Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!: Day 181 - Gang of Four

Entertainment! - Gang of Four

EMI

Produced by Gang of Four, Rob Warr and Rick Walton

Released 25th September 1979

UK Album Chart #45

Tracklist for Original Album Release

 A1 - Ether   
A2 - Natural's Not In It
A3 - Not Great Men   
A4 - Damaged Goods
A5 - Return The Gift
A6 - Guns Before Butter
B1 - I Found That Essence Rare
B2 - Glass
B3 - Contract
B4  - At Home (He's A Tourist)
B5 - 5.45   
B6 - Love Like Anthrax

Gang of Four
    Hugo Burnham – drums, vocals
    Dave Allen – bass guitar, vocals
    Andy Gill – guitar, vocals
    Jon King – vocals, melodica

The Debut Album from Leeds based Gang of Four is another little gem of a record that I haven't played in awhile and it's funny how some of the themes of the album are still particularly relevent today: Exploitation, Social and Political Conflict, Alientation, The Media and Challenging Concepts of Love.

The album contains re-recordings of two tracks from their Debut EP: Damaged Goods and Love Like Anthrax (the links here are for the original versions on Fast Records).

The single At Home He's A Tourist did make it onto the charts and they were offered a spot on Top of the Pops with the proviso that they changed the lyric "And the rubbers you hide in your top left pocket" to "And the rubbish you hide in your top left pocket" as the former would clearly cause some offence! The band point blank refused and their appearance was cancelled. The record was also banned by the BBC but on the John Peel Show in January 1979 they had recorded an early version of the song and the "offensive" word "rubbers" was not used but the actual product name "Durex" - which obviously would have caused some concern when they signed to EMI and no doubt would have faced some legal action by using a trademarked product hence the more common term "rubbers".

Whatever the situation though this caused some conflict between the band and the label and the company threw in their lot supporting a new band called Duran Duran and after their second album Solid Gold (released in 1981), Gang of Four were dropped.

Single from Entertainment!

At Home He's A Tourist / It's Her Factory

EMI

UK Chart #58

Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!