Much like Big Star and the Velvet Underground, Wire didn't sell many records while they were around, yet their influence on music is astonishing. In the liner notes to a 1996 tribute album, Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo wrote "Wire struck me at the time of Pink Flag as one of the few art-punk bands to come out of the UK who seemed to be coming from the same place as NY bands such as Television and Talking Heads, which is to say, conceptually bent. Their early LPs, especially the first, were mysterious landmarks full of hidden codes and seismographic overtures which we are still unravelling today."

Tony Peltier