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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
GOF's Musical and Thematic Insight needs Rediscovery., January 12, 2002
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).
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
That's Entertainment, December 25, 2001
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.
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20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rockin the Funky Socialist agenda ...and making it seem cool, August 24, 2004
Let's see... We need to make an album full of angular, choppy brittle, minimalist funk that would make George Clinton and Bootsy Collins want to sell all of their worldly possessions and move to a socialist co-op where they can study the works of Karl Marx while shaking their rumps to a devastating groove.
That's not an easy task to accomplish. But Gang of Four did it. This album is a political manifesto that you can dance to. Their targets are capitalist society, corporate greed, consumerism as identity, the loss of self in a pre-fabricated corporate environment. Their message is even more relevant today than ever before.
But never mind the message because you can DANCE your butt off to this record. The band knows how to lock into a propulsive groove and then ride it as far as it will take them. The guitar playing is groundbreaking in it's unconventional style. Call it non-riffs or anti-riffs. You get just enough shards of feedback to satisfy your need for riffage, no more-no less.
In many ways GOF remind me of a white post-punk version of Chic. All the instruments, guitar, bass, drums, and even vocal are in service of the groove.
In addition, there is not a weak cut on the album. If you haven't heard this record, you are in for a treat. Do whatever you have to do to get it now!
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by Gang of Four 
