Hard/Solid Gold

Gang of Four | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 21, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Wounded Bird Records
• ASIN: B000083EJG
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,673 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Is It Love

2. I Fled

3. Silver Lining

4. Woman Town

5. A Man With A Good Car

6. It Dont Matter

7. Arabic

8. A Piece Of My Heart

9. Independence

10. Paralysed

11. What We All Want

12. Why Theory

13. If I Could Keep It For Myself

14. Outside The Trains Dont Run On Time

15. Cheeseburger

16. The Republic

17. In The Ditch

18. A Hole In The Wallet

19. Hed Send In The Army

Editorial Reviews

Gang Of Four were a British new wave band formed in 1980 by lead singer Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill. They had four albums hit the Billboard charts between 1981 & 1983. Two of those albums comprise this 2-on-1 CD. Hard is making its worldwide CD debut and Solid Gold has been out of print for years. Wounded Bird. 2003.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hard? Wimpy. Solid Gold? Indeed, March 20, 2005

By 

Matthew Berlyant (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard/Solid Gold (Audio CD)

I got into Gang of Four when I was in college in 1996. I found a vinyl copy of "Entertainment!" for $5 at a now defunct record store in New Brunswick, NJ and soon afterwards, bought as much stuff as I could get my hands on. Among others, I bought "Songs of the Free" and "Hard" on vinyl, though I couldn't find a copy of "Solid Gold" at the time, so I contented myself by copying my college's radio station's Lp copy. At the time, I thought it was a good album, but nowhere near on the level of "Entertainment!". In the same radio station's record library, I came upon a copy of "Hard". At that point, the record was 12 years old or so and someone had written "wimpy" on it. After purchasing "Hard", I agreed. In general, I really like their 1st 3 Lps, but "Hard" was just abominable.

Which brings me to this reissue. When I bought it a few years ago, I was psyched to finally see "Solid Gold" issued on CD here in the U.S. and I bought it despite having no desire at all to re-purchase "Hard". What I found even weirder about this reissue was that the packaging (the lyrics and insert) is all for "Hard" and "Solid Gold", the far superior album, is there almost as an afterthought. Regardless, the sound is great and while "Hard" is as execrable as I remembered it being many years before, "Solid Gold" is much better than I remember it being and while still not being as great as "Entertainment!", is still a great early '80s post-punk Lp that's alternately challenging, yet catchy and listenable as well (and not to mention, very influential to many current new-new wave or post-post punk bands). If you don't believe me, try "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time", "If I Could Keep It For Myself", "Hole in the Wallet" or "In the Ditch" and see for yourself!

So, to sum up, I would've given this 4.5 stars if it was "Solid Gold" alone and if the packaging was a bit better, but I had to knock it down for the inclusion of "Hard" and for the careless packaging. Oh and it's too bad that they couldn't have included the "Another Day, Another Dollar" ep as well, but that's included on the UK reissue of "Solid Gold", which I actually recommend instead of this one.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard is what it is, and is a quite good New Wave funk album, May 4, 2005

By 

A Music Lover (the seaside) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hard/Solid Gold (Audio CD)

I find the reviews here to be somewhat revisionist in their take on this double lp CD. Hard WAS commercially viable, scoring a fairly big pop hit with "Is it Love". It is really a fun album with lots or classic ironic GO4 lyrics and a fair sprinkling of the now fully developed lacerating guitar sound (Gill took his guitar sound to the logical extreme on Songs of the Free). Nearly every british post-punk band went in this basic direction, Captain Sensible scored big pop hits with his funk-rap and pure pop, 999 was a seminal punk band that went farther into disco with "13th Floor madness", Japan began their career with the most unstoppable mix of disco and snarl perhaps ever in the late 70's. The list goes on and not all went to funk/soul, some just went pop. Take American bands like Bad Religion (Into the Unknown is folk pop) and TSOL (not sure what Beneath the Shadows is but I think they may have been trying to copy the Damned's Strawberries). By 1983 there was no where to go with post-punk in England and not much of an audience. With the rise of Hardcore and bands like Discharge and GBH, you would have to get harder to try to fit in and the kids would have laughed at it, seeing GO4 as posuer old men, like they did the Stranglers.

Let's remember that Solid Gold was probably the reason they turned more pop for Songs of the Free. It was not very successful and I did not know many folks that liked it back then. I find the Yellow EP to be the best of their early "darker" sound. Solid Gold almost has none of the melody and hooks that all 3 of their other lps have, including Entertainment. It was a tough listen in the early 80's with all that was coming out at the same time. Sure, now that the Ramone are considered heroes instead of the zeroes they were seen as at the time by the masses, Solid Gold deserves a listen. But when people say GO4 was a huge influence etc, they are usually talking about Entertainment and Songs of the Free, even though they may not admit it now. Why do you think it took so long to put it on CD in the US? It didn't sell! It was the truly failed experiment, sadly.

All in all, this is a great CD from start to end and worth having. Songs of the Free is an absolute must as well as the US pressing of Entertainment (if only for the 4 song Yellow EP included which has different recordings of the 2 songs that made it onto Solid Gold).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two timepieces, February 6, 2004

By 

Elliott Brown (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard/Solid Gold (Audio CD)

Gang of Four's Hard and Solid Gold chronicle a cool little corner of musical history. Solid Gold is a long-forgotten and underappreciated cornerstone of the ground floor of New Wave, while Hard helped set the standard for 808-inspired 80s eurotrash. The music may not be all that great, but you'll be way hipper if you own it.

The Solid Gold half of this compilation is the real gem. The songs are droning, sinister, sparse but driving, and obviously incredibly influencial. "What We All Want" could take credit for the band Clinic's body of work as well as Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade." The Rapture's "out of the races and onto the tracks" is a thinly veiled cover of "Outside the Trains Don't Run On Time." "A Hole in the Wallet" has some of the Chemical Brothers block rockin' beats, and Fugazi ought to just send a thank you note. But as "important" as this album clearly is, it isn't as listenable as some of its contemporaries, such as Gang of Four's "Entertainment!," early works by the Talking Heads, and the Clash. It still kind of kicks ass, though, so if you like the harder side of the indie movement and you're curious where it all came from, this album is probably worth purchasing just for the Solid Gold half.

Hard, on the other hand, captures Gang of Four riding the New Wave caboose into well-deserved obscurity. Like its better known contemporaries, Gang of Four succumbed to the temptation to add keyboards, drum machines and overproduced nasally vocals. Hard is listenable, but it could easily be a lost album by Erasure or Depeche Mode. The change experienced by Gang of Four is evident even in its song titles ("In The Ditch" from Solid Gold vs. "Silver Lining" from Hard). While Hard is pretty good (Andrew Gill's guitar riffing keeps things fresh, at least), it hardly compares to the raw vitality of Solid Gold. Let's just hope history is not destined to repeat itself...

If you have respect for your elders, you'll go pick this one up. Of course, if you like your medicine with a spoonful of sugar, you might want to try the album Entertainment! instead. Gang of Four sounds a little more like their contemporaries on Entertainment!, which is to say, a little more palatable. Solid Gold has a little more energy and creative fuel, but Entertainment! is probably more fun for the whole family.