Quad Damage

Gang of Four's Content

by M.J. Fine

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Published: Jan 26, 2011

Every generation gets the Gang of Four it deserves. Entertainment!, the Leeds quartet's 1979 debut, startled scenesters with its marriage of funk, punk and polemic; four years later, followers were crying "sellout" over their clubby swan song, Hard. Original members Jon King and Andy Gill returned in 1991 with Mall, a slick indictment of consumerism that wouldn't have existed without the '80s but arrived too late. By 2005's Return the Gift, the original gang had reconstituted — only to offer rerecorded versions of the early stuff no one wanted them to retouch.

Now King and Gill are back at it. Content (YepRoc) contains their first new material in 16 years, and it finds them as discontent as ever. Technology's evolved a bit since Gang of Four's last go-round, but you'll notice it more in the lyrics than in the music. "You Don't Have to Be Mad" is built around Gill's famously crunchy guitar, which concedes nothing to age. The same can't be said of a couplet like "You look good with no clothes on/ I'll take photos on my phone." That would have sounded as absurd in 1995 as in 1979; now it's years behind the curve. Elsewhere, Gill goes on about exhibitionism and the disconnection inherent in being connected to everyone and everything all the time.

But who expects subtlety from Gang of Four? Entertainment! hurled verbal bombs at commerce and labor, recreational sex and romance, history and current events. "Guerrilla war struggle is a new entertainment," Jon King proclaims eight times on "5-45," and if that seems like an exaggeration, consider the context. "Watch new blood on the 18-inch screen," he sings, "The corpse is a new personality." Perhaps Gang of Four's most enduring trick is making bodies move to the most inappropriate sentiments about the mating game. "Damaged Goods" struggles with the line between love and lust; "Contract" examines what happens when bodies fall short of the ideal. King's deadpan delivery and Gill's spiky guitar spawned waves of imitators, but it's the lean, mean rhythm section that buried the beat deep in our bones.

(m_fine@citypaper.net)

Gang of Four plays the TLA Feb. 5.

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