Send "Gang of Four " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 When Jon King sarcastically asked, "What to do for pleasure?" on Gang of Four's epochal 1979 debut, Entertainment!, little did he realize that, 32 years later, he'd be answering his own question with: buy an Xbox 360 Kinect! But rather than undermine Gang of Four's ideological integrity, the recent use of the song quoted above ("Natural's Not in It") in a Microsoft gaming-console commercial marked a logical extension of it. Despite their Maoist fascinations and anger-is-an-energy fervor, Gang of Four were always less interested in smashing storefronts than in exploring the anxiety of consumerism-- how a culture obsessed with status and acquisition reduces personal interaction to a transactional experience. And they did so not out of scorn for those who fuel the capitalist machine, but to acknowledge their own complicity in it.So the seeming contradiction of Gang of Four hocking video games in 2011 is actually the perfect preamble to the unease and self-doubt expressed throughout Content, the very title of which alludes to the process by which creativity is depersonalized into commodity. Content is the group's first album of new material since the Entertainment!-era band reunited in 2004 at the height of the post-millennial post-punk uprising, and used the occasion to re-record their classic songs (on 2005 release Return the Gift) as a strategy of diverting royalties away from their former label EMI. But even with founding bassist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham stepping aside in recent years (replaced by Thomas McNeice and Mark Heaney, respectively), Gang of Four have ironically remained more active than many of the post-punk progeny (the Rapture, Radio 4, Bloc Party) who brought them back into vogue. If Gang of Four's 2005 reformation proved they could more than hold their own against the upstarts, then Content shows that their chief concerns-- the financial and psychological toll of keeping up with the Joneses-- resonate all the more loudly in an Internet-accelerated era where even those on the vanguard can feel behind the times, and where the lawless, anonymous nature of online exchange threatens to overwhelm our identities. It's thus fitting that the album's most exuberant moment-- the muscular Motown stomp "Who Am I?"-- is used to soundtrack a modern-day anarchist's existential crisis: "You can't steal when everything is free." After spending the past few years performing only songs from the band's original 1979-82 catalog, it's no surprise the new iteration of Gang of Four comes much closer to capturing that scabrous spirit-- mostly thanks to Andy Gill's still-potent guitar spasms-- than any other Go4 effort without Allen or Burnham (1983's Hard, 1991's Mall, 1995's Shrinkwrapped). "You Don't Have to Be Mad" is essentially an aged update of "Natural's Not in It", complete with a similar desperately-seeking-leisure theme and a mid-song breakdown where the rhythm section drops out and King and Gill engage in call-and-response warfare; "I Party All the Time" strips "I Love a Man in Uniform" of its 80s production gloss but keeps the female back-up singers and sardonic humor....full text |
| Popmatters |
| Gang of Four’s place in the rock ‘n’ roll history books has long been settled, but that hasn’t kept the defining post-punk band from trying to add new chapters to a story full of unlikely twists and turns. So the first thing you’re likely to wonder about Content, even before whether it’s worthy of classic Gang of Four or not, is what its reason for being is: With a legacy that’s already set in stone, just why do principals Andy Gill and Jon King keep coming back for more, especially since their landmark albums Entertainment! and Solid Gold don’t feel dated 30 years down the line? Indeed, the Go4 back catalog of Marxist-pop anthems are still fresher and harder hitting than the work of so many bands who cribbed from ‘em over the past three decades, be it the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ aggro funk-rock, Rage Against the Machine’s agit-pop, or Franz Ferdinand’s post-post-punk. While one could hardly blame Gill and King if they were indulging their inner capitalists to continue their Sisyphean chase after the fame and fortune that has eluded them, you get the idea that there’s something more to Content than just cashing in while they still can. Indeed, the effort and energy Gang of Four channels into its first album in over 15 years suggest that the group is still digging deeper to get at some truth behind the ideologies and social mores they unrelentingly attack. Steadfast but quixotic after all these years, Gill and King have literally put everything they have into their new record, funding the production of the project through online donations from fans in exchange for everything from vials of their blood to a helicopter ride with them en route to Glastonbury. If nothing else, they’re keeping up with the times, putting their money where their mouth in a clever, creative way that only disillusioned vets who’ve been burned by the music industry—but keep wanting to change it—can. And it’s clear on Content that time hasn’t passed Gill and King by just yet: The new album is anything but your typical vanity reunion effort, but rather an honest-to-goodness comeback that basically reboots the righteous indignation and cutting humor of their late ‘70s/early ‘80s heyday for a digital age. While they could probably get by on muscle memory alone, it’s evident from the bristling, hard-charging first track “She Said ‘You Made a Thing of Me’,” that they’re not merely going through the motions, as the partners-in-crime apply their acerbic wit and keen intellect to rail against the objectification of women, as King’s chorus of “She said you made a thing of me / What I am is what you see” makes obvious. It goes to show again how Gang of Four proves that the most effective pop sloganeering could use an attention-grabbing tune, as the interplay of the chanted vocals and slicing riffs evoke Entertainment!‘s “Natural’s Not in It” in form and, um, content. In Gang of Four’s case, demystifying ideology can also create its own kind of trance....full text |
| Nme |
| As Marxist post-punks from Leeds, Gang Of Four’s position as one of the most influential bands of the 21st century is an unlikely one. It also means that their first album for 16 years (only singer Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill remain from the band formed in 1978) sounds curiously retrograde – newcomers might just wonder why these old dudes are ripping off Bloc Party. Still, there’s nothing old-fashioned about the perceptiveness and rage of their lyrics, while a £45 limited-edition version of the album comes complete with plastic sachets of King and Gill’s actual blood – so any young bucks wanting to recreate the GO4 sound can now do so from their musical one....full text |
Gang of Four lyrics
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