50 Years of De-Evolution 1973–2023 is a compilation album by American band Devo, released on October 20, 2023, through Rhino Entertainment. The first disc contains the band's hits and more well-known material, while the second disc contains rarities and fan favorites. It received positive reviews from critics. The band embarked on a farewell tour in support of the album.[1]
Reviewing the album for Pitchfork, Stephen Thomas Erlewine remarked that it is not "a chronological document, but a celebration of a complex, sometimes baffling body of work. Too long to count as a greatest-hits compilation, too reliant on the band's standards to be of considerable interest to hardcore fans—all the rarities have been in circulation for a while—50 Years of De-Evolution nevertheless portrays an act that simultaneously inhabited its times and pointed the way to the future".[4] Hal Horowitz of American Songwriter stated that it does "a perfectly respectable job" as it compiles the band's "best-known titles, tosses in obscurities from soundtracks along with single B sides and other musical ephemera, and then remasters the audio" but felt "there is little reason for this to exist other than to rake in some bucks by repackaging content any fan already has or for whoever doesn't already own this material".[3] Mark Deming of AllMusic called it "a convenient guide to their history in 50 songs", with the first disc "reveal[ing] how Devo were able to shape their sometimes morbid ideas into expressive and unexpectedly accessible forms (especially after electronics and dance beats became a bigger part of their formula), and the harder-edged material in the second half shows they learned a lot from the electronic artists they most certainly influenced".[2]
