Chairs Missing

Chairs Missing is the second album by the british band Wire. It was released in 1978.

Although it shares a punk-derived “outsider” voice with the band’s debut, Pink Flag, it features more developed song structure (taking some cues from 70’s prog-rock, psychedelia and art rock) and a broader palette of emotional and intellectual subject matter. The album was produced by Mike Thorne, who added keyboard and synthesizer elements (compare the versions of Outdoor Miner; with and without the piano accompaniment), which were later expanded upon by the band members on their later releases. These contributions add to the album’s identification as the release in which the band largely transcended and abandoned the punk genre. The pop sensibilities that would come to the fore in their later incarnation of 1985 are evident in songs such as “Outdoor Miner” and I Am The Fly.

EMI appreciated the more melodic sound of “Outdoor Miner” so much that they asked the band to create an expanded version of the song for release as a single (which was rather strange, considering the fact that single releases are normally shortened versions of album tracks).

The title is a British slang term for a mildly disturbed person, “as in ‘that guy has a few chairs missing in his front room.’”

Extra tracks have been removed from the 2006 remastered reissues, because they, according to the band, didn’t honor the “conceptual clarity of the original statements”.

Professional Reviews
★★★★★ - AllMusic
10.0/10 - Pitchfork