When I first got hooked on Gang of Four in 2005, I immediately fell in love with Entertainment!. It's a swell album. I soon after bought Solid Gold and didn't really like it as much. I guess this mainly had to do with my penchant, my natural penchant, for faster songs. Vitriol is what I need! And this need for speed doesn't even really qualify good or bad. For example, I love the Birthday Party. They're nervous, faster, and much more angry than Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. But Nick Cave's work is FAR more important and useful than the Birthday Party. Still, I don't commonly put on Abattoir Blues versus Hee-Haw on your average Tuesday night. See what I mean? Same thing with the Replacements. I'm nuts over their first album, but it really can't compare to Let it Be, an album I listent to much less often but which is yards better.
What I am trying to say then is, while I do think Entertainment! is more enjoyable and faster and more significant, Solid Gold really is a much better album than I first thought.
At-first one might be put off with it's slower, mid-tempo nerves and grooves, but this album is a delight. "Paralysed" is such a great first song, so much so even Black Flag would name their first track on In My Head the same, although with the American "z" thrown in instead of the "s." I think this is just coincidence, as I bet Henry Rollins thought/still does think Gang of Four are a bunch of fags. Whatever the reason though, both bands had some brains to make such cool song titles be their opening tracks on such different yet eerily similar albums.
And who can't dig "Why Theory?":
Each day seems like a natural fact
And what we think changes how we act
So to change ideas
Change is what we do
Too much thinking makes me ill
I think I’ll have another gin
A few more drinks it’ll be alright
It's kind of pedantic, especially the part on booze, but I still struggle daily with the full meaning of the first line: each day seems like a natural fact. It's not that complex, but still offers me a little mystery, no matter how useless.
I never really cared for "Cheeseburger," but it's an alright track.
The thing I guess I like best about this album though, aside from it's killer cover art, is the collective feeling of edgey malaise. What Gang of Four did so well on this album is that they made a huge bummer of an album that you can still dance too but not feel gimmicky while doing so. I mean, you can dance to depressing Bauhaus songs, but then you just start thinking about vampires and it kind of loses it's organic feel. This is edgey, nervous, dancey music that's bummed out and slightly angry, but perfect for your average, smart white kid. It's like Unknown Pleasures without the apocalypse. Unknown Pleasures is about sitting in a room alone and planning on killing one's self while listening to Iggy Pop and hating your wife, whereas Solid Gold is about being a little drunk on a Thursday, seeing through loads of bullshit, and feeling dull and pointless and yet a little playful. Much more organic and relatable right?
I guess it also has a lot to do with mood. Gang of Four's first album is just as pissed, but works more on building tension, and then releasing it in bursts. Solid Gold is all about the build, and never really the release.
So while I normally will grab Entertainment! with relish, maybe it just tells me I prefer
Solid Goldright now because I am not interested in release or too much tension. I need just the right amount of tension. But no release. I'm looking inward. Also, I listen to Hard when I want to be entertained in a very mindless disco sort of way (btw, like Solid Gold, Hard is very underrated, but in a completely divergent sort of way. Solid Gold is the Brian Eno to Hard 's B-52s).
Also, the CD updated version screws up everything, as it includes the Another Day/Another Dollar EP which has one of my favorite Gang of Four song's ever "To Hell with Poverty." It's an absolutely raucous dance-punk gem. That song being coupled with Solid Goldscrews up this whole essay I've written here.
