Track Listing

1. Ether
2. Natural's Not In It
3. Not Great Men
4. Damaged Goods
5. Return the Gift
6. Guns Before Butter
7. I Found that Essence Rare
8. Glass
9. Contract
10. At Home He's A Tourist
11. 5-45
12. Anthrax
13. Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time (Bonus Tracks)
14. He'd Send in the Army (Bonus Tracks)
15. It's Her Factory (Bonus Tracks)
16. Armalite Rifle (Bonus Tracks)
17. Guns Before Butter (Alternate Version) (Bonus Tracks)
18. Contract (Alternate Version) (Bonus Tracks)
19. Blood Free (Live) (Bonus Tracks)
20. Sweet Jane (Live) (Bonus Tracks)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6774 in Music
• Brand: GANG OF FOUR
• Released on: 2005-05-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .11 pounds

Album Description
Some of the most powerful, energized, and memorable music of the U.K.'s potent post-punk era of the late '70s and early '80s came from the trailblazing band Gang of Four, and it all started with 1979's stellar Entertainment! Dave Allen, Hugo Burnham, Andy Gill, and Jon King fused punk, funk, explosive prog-rock, and literate and often incendiary lyrics into a signature, groundbreaking sound that would influence countless bands to come. The original album's brilliant 12 tracks are now remastered and bolstered with four tracks from the rare Yellow EP, plus four never-before-released-songs-making this watershed disc sound bigger and better than ever.

Amazon.com
The same year American college students and FM radio stations found hipness in the Clash's "Train in Vain," a quartet of students from England's Leeds University calling themselves Gang of Four released their debut album. Politically charged and pumped full of extremist theories and punk rock vehemence (and now out of print since 1997), Entertainment continues to rank among the most critically acclaimed and influential records of the post-punk epoch it helped to define. The record is funkified by stop-start rhythms and sharp vocals that mimic Joe Strummer's sing-to-shout shifts, a sound that has turned up in the music of a quarter-century of bands, from the Minutemen to Fugazi. The original 12-song track list--including the vehement slam on media and politics "I Found That Essence Rare" and the punk passion play "Damaged Goods"--is reinforced with all four songs from the band's 1980 EP Yellow, as well as four others never-before-released, including a live cover of the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane." --Scott Holter

Customer Reviews

The foundation of most of what we listen to today.
Whatever might urge someone to give this album one star out of 5 cannot possibly be validated. This is a ground breaking record - countless bands since have completely ripped off the Gang Of Four's sound - which, by the way, was entirely innovative at the date of its release. If you don't find it so innovative now, chances are you don't have a clue about what was happening in 1979, which makes me wonder why you'd even bother with this album.

Entertainment! stands up with Pink Flag, London Calling, Unknown Pleasures, all those albums that emerged from the post-punk scene to redefine what music was, and to influence so many alternative bands throughout the next 25 some years.

The reissue of this album comes at a perfect time, when bands like the Futureheads and Bloc Party are flourishing, while borrowing heavily from the sound of Entertainment!

Stands On Its Own
You know, I'd love to impose a ban on using mediocre modern bands as measuring sticks for the merit of bands past. In other words, no more "There'd be no Radiohead / Death Cab For Cutie / Rage Against The Whatever / if it weren't for Gang of Four (as if that's a GOOD thing!! Hey there'd be no Michael Bolton if it weren't for Otis Redding)! I mean, let's judge albums on their own merit. This is one of the most exciting records of the late 70's / early 80's. Gang Of Four's lyrics and messages, however sincere, come off as a bit preachy and naive, but WOW!! The guitar/drum attack is powerful! The sound of this record was unprecedented. This ranks as one of the top works of art of the post-punk era - whether or not it's the ancestral heritage of the Ditty Bops!

their least likely fan writes...
i'm a vehement anti-communist loather of the Frankfurt School who think's Jean Luc Godard (GoF's primary inspiration) was the worst thing that happened to cinema, which means I hate pretty much everything these guys stand for ideology-wise, and yet I love this album. It absolutely rocks, even if their class analysis is for the birds. This just goes to show that in rock 'n roll, as with Italian opera, lyrical content counts for little, sound is more powerul than sense. GoF don't write lyrics, they write slogans, but they're as hooky and memorable as Andy Gill's scraping James Brown meets James Blood Ulmer guitar noises. Less like songs than funky ideological football cheers. And Hugo Burnham is an amazing drummer. If you really want to know what this band was all about, hunt down a copy of the video (don't think it's on DVD) "Urgh! A Music War," a multi-artist punk/new wave medley of concert footage from the very early '80's. GoF are utterly riveting, absolute madmen. Though The Cramps out-do them, as Lux's leather pants are only held on him by his member, and he sings an entire song with the mike stuck between his teeth. But that's for another review.