273. Gang of Four, "Entertainment!"

 


Oh no, it's one of my Lobster Albums.  You know how everyone loves lobster, the go-to decadence food?  Say "fried rice" and people shrug, but say "lobster fried rice" and everyone goes "ohhhhhh that sounds amaaaaaazing, must have."  Lobster is just shorthand for rich, indulgent eating.  Except I don't really care about lobster.  It's not the apex of fine dining to me.  It's a midgrade crustacean, not really that much better than shrimp and probably not as good as crab.  It's just lobster.

Which is to say, everyone loves this album but it really doesn't do much for me.  I know, I know, it's incredibly influential and a Super Important post-punk album and maybe the biggest example of "angular," a rock critic word I saved especially for this album, but I don't really like any of the songs.  (This is probably also a Third Rail album so I'm doubly fucked for not liking it.)

So let's take a representative song.  Actually, they're all representative since they all sound about the same - HOO BOY!! - but let's take, oh, say "Contact."  It starts with Hugo Burnham's fast drums and Andy Gill's skittering, chattering guitar, joined in short order by Dave Allen's bass and Jon King's virtually spoken-word vocals.  This is pretty much the template for all the songs.  Now, I understand what's going on here, and why it's important, but it's not something I ever really want to willfully listen to.  

But the influence!  The list of bands influenced by Gang of Four goes on and on, from the good (R.E.M.) to the not as great (Red Hot Chili Peppers, who originally got Andy Gill to produce their debut album but parted ways after he couldn't stand them), to the more recent (Bloc Party).  In fact, Bloc Party obviously owes a huge debt to Go4, and I really love Bloc Party's 2005 album Silent Alarm, so I guess it's safe to say I like derivative Go4 more than actual Go4.  I want the lobster flavored chips, not the whole beast, I guess.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip hop"
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g
Read more

1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

Image
  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th
Read more