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Globo Whip It Good UK electronic trio Globo opened up about covering Devo’s 80s anthem Whip It, this week and revealed that as well as admiring the song’s ‘can-do spirit’ they enjoy a close and intimate relationship with its subject matter of whipping. “You know that scene in the film ‘If’, where Malcom McDowell is prostrate over some gym equipment getting a savage whupping from the prefects? That was school for Globo,” they confessed. “For us, Whip It is a love song about two people urging each other to survive all of life's trials. And it was Devo's biggest hit,” they added. Their painful revelations coincided with the publication of a lengthy piece on the history of flagellation by US website Slate, which suggested that ‘the purpose of the lash has always been to excite passion, desire, and fantasy—to arouse the imagination.’ ‘The Allure of the Whip’ article also suggested whipping fans do it ‘in the service of self-creation, as a route to a more authentic self, as a rejection of norms, as a tribute to the power of theatricality and performance in making a life’, to the full approval of Globo. “All hail the power of theatricality and performance; Globo has always believed in it. We also like how people who like whipping each other have developed such a lofty rationale for it,” they concurred, “Mel Gibson hit the nail on the head with that kinky Jesus film of his, didn't he? All that whipping, all that pain, all that suffering. Ooh yeah, baby.” “When Devo originally released Whip It in 1980, is was widely thought to be about masturbating and/or S&M,” Globo concluded, “Devo always asserted that the song was about sorting problems out, putting bad experiences behind you, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. So do we,” they said. Globo: Whip It/ The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprise, is out on Hydrogen Dukebox in November. http://www.myspace.com/weareglobo Article by Jonty Skrufff Subscribe to Skrufff music newsletter at www.skrufff.com
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