“Whip It” by Devo

Devo pulled "Whip It" from Freedom of Choice, their third studio album, in 1980, and it's new wave as a stiff-jointed dance craze: synthesizer bleeps, a clipped electric guitar, bass and drums marching to a beat that never quite sits where a normal rock tempo should. Bassist Gerald Casale and singer Mark Mothersbaugh wrote it, and the band cut it with Robert Margouleff at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. The words sound like nonsense, a string of pep-talk slogans about beating your troubles by whipping them into shape.

Warner Bros. didn't hear a hit in it; the tempo was odd and the lyrics odder. It took DJ Kal Rudman taking a shine to the song, and radio stations across the Southeastern United States picking it up, before it caught fire and climbed to 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Mothersbaugh has reckoned it sold because plenty of listeners figured it was about masturbation or sadomasochism.

The video leaned right into that reading, with Mothersbaugh on a dude ranch whipping the clothes off a woman. Some heard misogyny in it, but it became a favorite on the brand-new MTV.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.