Wire

“What happened to our plan, the one that we began?,” asks Wire guitarist and frontman Colin Newman on “One Of Us,” the opening track to the band’s 2008 album, Object 47. Well, Colin, the post-punk revival of the early 2000s is what happened—and once indie-rock bands finished pillaging the genre, they moved on to the next trend. But does that leave Wire, as the song puts it, “an also-ran?” Hardly. Sure, the members of Wire might have a chip on their shoulder about being underappreciated in their late ’70s heyday, but they’ve also got credibility—which they can still cash in on with the new Red Barked Tree, even though audiences have all but forgotten about flavor-of-the-week dance-punk bands. 

Updated 03/22/2011