Gang of Four - Entertainment!
-
Artist:
-
Album:Entertainment
-
Track:
Punk rock shook the rock-n-roll scene to its core during the late 70s with its emphasis of raw power and intensity over fine songcrafting and skill. As the scene started to mature, raucous bands with three chords began to give way to more artistically-minded musicians who melded their own musical tastes and influences with punk, creating a slightly divergent form generally referred to as post-punk. Post-punk bands injected reggae, dub, funk and other musical influences into the charged and stripped-down sound of “garden-variety punk.” The subject matter of post-punk matured as well, singing about the social and political ills in a much more crafted and adept matter than the usually-nihilistic earlier punk bands handled them.Gang of Four and their debut album, Entertainment!, almost single-handedly codify the ethos of the early post-punk movement. Entertainment! is mixed much cleaner than other punk albums of the time. The drums frame each song without spreading too widely, and the bass and rhythm lines are brought to the fore, a trait characteristic of most post-punk bands. Entertainment! lyrically covers topics still as controversial and explosive today as they were in 1979, such as the politics of love (“Natural’s Not in It”), social and economic disparity (“Not Great Men”, “Guns Before Butter), and over-domineering governments (“Ether”). Even the title of the album itself is a jab at a culture too concern with diversions to see the truth happening around them. Gang of Four gives us a mix on Entertainment! not found often in music of the time: catchy, high-energy music with a message so politically charged that it should be kept from gas-filled rooms.
Comments (4)