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Their albums like "the drill" are actually really good; it reminds me of the Fall, when they started experimenting with electronics and whatnot. Some of it wasn't to my liking -- and almost all of it required quite a few listenings to get what the hell they were doing -- and it's not exactly the stuff I reach for when I want the Fall... but most of it is still good, and no album was a "stinker" perse.
HOWEVER, even if you dont' want to hear, you know, the Drill, Ideal Copy, and all that.. you have to get Read and Burn 1-3, they're absolutely essential. They're like a mix of EVERYTHING they'd ever done... great stuff.
An interesting thing about Wire is how they have songs they never ended up ever recorded... DOCUMENT AND EYEWITNESS is a live album where more than half is unreleased songs! Then, they did TURN AND STROKE, another live album with MORE unreleased songs -- then, of course, the Peel Sessions album has a few, and Behind the Curtain has like 15 (mostly pre-Pink Flag) completely unreleased songs, that were never recorded in any way later. I think the thing is, this band was always always always moving, which may have been their "problem", but was a great inspiration to me.
Document and Eyewitness is probably the album to hear last, because it helps to already be really into them when you hear it, but you get to hear audiences scream for "PINK FLAG"... so, Wire plays free jazz! The hostile crowd throws bottles at them, so Wire have a song on the album called "instrumental (throwing bottles)" which is... the audience throwing bottles at them.
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