Album · Devo
New Traditionalists by Devo
New Traditionalists is an album by Devo, released in 1981. 4 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 54 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Beautiful World”, on 23 lists with a best position of #108.
New Traditionalists, Devo's fourth album, came out on Warner Bros. on September 16, 1981, and it finds the band sleeker, stiffer and stranger than ever. They spent four months on it, from December 1980 to April 1981, at the Power Station in Manhattan, and the result sounds like a marching band of robots that has discovered pop hooks and decided to use them against you.
Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh, Bob Casale on guitar and Alan Myers lock into clipped, precise grooves where every synth blip and guitar stab sits exactly where it was told to. "Through Being Cool" snaps along with a smart-alecky, clipped strut, while "Beautiful World" floats by on a sweet, sunny melody that gets more unsettling the longer you stare at it. There's even room for "Working in the Coalmine", run down the same gleaming assembly line.
Neither "Through Being Cool" nor "Beautiful World" was a smash, but both became minor hits.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from New Traditionalists on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beautiful World | 23 | #108 | – | 1988–2023 | |
| 2 | Through Being Cool | 22 | #53 | – | 1981–2022 | |
| 3 | Working In The Coalmine | 8 | #417 | – | 2007–2025 | |
| 4 | Going Under | 1 | #186 | – | 1992 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.