Dressed for Success: 7 Bands in Uniform

Dear listeners,

Today’s Amplifier is based on an idea my colleague Jon Pareles mentioned when he was working on a profile of Devo: How about a playlist of bands that wear uniforms?

That prompt got me thinking, of course, of Devo’s fire-engine red “energy dome” hats. But also of doo-wop groups and early rockers in matching duds, of country acts in custom Nudie suits, and of girl groups past and present in coordinated colors. Clearly a playlist was in order.

There are plenty of different reasons musicians wear uniforms. Sometimes — especially in the case of Motown groups — matching outfits bring an air of polish and professionalism. They’re also a handy and enduring means of visual branding; if you see a scrawny dude with shaggy hair in ripped jeans and a black leather jacket, a song by the Ramones just might pop into your head. But even when a strict sartorial aesthetic risks becoming a gimmick, it can also keep the focus on the music. As Meg White told The Guardian in a 2005 interview, speaking of the White Stripes’ red-and-white dress code, “like a uniform at school, you can just focus on what you’re doing because everybody’s wearing the same thing.”

Today’s playlist is a brief sonic tour through some of music’s most iconic uniforms. It contains quite a few omissions, though. I featured Kraftwerk on Tuesday’s playlist, so I didn’t want to repeat myself — even though their robotic coordinated costumes are totally worth mentioning. I also wish I could have included the proto-punk group the Monks, who often dressed like their namesakes, but the band’s great 1966 album “Black Monk Time” isn’t available on any streaming platforms. (If you haven’t heard it, try to find it in a more old-fashioned way. It rules.)

That still left me with plenty of uniformed groups to choose from. Today’s playlist finds the common threads (get it?) shared by the Hives and the Temptations, Devo and Destiny’s Child. Put on your energy dome and press play.

Listen on Spotify as you read.

1. Devo: “Uncontrollable Urge”

The members of Devo often use their extensive collection of matching uniforms — trust me, the “Outfits” section of the Devo Wiki is quite lengthy — as social commentary, poking fun at the mentality of conformism they perceive in modern life. That commentary, though, has always been cut with a absurdist twist, whether they’re clad in electric-yellow jumpsuits, matching silver blazers or, of course, those iconic flowerpot hats. (Listen on YouTube)

2. The Ramones: “Cretin Hop”

From their adopted last names to their standard-issue outfit of tight jeans, T-shirts, shaggy haircuts and — crucially — black leather jackets, the Ramones were all about simplicity, minimalism and uniformity. Those same virtues also applied to the band’s all-killer, no-filler sound. (Listen on YouTube)

3. The Maddox Brothers & Rose: “Empty Mansions”

The early country pioneers the Maddox Brothers & Rose were “the best-dressed people in country and western,” according to one of their contemporaries. The Maddox family’s flashy, elaborately embroidered matching suits (plus custom cowgirl skirts for Rose) were the work of Nathan Turk, whose designs echoed the group’s energetic sound. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the group blazed a spangled, sparkling path that plenty of country acts would later follow. (Listen on YouTube)

4. The Temptations: “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”

Elegant matching outfits lent Motown artists — like the Supremes, the Four Tops and the Temptations — a sheen of professionalism. But they also reflected the strict aesthetic vision of the Motown founder Berry Gordy, who wanted his groups to project a specific type of aspirational glamour that would appeal to white listeners. Like many vocal groups in the doo-wop tradition, the Temptations were at first known for their slick, color-coordinated suits. But in the late 1960s, as their sound began to move in a more psychedelic direction, the Temptations, tellingly, began to embrace more outré sartorial styles. (Listen on YouTube)

5. The White Stripes: “The Union Forever”

Jack and Meg White’s peppermint-candy color palette gave the duo an us-against-the-world camaraderie — which got a little complicated when people realized that the Whites were not, as they’d initially said, brother and sister, but rather a formerly married couple. Whatever works! (Listen on YouTube)

6. The Hives: “Main Offender”

The White Stripes weren’t the only stars of the early 2000s garage-rock revival to embrace the uniform. The zany Swedish rockers the Hives — who returned earlier this year with their first album in a decade — made stage-wear fun again with their bold black-and-white suits. (It wasn’t until they made it big, though, that they could afford to launder them properly. Said the drummer Chris Dangerous in a Times profile earlier this year, their earliest suits “smelled so bad, when we walked onstage at the end of the tour, the audience stepped back.”) (Listen on YouTube)

7. Destiny’s Child: “So Good”

Destiny’s Child updated the sound — and, of course, the look — of the girl group during its reign in the late ’90s and early 2000s. In coordinated outfits designed by Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, the girls glittered in green at the Grammys and, in the “Survivor” video, projected strength in matching camo prints. As the group’s lineup went through some notorious changes, the matching outfits perhaps served the more practical purpose of reminding people who, at any given time, was actually in Destiny’s Child. (Listen on YouTube)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yeah!,

Lindsay

The Amplifier Playlist

Listen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.

“Bands in Uniform” track list
Track 1: Devo, “Uncontrollable Urge”
Track 2: The Ramones, “Cretin Hop”
Track 3: The Maddox Brothers & Rose, “Empty Mansions”
Track 4: The Temptations, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”
Track 5: The White Stripes, “The Union Forever”
Track 6: The Hives, “Main Offender”
Track 7: Destiny’s Child, “So Good”

Bonus Tracks

First, a quick correction from Tuesday’s newsletter, in which I mistakenly implied that Coldplay did not have permission to use the riff from Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” for the 2005 hit “Talk.” They did, in fact, get the OK from Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter.

Also, the aforementioned Jon Pareles took over our Friday Playlist this week, choosing new songs from the Rolling Stones, Kali Uchis, Caroline Polachek and more. Listen here.