Entertainment!

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Entertainment!
Gang of Four studio album

Publication
(s)

September 25, 1979

admission

May 1979 - June 1979

Label (s) EMI Records
Warner Bros. Records

Format (s)

LP , CD , MC

Genre (s)

Post punk

Title (number)

12

running time

39:53

occupation

production

Gang of Four , Rob Warr

Studio (s)

The Workhouse, London

chronology
- Entertainment! Solid Gold
(1981)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Entertainment!
  UK 45 10/13/1979 (3 weeks)
Singles
At home he's a tourist
  UK 58 06/16/1979 (3 weeks)

Entertainment! is the debut album of the British rock band Gang of Four and was released in September 1979. The album is one of the most important releases in the genre of post-punk and influenced numerous subsequent bands. The pre-released single At Home He's a Tourist reached number 58 in the UK charts, making it the band's most commercially successful song.

useful information

The EP Damaged Goods , released in 1978, led to a record deal with the major label EMI despite all concerns about the sexual innuendos in the band's lyrics . The band rehearsed the songs within a week in a farmhouse with an attached rehearsal room in Wales . The recordings for the debut album took place in the London studio The Workhouse and lasted three weeks. It was produced by Andy Gill and John King together with band manager Rob Warr. No effects or overdubs were used because the band wanted to sound as authentic as possible. Therefore, the record company initially thought the master tape was a demo , but released the album without further editing.

The songs were composed jointly by the band. The texts written by Andy Gill and Jon King are referred to as "carefully considered Marxist old school analyzes". All band members were involved in the singing:

"We saw all the elements, the four voices of the band as working together to create this rhythmic groove."

"We looked at all the elements and the four voices of the band [members] as a unit to create this rhythmic groove."

- Andy Gill

The central theme of the album is the negative influence of the media on people's private lives, especially on their sex life. On the inner cover of the record there are pictures from TV programs with slogans such as “However unsavory, events are shown in a palatable way” (meaning: “Actually repulsive events are presented in a pleasant way.”) Or “Dramatic events on the other side of the world made simply at home ”(analogously:“ Dramatic events on the other side of the world lose their horror at home. ”). When they were supposed to appear on the TV show Top of the Pops with their song "At Home He's a Tourist" in 1979 , they turned it down because they did not replace the word "rubber" (slang for condom ) with another word in the lyrics of the song wanted to replace.

Lyrics and music

The album opens with "Ether", which is about allegations against British police who tortured IRA members in the 1970s . The song is provided with parallel singing, one vocal track tells the story from the point of view of a common man who knew nothing, the other tells the story from the point of view of someone affected. This is followed by “Natural's Not in It”, which contains neither verse nor bridge and chorus and is based on a single guitar riff . Not Great Men was written during rehearsals in Wales and was the last song the band wrote for the album. The idea for "Damaged Goods" arose while shopping in a supermarket in Leeds . The piece is based on a typical R&B rhythm and was already recorded for the EP of the same name. The tape's recording quality was not good enough, which is why they made it for entertainment! re-recorded. The fifth song "Return the Gift" was written on an acoustic guitar . "Guns Before Butter" is supposed to caricature the National Socialists , the band was inspired by John Heartfield's photo montages .

The B-side begins with "I Found That Essence Rare". The idea for this came to Jon King in the face of a perfume advertisement and is intended to express the paradox that a two-piece swimsuit has the same name as an atoll on which nuclear weapons were tested, namely bikini . The song is in the overall form AABA and very rocking , which is why EMI originally wanted to release it as the first single. With “Glass” the band wanted to write a classic pop song, which is why they followed the so-called Tin-Pan-Alley rule when composing . With “Contract”, Jon King processed impressions from his art studies. The idea behind the lyrics is what the band's songs would look like if they were paintings. On "At Home He's a Tourist" the band mixed disco , funk and rock music. The song was recorded in one take. “5.45” has its roots in reggae . The text of the play is about watching TV at home while people are being killed a few streets away. The first song the band wrote for the album was the last track on the album, entitled "Anthrax". The musicians were inspired by the films of director Jean-Luc Godard and the writings of Raymond Chandler . The song is underlaid with funky drums and bass, over which there are two improvised guitar parts and two vocal parts which overlap again and again.

Track list

All songs are penned by Dave Allen, Hugo Burnham, Andy Gill and Jon King.

page 1
1. Ether - 3:51
2. Natural's Not in It - 3:06
3. Not Great Men - 3:05
4. Damaged Goods - 3:27
5. Return the Gift - 3:05
6. Guns Before Butter - 3:47
Page 2
7. I Found That Essence Rare - 3:13
8. Glass - 2:28
9. Contract - 2:39
10. At Home He's a Tourist - 3:30
11 5.45 - 3:40
12. Anthrax - 4:20

review

source rating
Allmusic
Rolling Stone
Pitchfork Media
Music Express

The music magazine Rolling Stone carries entertainment! # 483 of the 500 best albums of all time , # 81 of the 100 best debut albums and # 5 of the 40 best punk albums. It also ranks 63rd among the 100 best albums of the 1980s, even though it was released in 1979. The New Musical Express voted the album at number 159 of the 500 best albums of all time. In the Pitchfork Media selection of the 100 best albums of the 1970s , Entertainment! 8. The album was included in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die .

Gang of Four's debut album is considered to be trend-setting for some genres and subsequent bands, Andy Kellman of Allmusic names Rage Against the Machine or Fugazi , who count the album among their influencers. In addition, he attributes the album to have had influences on rap metal and partly indie rock . He characterizes the music as "funky rhythms, sharp pointillistic guitar staccatos with shouts and chanting " and sums up that "no subversive album is stronger, more influential and more exciting than this". Jess Harvell of Pitchfork Media describes the Morse code- style guitar playing on the album as the greatest innovation and compares entertainment! with a black hole that prevents romance from escaping. Rolling Stone magazine noted in a contemporary review that it is a "brilliant, grim dance band" that "has something to say" and "doesn't change the listener's mind, but gets their attention."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gang of Four in the Official UK Charts (English)
  2. ↑ Peter Mills: Gang of Four . In: Peter Buckley (Ed.): The Rough Guide to Rock . Rough Guides , 2003, ISBN 978-1-84353-105-0 , pp. 411 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Gang of Four Track by Track. Guide us Through 'Entertainment!' Clash Magazine, September 10, 2009, accessed March 5, 2010 .
  4. ^ A b c Steve Taylor: A to X of Alternative Music . Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8264-8217-4 , pp. 113 f .
  5. ↑ Review by Andy Kellman on allmusic.com (accessed October 21, 2018)
  6. ↑ Review by Barry Walters on rollingstone.com (archived) (accessed October 21, 2018)
  7. ↑ Review by Jess Harvell on pitchfork.com (accessed October 21, 2018)
  8. ↑ Review by Detlef Kinsler, in: Musikexpress 03/1980, Edition 290, p. 53.
  9. ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of all Time: Gang of Four, 'Entertainment!' Rolling Stone Magazine, accessed March 31, 2014 .
  10. ↑ 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time on rollingstone.com (accessed December 14, 2018)
  11. ↑ 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time on rollingstone.com (accessed June 27, 2019)
  12. ↑ 100 Best Albums of the 1980s on rollingstone.com (accessed January 20, 2019)
  13. ↑ The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time on nme.com (accessed October 21, 2018)
  14. ↑ The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s on pitchfork.com (accessed October 21, 2018)
  15. ↑ David Fricke: Gang of Four: Entertainment! Rolling Stone , August 7, 1980, archived from the original on February 24, 2009 ; accessed on September 4, 2012 .

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