Gang of 4 were shit. Discuss.

luka

luka

Well-known member
The Fall are best in theory but the problem is they make a horrible unlistenable racket
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I thought they were one of the worst bands of all time, but a sofia coppola film changed my mind. Life is weird.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
I'm really keen on post punk. Gang of four are ok. Main thing to remember with a lot of these bands is that theyve got the odd good song and that's it. With gang of four it's the 'your sweat so sour' one.
 
V

version

Well-known member
baboon2004 said:
I will defend that film to the death. Genius. But yeah, this was a great start.
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I'll give it a go at some point. It's one of those I've always been aware of, but have never seen. It gives me a similar vibe to A Knight's Tale - which I was really into - what with all the anachronistic music.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
one of the best live shows I've ever seen was gang of four at Irving plaza, probably between the first and second album. really powerful, constantly threatening to careen off the rails but still it holding together enough, a chaotic juggernaut.

"entertainment" is the only album I like, and not even all of it. "I found that essence rare" is still great, "at home he's a tourist" isn't too shabby either.
 
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craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Leo said:
one of the best live shows I've ever seen was gang of four at Irving plaza, probably between the first and second album. really powerful, constantly threatening to careen off the rails but still it holding together enough, a chaotic juggernaut.

"entertainment" is the only album I like, and not even all of it. "I found that essence rare" is still great, "at home he's a tourist" isn't to shabby either.
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I love you Leo, you've done all the cool stuff.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
ha...nah, just old enough to have been around at the time. and if I was really cool, I'd have been at their first rehearsals.
 
entertainment

entertainment

Well-known member
i'm very into Wire as well. always wondered why they weren't inducted into the k-punk-reynolds post-punk canon. too arty?

i like Gang Of Four too and this cheekily moronic racket which is daring me to dislike it just so it can sneer at me, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe it spawned imitators of that attitude who did it without the essential, undeniable charm
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
I would guess too arty. Same reason he wouldn't read the wasteland but Burroughs was ok.
 
B

blissblogger

Well-known member
entertainment said:
i'm very into Wire as well. always wondered why they weren't inducted into the k-punk-reynolds post-punk canon. too arty?

i like Gang Of Four too and this cheekily moronic racket which is daring me to dislike it just so it can sneer at me, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe it spawned imitators of that attitude who did it without the essential, undeniable charm
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Wire are actually one of my favorite bands of that era and share a chapter with Talking Heads in Rip It Up. i think you might be right about Mark Fisher, though, he may not have liked them for some reason - perhaps there was not a political dimension there for him. He was fairly predictable in his taste but occasionally would dislike something you'd assume he'd like, and conversely, really like something seemingly completely out of character. I think that's actually what you want in a critic - for there to be a consistency but not a rigidity, and some pockets of aberration in their sensibility, a few cracks in the watertight aesthetic.

In one of Mark's latterday pieces he wrote about how he actually preferred the Jam to Gang of Four, or at least, felt that theirs had been a more successful "politics-into-pop" intervention. It was a big surprise, and a great piece.
 
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