Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#65: Wire “Eardrum Buzz”
I’m with this guy. Gordon Zacharias of Fan Modine recently wrote a mix tape feature for MAGNET and selected a Wire track (“Kidney Bingos”) from 1988: “I catch hell for liking this period of Wire more than their earlier works,” wrote Zacharias. “Purists can suck it.” Well, “Eardrum Buzz” was a Wire single from 1989, and it’s not the razor-sharp, super-efficient punk of 1977’s Pink Flag. The members of Wire themselves were well aware of this disconnect. In the mid-’80s, the group stopped playing old material and hired a Wire cover band called the Ex-Lion Tamers to open for them and perform the Pink Flag-era classics. Wire’s stringent, high-art aesthetic would seem to shun such things as making whimsical music videos to promote its work, but it’s actually endearing to see the band members sell a song like “Eardrum Buzz.” Or at least act like they’re selling it.
