Hard/Solid Gold

Performer: Gang of Four
Producer: Howard Albert; Hugo Burnham; Dave Allen; Jimmy Douglass; Jon King; Andrew Gill; Ron Albert
Distributor: Bayside Record Dist.

Notes: Personnel: Andrew Gill (vocals, guitar, drums); Jon King (vocals, melodica); Chuck Kirkpatrick, Brenda White, Alfa Anderson (vocals). This twofer combines the seminal post-punk band Gang Of Four's second album with their fourth--the last studio album before their initial breakup in 1984. Though SOLID GOLD was originally less highly thought of than the band's debut, ENTERTAINMENT, it nevertheless contains two of their best songs: "Paralysed," Andy Gill's chilling narrative of the crushing effects of capitalism, and the joyful, whooping ersatz disco of "To Hell With Poverty." 1983's HARD found drummer Hugo Burnham replaced by a drum machine. Additionally, the album's production substituted the band's previous angularity for a lush, polished sound augmented by backing singers and synthesizers, which longtime fans found hard to take. But both "Is It Love" and "Womantown" have a smoky mystery, while "A Man With a Good Car" is an energetic backward glance at the band's post-punk roots.

Uncut (p.125) - 4 stars out of 5 - "SOLID GOLD catches them at their furious finest, shuffling between the personal politics of consumption and longing..."

Formed in 1978, the Gang of Four came from Leeds, England, with sharp, political lyrics and a cutting, angular sound that mixed post-punk guitar with funk rhythms. The relative artiness of their early work put them in a class with aesthetes like Wire, but they later upped the danceability quotient to appeal to a larger audience, scoring their biggest success with the surprisingly catchy single "I Love a Man in a Uniform." During the post-punk revival of the early 2000's, the band, long since disbanded, came back into favor as a key influence, and briefly reformed for a U.S. tour and an album.

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