Disco de Gang of Four: “Entertainment! [EMI UK Expanded]”

Take stripped-down punk, add some funky grooves, and top it off with some leftist proselytizing and you have GOF's, "Entertainment!". GOF took the urgent minimalism of Wire's first album ("Pink Flag", 1979) added tight, funky grooves (the guitars sometimes sounded like machine guns, the drums like artillery). This created the perfect environment for GOF's trenchant, oft funny songs describing the dehumanization of modern life. "Entertainment!" could have easily digressed into tedious rhetoric, but for all their ideals GOF swing and have fun; GOF recognize the irony of being part of the commercial system they're criticizing (if you haven't guessed, the album title is ironic).

GOF let you know right off that they're out to expose the myths promoted by commericalism. On the opener, 'Ether', vocalist Jon King knows there's no "happy ever after at the end of the rainbow", and endeavors to expose the "dirt behind the daydream". The choppy guitars and bomb-like drums let you know their inflammatory intentions. On 'Natural's Not in It', they pose the problem, "The problem of leisure, what to do for pleasure", then recognize the quandry of relationships; "Your relations are all power, we all have good intentions, but all with strings attached". On the bleakly comical 'Damaged Goods', King likens a relational break-up to receiving faulty merchandise, and berates his ex with lines like, "Open the till, give me the change you said would do me good, refund the cost, you said you're cheap, but you're too much". 'I Found That Essence Rare' has giddy, sing-along chorus to go along with a spiteful comments about relationships ("See the happy pair smiling close like they're monkeys, They wouldn't think so, but they're holding themselves down"). On the genuinely despairing, '5:45', King watches a military conflict on TV and laments how it becomes morosely enjoyable ("Watch new blood on the 18 inch screen, The corpse is a new personality... Guerilla war struggle is the new entertainment!"). Against post-psychadelic noise, on the closer "Anthrax" King equates love to being "like a beetle on it's back", while guitarist Andrew Gill speaks cynically (like Moe Tucker and Lou Reed) of how most groups use love to sell records.

"Entertainent!" was a profound influence (musically and ideologically) on artists such as REM, Rage Against the Machine, Fugazi, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. But, what makes a historic album is it's prescience: In 1979 GOF exposed the myths commercial culture was just starting to sell and also recognized that everything was becoming entertainment. Now, "Entertainment!" might seem less prescient and more like reportage, but that's a testment the record's brilliance. GOF's vision of a dystopia where everything (even war) is treated as entertainment has sadly become reality. If the record doesn't seem trenchant anymore it's because we've been engulfed by the world it describes. "Entertainment" might be the most cynical album ever made. And it's also one of the best (and most entertaining).

I was going to write a lengthly review of why this album is great but it's almost time for Wapner and I'm in a hurry. "Entertainment" is the last great artifact of the punk era...before British bands discovered drum machines, synthesizers and weird hair-dos. Few CDs will agitate your feet and brain like this one. In 1978, prior to the release of "Entertainment", there was a tremendous street buzz on the incendiary live performances of Gang of Four in Leeds England. I witnessed several of their perfomances stateside and Gang of Four was the most explosive live band of that era. Entertainment was the heart of their set list for those live shows, usually culminating with the prophetic "Anthrax" (remember 9/11??) where singer Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill careened into each other in a squalling wall of feedback. Guitars were smashed, amplifiers were left tipped over, and some of us actually beleived that we had delivered the deadly blow to era of Reagan/Thatcher. Naive, huh???

The politics of the Gang of Four was largely drawn from a libertarian Marxist group of artists, writters and filmakers called Situationist International (SI). SI was the moving force behind the revolt of 1968 in France where students in Paris paralyzed the French goverment with massive strikes. By 1972, SI was defunct but the politics of SI had a profund influence on Andy Gill, Jon King and Hugo Burnham who were students at Leeds University when they founded the Gang of Four. Bassist Dave Allen was a truck driver. Amoung the hangers-on in the Gang of Four entrourage were fellow Leedsmen from the aspiring Mekons, who have ironically outlasted their mentors as a performing band. Both the Gang of Four and Mekons became occupied with SI themes of class struggle, desire and need and commodity fetish. Both "At Home He's A Tourist" and "Damaged Goods" are excellent examples of the SI agenda. "5:45" consists of a voice-over reading the evening news while vocalist Jon King complains that he "can't eat his evening meal with all of that blood on his T.V."

The Gang of Four imploded following the departure of bassist Dave Allen in 1981 to form Shreikback. Andy Gill was one of the most interesting guitar players of the era with his trademark tense, choppy, dissonant chording which errupted into barrages of feedback. I saw them at the Metro club in Boston during their 1993 final reunion tour and they were still a magnificent performing band but the magic was gone. "Entertainment" is the Gang of Four's finest moment. Okay...got to hurry...time for Wapner.

Since coming across a list of the best albums of all time on a music website I respect, I have made an attempt to collect as many of the 10's I could (out of some 110+, I have gotten about 40 or so). One of the highest ranking albums, Gang of Four's 1979 debut "Entertainment!", was the one I could never come across in a respectable package. Most of those albums have been remastered, and when I received word that "Entertainment!" would be remastered by the fine folks at Rhino, I knew I would have a keeper.

I am highly pleased with this album. The actual packaging is somewhat flimsy, a small cardboard slip that will likely not last very long. However, the liner notes and especially the music make up for it. It's easy to see where current bands like Franz Ferdinand, Rapture, and Bloc Party looked for some inspiration: jerky funk-punk workouts that never shy away from making the Grand Statement of political intent. The bass is melodic, the drums are primal, the guitar is more of a sonar, and the vocals are alternately sneery and soulful. I have yet to listen to the album more, but my first impressions have been one of quiet awe: this is the real deal. Get your copy today!

I tend to think of Gang of Four the same way I do Joy Division: when the last gasp of the organized radicalism birthed in the 60s died with punk at the end of the 70s, and Reagan and Thatcher made the world safe for rich people... what was left for non-conformists. Joy Division took the pessimism of the situation to its logical end; their music is spare, icy, and relentlessly dark. Gang of Four takes things the other way, and Entertainment! sputters its outrage. Jon King, even in his calmer moments, sings like a raving lunatic who sees the world collapsing around him. His outrage also finds a voice in Andy Gill's guitar. That word "sputtering" is the only way to describe the small explosions of feedback that punctuate these songs. It's not all righteous anger, though. "Damaged Goods" is one of the most harrowing songs I've ever heard, even though on paper it reads like a PoMo critic's anti-consumerist diatribe. That's the genius of this band though, their ability to make compelling, often frightening rock'n'roll out of intellectual social critique. In short, if you're interested in anything even tangentially related to post-punk, or if you're looking for challenging, rewarding music, Entertainment! is what you need.

The first time we see a truly great work of art we often don't know what to make of it, and therefore dismiss it. Likewise, I dismissed Gang of Four the first time I heard them. Frankly, I just didn't get it. For some reason I was drawn back to them again and again. The acidic lyrics, angular rhythms and coldly angry vocals of the Gang of Four might be offputting at first, but that's just because we've never heard anything quite like them before. This CD is only available only as an import and is hard to find, but it is ESSENTIAL. Entertainment! is the one that puts it all together. They lost their edge (at least on the recordings) as time went by, but this is prime GOF. Gang of Four were also a primary influence on the Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction, but I won't hold that against them.