdue Something for Everybody is chock full of invention and innovation: check out "Signal Ready" and "Let's Get to It" (bonus tracks from the Deluxe Version).

When the guys from Weezer were still learning to tie their shoes, Devo was giving the rock world its first glimpse of geek chic, complete with industrial-yellow Hazmat suits, Coke-bottle glasses, and funky-android moves. A gang of art-school eccentrics from Akron, Ohio, they took the world by storm, arriving on the cutting edge of everything, from new wave to electro-pop. With pop smarts and potent hooks, they even managed to make themselves bona fide rock stars. Their weird and wondrous journey is full of curious diversions, from hurtling hits like "Freedom of Choice" to the skewed social satire of "Through Being Cool", and we've plotted a path that captures all the crucial moments in De-evolution. So don your energy dome and get set to whip it good.