AORchaeological Discoveries: Device

A quick Google search reveals that Device is a industrial metal band formed from the remnants of Disturbed and Filter, who released their first, self-titled album last year.

This post is not about them.

This post is about the other Device, which only existed for a brief period in 1986, and produced one album, 22B3. Athough they were not around for long, they did not fuck around at all:

Keytars! Permed mullets! Electric drums! Spotlights! Blue-hued cityscapes at night!
BY YOUR POWERS COMBINED...!

"Yeah, this is pure alchemy," said Luc. "They're dead serious too."

It's the perfect storm of 80's aesthetics, and I freely admit to enjoying it unironically.

I have to warn you though, their one single, "Fall Apart, Golden Heart" is one of the most viscous earworms man has ever devised. However, it will add a spring to your step, as opposed to slowly grinding at you until madness, like most other earworrms.

The lead singer was Paul Engemann from Animotion, who also did that "Push it to the Limit" song from Scarface, which Trey Parker always seems to be channeling on South Park. The keytar-wielding brunette was Holly Knight. What else did she do? Shit dude, what didn't she do? Holly Knight worked on everything for everyone -- no seriously -- her résumé is like a 3-disc K-Tel compilation.

"Dude...she's the Steve Lukather of songwriting," said Luc.

Dude, she wrote "There's the Girl" -- one Heart's finest moments -- and the only reason why we ever heard of Holy Knight because she showed her face briefly, in a long-forgotten 80's synthpop/AOR band. You probably wrote her off as a nobody when you first saw the video at the top of this post. The reason why she couldn't compete with the likes of Aerosmith, KISS, or Bon Jovi is because she was secretly the one propping them all up.

One of the lemmas-to-come in my continuing campaign to unscrew-up Steph is prodesse quam conspici: to accomplish without being conspicuous. Holly Knight understands this, and probably enjoys the quiet satisfaction that achievement brings, without the fickle, vain trappings of fame. I'm just kind of enthralled with the idea that a seemingly inconsequential person can make sweeping contributions to American culture. How many people like her, are doing this? It seems far-fetched that a humble few control our culture -- but then again you've probably never heard of Frank Welker either -- even though he was responsible for your entire childhood.