With album five now out, Devo again proves to be at their best with a singular brand of dance song — sort of a Chubby Checker-in-space idea, with loony instructions set to a mechanized stomp. The premise — and the joke — would seem to be that in the automated world, dancers become automatons. Introduced with the debut LP's "Praying Hands" ("Assume the position, go into doggie submission"), the formula really clicked with "Whip It." The latest example, already a rock-disco hit, is "Peek-a-Boo!" an infectious bundle of jolting rhythms. While Kraftwerk uses moody synthesizers to explore textures and voices, the German band's American cousins use all their electronic musical gizmos to find the beat: hold the atmospherics, pass the pulse. But only "Peek-a-Boo!" and the fast-pumping "That's Good" are worth rooting out of the samey tracks here, and it's getting harder to take the whole Devo package — the dumbbell retrograde-evolution philosophy and all the promotional merchandise. Devo may have the best singer-to-synthesizer relationship of any band, but they're more interested in selling Boojie Boy to tater tots. Nobody should be able to stretch a spud joke out for this long. Except, maybe, Mr. Potato Head.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."