"the one LP people seem to frown on, The First Letter"

Do they? I thought Manscape was the more frowned upon. There are some decent tracks on both but I think the hit-rate is higher on TFL, and ironically it sounds a lot more like Wire than Manscape which at times sounds like bad Depeche Mode b-sides. 'Take It' could quite easily fit on 'Send'.

"despite some of the Harvest purists here who want it fast and loud (Send, R & B etc) "

Leaving aside the implication that Send and the Read And Burns were on Harvest (!!), I'd say that Harvest-era fans don't necessarily want it fast and loud by any means ... many tracks from CM and 154 are slow as slow can be! As someone who tends to prefer this era, my favourite tracks include Marooned, French Film Blurred, Used To, Outdoor Miner, The 15th, Fragile ... as well as lots of the fast and loud ones, of course!

At the time, I was really into the Mute era up to and including IBTABA, but I find that many of the songs I used to like now sound really feeble: I used to love Kidney Bingos and Eardrum Buzz, but now I just cringe whenever I hear them. Having said that, my 80m 'best of Mute-era Wire' CD hogs my CD player way too much! Songs like In Vivo and Silk Skin Paws (the seven-inch versions), plus It's A Boy, The Offer, Ahead, A Public Place and German Shepherds still sound absolutely awesome, and the non-hit status of In Vivo and Ahead and So And Slow It Grows still boggles my mind.

As for the discussion on the frowning upon Manscape, The Drill and The First Letter, I have to say that - both then and now - I cannot bear them. Manscape does feature the amazing Goodbye Ploy, You Hung Your Lights and It Can't Be True Can It ... the opening track on The Drill is okay (its name escapes me!) and the 7-inch of So And Slow It Grows is wonderful. But I played The First Letter the other day for the first time since it came out, and I simply couldn't listen to it all the way through.

SEND / R+B 1 and 2 are mostly loud and fast, but they're wonderful not simply on account of those attributes: they're driving, melodic (yes, really) and atmospheric.

Ok, ramble over, but I must just add one thing. For some reason I went against my better judgment and decided to play RBT whilst typing this. As some of you may have noted, I have expressed my intense dislike for this album. I am currently listening to Bad Worn Thing.

I can't believe I'm about to write this, but: I am enjoying Red Barked Trees. There, I've said it. I never thought I would. But I'm not going to pretend I'm not enjoying it. I am.

Except for the 'we're old men but we're still tough rebels who say the F word' nonsense. And the lyrics to Please Take. But there isn't a record in existence that I like every aspect of, because I'm a contrary so-and-so!

Good grief ...

hp

PS - listening to Moreover now: not too keen, the A Question Of Degree rip is too annoying for me.

"I used to love Kidney Bingos and Eardrum Buzz, but now I just cringe whenever I hear them".

That's your loss, mate.

I'm kinda with hp on this one. Kidney's a fine track, but i could do with giving it a miss live!

"Number 1 on eMusic for the past week."

maybe so. but have you checked out the number of hits each song got on the Guardian UK site? 5,000 for 'please take', less than 2,000 for RBT. clearly a lot of people (fans) aren't interested in hearing the whole album all the way thru. doesn't mean the album is "good or "bad". I just don't see RBT selling half a million units any time soon.

I'm not intent on raining on anyone's parade. I would certainly encourage people to buy Wire's products and absolutely go see them live! my point was that despite the very positive reviews I didn't think RBT was , in terms of sales, going to blow up anytime soon. Wire are a niche band that make a particular kind of Pop music that has, for the most part, a very limited audience. I think some of the new stuff is brilliant and some of it I don't like at all. as I said it's not a question of "good or "bad". just a personal preference.

"Oh come on, no record sells those kind of numbers anymore. I don't know if you've noticed but the recorded music industry has changed beyond recognition. It's not about shifting units now, since a lot of people will just take those "units" for free. "

I don't if you've been living under your pint, but tons of pop artists still sell tons of records these days. records, i.e., "units"- downdloads, cds, vinyl, blu-ray, acetate, whatever. Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Justin Bieber (very talented kid), Britney Spears (new record not bad if you can get past the lamo lyrics), too many too name- they all sell 1 mil +. I wouldn't buy their stuff myself but I think some of it is quite good, some of it's pretty vapid.

"justin bieber ?"

american teen pop. smart, talented young kid. not my thing, but young girls dig him.

"but have you checked out the number of hits each song got on the Guardian UK site? 5,000 for 'please take', less than 2,000 for RBT"

Actually, most people who do online marketing would kill for 40% retention over the course of an entire album. That's actually a very high figure.

Freakbag says:
"Wire are a niche band that make a particular kind of Pop music that has, for the most part, a very limited audience."

Exactly, so why are trying to put RBT in the same market as Justin Bieber (I know exactly who he is, he's a sort of animatronic Little Jimmy Osmond designed to appeal to pre-teens, and remove cash from their parents wallets).

Bands like Wire are never going to expand significantly beyond their core audience because (a) they're an 'old' band and (b) as far as radio goes, they are 'some weird old punk band' and so are never going to even get to the starting blocks, that's why stuff like Ahead, In Vivo etc were not hits. With the success of bands like New order, the Cure, etc - 'similar' bands in everything but quality! - there was absolutely no reason why those songs should not have been top twenty hits, and sad but true: I used to check the charts every week to see if Wire, The Fall, etc had somehow scraped into the charts. A hit for (insert name of favourite 'niche' band) would have made my day! If those records had been released as being by The Young Goth Twits or something, they may - MAY - have had a better chance. But there's too much baggage attached to the name, same as other cool dudes like Magazine, Pere Ubu, etc.

Another problem with 'niche' bands is that their audiences can be so damn fickle. Example: after the collapse of The Libertines, Carl Barat formed Dirty Pretty Things (awful name!) and released a stonking pop album which got to number 3, deservedly. But the follow-up was a bit long in coming and was WAY different from the first album, and only reached 35 ... the interest had gone and, what with the album having been made available as a streaming thingy before release, that worked against it: it took me AGES to get into it, and I now think it's one of the most underrated albums ever! Then Carl releases an absolutely lovely solo album and gets to the dizzy heights of 51!

At least Wire have a reasonable core audience that they know is going to stay fairly stable so they can plan accordingly. Pity poor Tom Verlaine or Grant Hart ... they're lucky if they've made enough to buy a tin of baked beans!

For me, a big factor is that the MP3 has forever devalued music. If people can get a hit single or album for nothing from X site, why pay 79p per song from Play or Amazon? Either way, it's one click and you have the tune ... no effort at all. How many kids (or indeed adults) will pay 79p for that click when they don't have to? And especially when it's an inferior quality 'product'.

Well, I'll keep buying my music in the traditional form for as long as is possible. But is the end of the record/CD nigh?