Music for the modern misfit - #1 Entertainment!
Backside of Entertainment! 1979
Music for the Modern Misfit explores fantastic ALBUMS, SINGLES & ARTISTS that have molded our NEW WAVE writers and contributors
Dave Allen, a founding member of Gang of Four, died on May 5th, 2025. That’s hit me. I never really had reverence for the fine art of the bass until Entertainment! God, a serious debut album. Gang of Four knocked it out of the f*cking park. As an album, Entertainment is a full ride. Every song remains as relevant and pleasant to hear to this day as when it was released in 1979.
Coming off the back of a tumultuous deal with the infamous Edinburgh Record label “Fast Product” in 1978. Jon King, Andy Gill, Hugo Burnham and Dave Allen took to engineering a new sound, a politically infused but dancey sound you could gyrate to in a club and dissect yourself at home. The album is a quintessential piece of modern Marxist theory, I think it’s the most accessible and engaging way that many of these ideas have ever been communicated. It’s difficult for highly politicised bands to get their message across without seeming preachy or alienating an audience - Gang of Four not only mastered that art, but also pioneered it for their successors to follow on to.
Entertainment! does not fail to excite -that’s the job of the album’s name for f*cks sake. The height of this album is“Damaged Goods”, it’s THE Gang of Four song, it has inspired everything and everyone that has probably inspired you. If you’ve not heard it, stop reading. My flowery vocabulary won’t do this song justice, the hard-hitting listening experience is the equivalent of an ego trip. Highlights include“Naturals not in it”, “Not Great Men”&“Love Like Anthrax”.There are no “lows” to this album; it’s crafted to perfection. Every song is one that I do greatly enjoy - the only real dip in quality is the first 50 seconds of “Guns Before Butter” - it’s just too dissonant from the rest of the album for my liking, too repetitive. Otherwise, still great.
Musically, every cog in the gang has inspired a generation of instrumental insurrectionists. Gill’s thrashing rhythmic guitar attacks are unmistakable. King’s vocals are engaging but mournful- vibrating powerfully, and Burnham on drums is tight and controlled. They’re all linked together with Allen’s pulsating, aggressive bass, and it’s ended up culminating into one of the most seminal albums of the last half century.
For fans of Entertainment!, I’d recommend these similarly sounding albums
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
Gang of Four are insubordinate, irreplaceable and insurmountable- there will never be “another” Gang of Four or a “next” Gang of Four. Jon King & Hugo Burnham are touring this year alongside Gail Greenwood (on bass) and Ted Leo (on guitar), playing a full set of “Entertainment!” and another“Best of the Rest”. My deification of this album and these men borders on the absurdities of great man theory - something they staunchly detest - they’re not great men, they’re icons, shakers and movers - and some of the greatest alternative agitators of the 21st century, and that’s a level of iconography I can entertain.
