Released: August, 2025
Directed By: Chris Smith
Listen up spuds. The Devo documentary gets a solid B minus, minus. That’s right, only a B–. Don’t get me wrong, everything in it is excellent, but the rating is all about the omissions. Watch it. Watch it again. Ingest everything in the wiggly world, and then watch it a third time. Savor it, because this is like all that you’re going to get. Devo is notoriously protective of their image an d message, and maybe that’s part of the problem. I’m a pretty hardcore Devo. They impacted my life as a teenager in an immense way. I ‘m a fan. I haven’t actually been to a DEVOtional, but I have the shirts, the box sets, the rarities, the demos, the EZ-listening Muzak, the unauthorized book, etc… I may even end up picking up an overpriced skateboard. I’m a fan. I enjoyed the hell out of this documentary, but I can’t give it even an A- because of the glaring omissions.
There’s certainly things in there that every Booji Boy already knows, but the documentary glosses over so much of it, and ignores so much as well. Shout barely gets a mention, and nothing after it, not even 2010’s Something For Everyone. You’d think they’d want to herald that album since it’s quite good. Good enough that they’re featuring one of thoraces on their current setlist. There’s absolutely no mention of the 2 video games they were involved with, nor anything about DEV2.0. I could understand not being particularly proud of how that turned out, but you can’t argue that it isn’t devolved. What about the legal issues and backlash from the video of R U Experienced? What about the band being asked to back Johnny Rotten? Maybe those things actually never happened, but if people do think it happened, address it! Why do we have to go to NBC sports to get the story of Chi-Chi Rodríguez and Gerald Casale face to face?
Those are just the omissions I can think of off the top of my head, I’m sure there are so many more. This documentary easily could and should have been a two-parter. Odds are there will never be another, independent Devo documentary unless the whole band ends up on the Epstein list, so this is all we’re going to get. I wanted more.