The Problem of Leisure

“When I was putting together the music for Entertainment! I said that what we were doing was going to be hugely influential. Everybody in the band pissed themselves at my pretentiousness."
- Andy Gill

Gang of Four : Natural's Not In It

[Purchase]

On September 25, 1979 Gang of Four released Entertainment!, the band's debut album and one of the five most important of the year. So important that I just spent the past half hour combing through all of the CDs in my basement looking for my copy because it has great liner notes in which Michael Stipe of REM and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers talk about how the album changed their lives. 

And I can't find it. Did I leave it in my car and have it stolen? Seriously, where the hell is this album?

We've touched on Gang of Four before. Formed in Leeds in 1977, vocalist Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham named themselves after the Chinese political faction associated with Mao Tse-tung's widow.  Almost from the start, they had a groundbreaking sound, punk played to a funky beat and lyrics that castigated Thatcherism, consumerism and sexism.

That they would sign with EMI to release their debut album raised some eyebrows.

"We could have hidden away on Rough Trade, say, but we wanted people to hear our music," Gill would explain in an interview that appears in The Mojo Collection. "EMI gave us money and let us get on with it. The sessions were pretty fraught  as were were a very argumentative band . I would try to impose certain syncopated drum patterns on Hugo, and he'd throw his sticks at me  and storm off. We didn't know much about studio techniques, but I knew I wanted a dry sound. We used transistor amps as an anti-rockist gesture--trying to get away from that warm Marshall feel".

Gill would go on to describe the band's lyrics as "a simplistic view of modern capitalism", but there are many lines in the album that have withstood the test of time. 

The problem of leisure What to do for pleasure 
Sometimes I'm thinking that I love you But I know it's only lust 
The worst thing in 1954 was the bikini 
How can I sit and eat my tea, with all that blood flowing from the television.
Love'll get you like a case of Anthrax And that's something I don't want to catch 

The album would finish #5 on NME's year-end list, and #3 on Melody Maker's. It's power has only grown. Sez Pitchfork who names the #8 best album of the 1970's: 

Entertainment! may have been a sarcastic title, but it wasn’t inaccurate. The album is caustic and bursting with disgust for unethical capitalism, opportunist politicians, and consumer society, among other things, but it’s also crafted with amazing pop sensibility—and is, of course, remarkably danceable. 

Still haven't found the Entertainment! cd but here's the Michael Stipe quote :

"Entertainment! shredded everything that came before it. I stole a lot from them."