record since the MC5's booty-shaking 1969 broadside,
Kick Out the Jams.The power, the glory and the paradox of the Gang of Four's mission on Entertainment! is neatly, if unconsciously, capsulized in the last line of "5.45," a typically kinetic dance tract about television news. "Guerrilla war struggle is a new entertainment," rails Jon King in demagogic sing-speak set against a wall of Gatling-gun guitar chords and snowballing bass and drum patterns. Contracted to two of the biggest corporations in the music business (EMI in Britain, Warner Bros. in America), the Gang of Four undoubtedly fancy themselves cultural guerrillas based in the heart of the beast, using its oppressive but efficient offices to issue an encouraging revolutionary word.
Like their namesakes (the four top Communist officials purged from the party in China's post-Mao upheaval), the Gang of Four have drawn scorn from their more extremist New Wave brethren in England for their ties with major labels. The charge, of course, is that mass-marketing dollars spent on behalf of an LP as radical (even in rock & roll terms) as Entertainment! merely reduces both the album and its message to just that: entertainment–no different from a Beatles reissue or the latest Doobie Brothers release.
Yet this is exactly the level on which Entertainment! is most effective and the Gang of Four most subversive. Guerrillas they may be, with weighty political statements to make, but vocalist Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham have also made a damned entertaining record, angst and all. Allen's explosive bass and Burnham's deft command of funk, reggae and revved-up disco meters form a one-two punch whose tactility and musical strength equals that of the Rolling Stones and the Wailers. Gill ignores routine rock-guitar riffing, preferring instead to fire off polyrhythmic volleys of crackling dissonance that have more in common with ex-Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson than Johnny Ramone.
With King ranting in a pronounced British accent against declamatory harmonies, a background of the other three group members, the effect is one of orgasmic dance-floor release. Going into overdrive in a manic James Brown
Unabashedly cerebral and sonically violent, Gang of Four recognized punk's sociological and artistic dead ends in the wake of the Sex Pistols' implosion. The Leeds, England, quartet -- vocalist Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham -- smashed punk into pieces by embracing funk, dub and disco, making music as radical as their politics. On their combative, compulsively dance-y 1979 debut album, Entertainment!, Gill's fractured rhythm guitar shreds chords and roars anti-solos as Allen's funk bass supplies melody and Burnham rocks steady. King's rhythmic yelp deconstructs history ("Not Great Men"), war ("Guns Before Butter"), sex ("Damaged Goods") and capitalism (nearly every track); the combination has inspired Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine as well as current club rockers from the Rapture to Bloc Party. Expanded with equally combustible singles, demos and live rarities, Entertainment! once again sounds bracingly current. "Guerrilla-war struggle is a new entertainment," King gasps as the band captures a world in collapse.
Forget about all the indie bands that ape the Gang of Four. What's really important is that this 1979 debut is still as resonant and powerful as ever. White funk rhythms, blasts of off-kilter guitar, and lyrics that matter-of-factly show how the rules of commerce have conquered our personal lives. (OK, professor -- this always rocks!) This version adds three cuts.
