Chairs Missing

Of all the Wire releases, this one is my favorite. The music ranges from dreamy (“French Film Blurred”) to punky (“Sand in my Joints”) to poppy (“Outdoor Miner”) to epic (“Mercy”), all while maintaining the same mix of the punk rock energy of their first LP and a more arty, synthesizer-based sound. Their next LP, 154, would dive a little bit farther into the experimentalism with mixed results—also a great album—but I think I would still pick Chairs Missing in a bar fight.