Re: Gang of Four

When Andy Gill died, I was amazed to discover that the first 3 Gang of Four albums were missing on legal download and streaming services. Matador has just reissued them, and added 14 live recordings. I wonder if physical editions will follow.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2020 10:21AM by steevee.

I've always been very happy with Rhino's reissue of Entertainment from however many years ago. But I'd definitely be interested in the rest of the catalog. Those are devilishly hard to find (at a decent price).

Edit: after browsing through Discogs, my interpretation of the articles I've seen on this is that physical reissues may be a few years down the line, as there have been vinyl reissues of all three in the past few years, and fewer and fewer labels are opting for CD reissues. I could be wrong, though - I've seen reissues come out three years after the last round due to an artist reassigning the rights.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2020 04:49PM by Michael Toland.

The CD reissues of the first three albums on the Infinite Zero label were pretty great. Discogs shows a few of them at pretty reasonable prices.

I've been disappointed by the sound quality of the live albums. But the 1982 BBC session is especially appalling for a commercial release. It sounds like it was recorded from a boombox tape made at the time, dreadfully flat and muddled, and the second song gets cut off in the middle! Did anyone at Matador listen to this before uploading it to Spotify?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2020 11:40PM by steevee.

I guess I want to steer this a little off course and discuss ‘entertainment’ as a phenomenon. This is easily in my top ten albums of the era, possibly top five. It establishes an aura, a sense of purpose, like few other releases I can think of. It establishes a genre.

Can you think of a antecedent for this album? Yes, there were stark funk grooves previously. And raw guitar. But can you think of something that sounded quite like this previously? Or at least close to that sound?

I can’t, but I may be drawing a blank....

Bip Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess I want to steer this a little off course
> and discuss ‘entertainment’ as a phenomenon. This
> is easily in my top ten albums of the era,
> possibly top five. It establishes an aura, a
> sense of purpose, like few other releases I can
> think of. It establishes a genre.
>
> Can you think of a antecedent for this album? Yes,
> there were stark funk grooves previously. And raw
> guitar. But can you think of something that
> sounded quite like this previously? Or at least
> close to that sound?
>
> I can’t, but I may be drawing a blank....

How about "Pink Flag" and "Chairs Missing"?

I really like both of those Wire albums, and they do have a similar stark quality.....but for me they don’t ‘bring in da noise, bring in da funk’ the way that “Entertainment’ does.

(I’ve been waiting two years for an opportunity to use that phrase...)