by Moe Zilla

Created on: April 09, 2008   Last Updated: April 10, 2008

Devo founder Gerald Casale was approaching 60 when he suddenly announced his strangest project ever. Five cute children would re-record Devo's songs for Walt Disney Records. The original members of Devo would play the instruments, while the children provided new vocals. The name of their new group? "Devo 2.0"

Surely this was a joke, screamed Devo's fans. Disney was the ultimate corporate overlord, the home of a cheerful sentimentality that the band had always rejected. But Casale finished directing the album, and it was released in 2006. For better or worse, the 12 bizarre tracks had come into the world - along with one bonus track released just for shoppers at Target.

"We're through being cool," sang 13-year-old Nicole Stoehr, though the second line of the band's famous anthem had been changed. Where Devo had originally warned that they'd "bang some heads" and "beat some butts" to eliminate "ninnies and twits," Nicole's only agenda was to eliminate "the time you waste in cliques." The song's first verse had been replaced with an entirely different set of lyrics about socializing in junior high school. "Got to do it alone," Nicole sings, "to live to be a clone..."

Two years later, Casale would complain about "the top Taliban at Disney" who'd insisted on the lyric changes. "It was an exercise in proving our point," he told one interviewer. Even individual words had to be changed, as "a boy with a gun" became "a girl having fun." Before the album was finished, Devo had written two entirely new songs for the Disney children, to go with their ten re-recordings of Devo's original hits.

Casale said he hoped the album might someday inspire the next generation to seek out Devo's original records. He seems to be offering a message to them in a new song called "The Winner." It asks "What's up," then answers that "I guess if you don't know, now's the time it's good to go and find out what is what." It's the biggest hint that the album was intended to work both ways - as a slick recording of kid-friendly pop music, and as one more document offering a dark, strong warning hidden in between the lines.

"Don't be a chump," sings 13-year-old Nicole.

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