Gang of Four confess

Press, 28 August 1980, Page 14

Gang of Four confess

RECORD REVIEWS

.yby '

Nevin Topp

■GANG OF FOUR “Entertainment.” (EMI EMC ’3313). ' « The medium'is' the message and the message, is the nub of the. Gang of. Four’s Entertainment!” /album. The outer and inner sleeves depict different presentations of telei/vision situations from a /Leftist viewpoint. However, as a “Melody Maker”- reviewer argued, why didn’t the Gang of Four take on .the medium in which they work — for any message to get across ' the medium must also entertain. “Entertainment!” is musically so entertaining that the partly obscured vocals, are ignored, and it is only .. through .' the bene=> Tit of a -lyric sheet that :the Gang of Four’s ideas are made explicit ■ The main element in the music is! the stuttering Tead guitar of Andy Gill,

which continually stabs through. the rhythm section.' The album shows that the Gang, have refined their songs. Originally, a single, “Damaged Goods” and “Anthrax,” was released on the independent Fast label. Both of these are on the album, but they don’t retain the same ■inventiveness or venom ■apparent in the single. “Anthrax”: Love’ll get you like a case of anthrax) is carefully recorded for the album; there is none of the spontaneity of the vocalist, Jon King, on one channel singing, and Gill on another channel describing > the recording techniques: The album takes up different points. ; “Ether” is concerned about the “dirt behind the daydream.” The industrialisation of leisure is portrayed on “Natural’s Nqt in It” and “At Home,

He’s a 'Tourist,” history is made ■by “Not Great Men.” The Gang of Four don't have .the humour of those priests of punk, the Sex Pistols, although the sardonic does creep in (“The worst thing in 1954 was the Bikini/See the girl on TV dressed in a Bikini/She doesn’t think so, but she’s dressed for the.i-‘H-bomb,” from "I Found, the Essence Rare”). f The. Gang of Four’s “Entertainment!” is the best album to come out; of Britain for some time; JOHN COOPER CLARKE “Snap, Crackle (and) Bop.” (Epic ELPS 4071). John Cooper . Clarke is the poet of punk, setting his verse to music. On the second album the alliance between words and music is much closer, but for all that, Clark still retains his biting style, right, from the first track, “Evidently Chickentown,” sung in a

Dylan style. The favourite is “Condition Discharge,” which imitates the style of Public Image, Ltd, and the vocals of John Lydon.

. However, Clarke has lost tlie humour of his first album. The vocal on “Beasley Street,” something Tom Waits could have composed, is depressing . and the ..lyrics are grim. “36. Hours” is a good opener for. side two, a real rock ’n* roller, in which music and lyrics fit hand in glove.