Gang Of Four [Album Covers]

1979 Entertainment! SR	1980 Gang of Four S	$[ 3 / 22 ] 1981 Solid Gold Gang of Fours existence had as much to do with Slave and Chic as it did the Sex Pistols and the Stooges, which is something Solid Gold demonstrates more than Entertainment! Any smartypants can point out the irony of a band on Warner Bros. railing against systematic tools of control disguised as entertainment media, but Gang of Four were more observational than condescending. True, Jon King and Andy Gill might have been hooting and hollering in a semiviolent and discordant fashion, but they were saying "think about it" more than "you lot are a bunch of mindless puppets." Abrasiveness was a means to grab the listener, and it worked. Reciting Solid Golds lyrics on a local neighborhood corner might get a couple interested souls to pay attention. It isnt poetry, and its no fun; most within earshot would just continue power-walking or tune out while buffing the SUV. Solid Gold has that unholy racket going on beneath the lyrics, an unlikely mutation of catchiness and atonality that made ears perk and (oddly) posteriors shake. With its slightly ironic title, Solid Gold is more rhythmically grounded than the fractured nature of Entertainment!, a politically charged, more Teutonic take on funk. Its a form of release for paranoid accountants. Financial concerns form the basis of the subject matter; the hilarious but realistic "Cheeseburger" is a highlight with its thinly veiled snipe at America: "No classes in the U.S.A./Improve yourself, the choice is yours/Work at your job and make good pay/Make friends, great/Buy them a beer!" This is a nickel less spectacular than the debut, but owning one and not the other would be criminal.$ 1981 Solid Gold SR	1982 Songs of the Free SR
1982 Another Day/Another Dollar S	1983 Hard SR	1984 At the Palace R	1990 A Brief History of the Twentieth Century R
1990 The Peel Sessions Album	1991 Mall SR	1995 Shrinkwrapped R	$[ 12 / 22 ] 1995 Solid Gold / Another Day/Another Dollar Gang of Fours existence had as much to do with Slave and Chic as it did the Sex Pistols and the Stooges, which is something Solid Gold demonstrates more than Entertainment! Any smartypants can point out the irony of a band on Warner Bros. railing against systematic tools of control disguised as entertainment media, but Gang of Four were more observational than condescending. True, Jon King and Andy Gill might have been hooting and hollering in a semiviolent and discordant fashion, but they were saying "think about it" more than "you lot are a bunch of mindless puppets." Abrasiveness was a means to grab the listener, and it worked. Reciting Solid Golds lyrics on a local neighborhood corner might get a couple interested souls to pay attention. It isnt poetry, and its no fun; most within earshot would just continue power-walking or tune out while buffing the SUV. Solid Gold has that unholy racket going on beneath the lyrics, an unlikely mutation of catchiness and atonality that made ears perk and (oddly) posteriors shake. With its slightly ironic title, Solid Gold is more rhythmically grounded than the fractured nature of Entertainment!, a politically charged, more Teutonic take on funk. Its a form of release for paranoid accountants. Financial concerns form the basis of the subject matter; the hilarious but realistic "Cheeseburger" is a highlight with its thinly veiled snipe at America: "No classes in the U.S.A./Improve yourself, the choice is yours/Work at your job and make good pay/Make friends, great/Buy them a beer!" This is a nickel less spectacular than the debut, but owning one and not the other would be criminal. [Solid Gold was reissued in 1995 on Warner subsidiary Infinite Zero/American, with Another Day/Another Dollar appended.]$ 1995 Solid Gold / Another Day/Another Dollar R
1995 Entertainment! & Yellow EP	1998 100 Flowers Bloom	2003 Hard / Solid Gold R	2005 Return the Gift SR
2008 Second Life S	2010 Free EP	2011 Content SR	2015 What Happens Next SR
2018 Complicit S	2019 Happy Now S