"[5] New Traditionalists contains songs in a minimalist synth-pop style, with an emphasis on synthesizer riffs and dance rhythms, as well as an increased focus on electronic percussion.
[7] Rolling Stone Australia notes that the song "Beautiful World" "waits a while to reveal its hidden darkness and cynicism", echoed in its music video, which starts out "happy" and "optimistic".
[8] In "Enough Said", Devo make one of their first overtly political statements, advocating throwing leaders into a ring and letting them "fight like hell to see who's king".
[10] According to music historian Andy Zax, New Traditionalists found Devo "more than slightly ambivalent about their newfound popularity", exemplified in opening track "Through Being Cool", with its criticism of trendy "ninnies" and "twits".
[1] Unlike the band's previous records, the album features a greater emphasis on synthesizers than guitars, and several tracks incorporate a drum machine.
[11] In a 2020 interview, Gerald Casale stated that he felt New Traditionalists "was the last [Devo] record where there was some semblance of balance between primal energy and just electronics for their own sake.
[13] The front and back cover were photographed by Moshe Brakha and feature artwork by Richard Seireeni, based on a concept by the band.
[17] The band's clothing, also worn during live performances, was influenced by Japanese fashion,[17] while the rubber pompadours, created by Brent Scrivner, were based on the hairstyle of John F. Kennedy but were frequently mistaken for that of Ronald Reagan.
[18] Casale's longheld interest in the space program led to the band using a cartoon image of an astronaut's head from a paper Halloween mask in the artwork, which was later reused for the limited edition "Beautiful World" picture disc.
A small segment of archive footage depicting a woman on fire was considered unsuitable for the show's early evening time slot—despite the fact that the flames were animated, not real—and this censored version is still screened occasionally on the ABC's music video series rage, including a mid-1990s episode hosted by Devo.
New Traditionalists was originally packaged with a bonus 7-inch single of the band's cover of songwriter Allen Toussaint's "Working in the Coal Mine".
[4] According to a 2008 interview with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo had originally intended to include the song on the album but were thwarted by Warner Bros.
David Fricke of Rolling Stone stated, "New Traditionalists has a few obvious Top Forty finger poppers – 'Through Being Cool' (the latest Devo fight song), 'Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth' and 'Enough Said' (this year's 'Whip It') – and the slick production makes it all go down easy.
"[6] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called the album "Filler plus three major songs" ("Through Being Cool", "Love Without Anger" and "Beautiful World") "each of which gets an explanatory video in concert, which with these art-school ciphers is a comfort", although he concluded that these "would not satisfy the ninnies and twits who think war toys and visual aids are evil by definition.
"[24] Scott Isler of Trouser Press stated that while New Traditionalists had "a couple of attention-getting songs ('Love Without Anger,' 'Going Under,' the extraordinarily attractive 'Beautiful World')" as well as the bonus "Working in the Coal Mine" single, the majority of the album was "clinical-sounding laissez-faire techno-dance stuff, less-than-compelling lyrics set to a metronomic 4/4 beat.
"[25][26] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Steve Huey opined that New Traditionalists found Devo "aghast at being pegged as a novelty act by some of their own satirical targets", and that the band "largely abandons its sense of absurdity" on the album, theorizing that they'd decided that "America's comprehension of irony was sorely lacking".
According to Gerald Casale, "DEVO archivist Michael Pilmer (aka Devo-Obsesso), found the tape in a shoebox full of cassettes in [keyboardist and guitarist] Bob 2's home fifteen years ago, which he immediately transferred to DAT".