Chairs Missing

by

Wire

Edit

Chairs Missing is the second album by the British rock 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 the short track "Outdoor Miner" so much that they asked the band to create an expanded version of the song for release as a single.

The title is said to be a British slang term for a mildly disturbed person, "as in 'that guy has a few chairs missing in his front room.'

In 2004 the US record label, Words-On-Music, released 'A Houseguest's Wish'. The CD was a Wire tribute compilation, consisting solely, of 19 versions of the 'Chairs Missing' track 'Outdoor Miner'.