condition (record/cover): EX / EX

With original innersleeve.

Hailing from Leeds in England’s grim industrial north, Gang of Four pioneered on this 1979 debut album a previously unimaginable fusion of the Velvet Underground, dub reggae, Parliament/Funkadelic and left-wing screed. The band’s convulsive, unmeshed funk rhythms—take a bow, drummer Hugo Burnham and bassist Dave Allen—have returned in the sound of today’s coolest, skinniest, thin-tie-wearing bands, making Entertainment! a must-have for any hip record collection. And more, too: It vies with the first Ramones album for the title of Most Influential Record of the Punk Era. Not surprisingly, much of Entertainment! sounds uncannily 2005. Andy Gill’s harsh, ugly-beautiful guitar slashes invent a new kind of axe hero. Beanpole singer Jon King—brained by a police nightstick during an anti-fascist demonstration in 1978—wore the scars of Britain’s turbulent street politics and sings in cold, hectoring tones about the hidden forces that shape people’s lives, including advertising executives (“This heaven gives me migraine!”) and politicians (“The last thing they’ll ever do is act in your interest”). There are no gags. Meanwhile, Gang of Four set fire to the conventions of song structure. “Contract” presages the New York No Wave’s mangled karate-disco. In “At Home He’s a Tourist” Gill’s guitar is a random assailant, ignoring the beat while showering King’s paranoid concerns (even at the nightclub they’re controlling you) with shrapnel. More extreme still is “Anthrax,” in which brooding feedback clouds and a Chic-from-hell bassline threaten to swamp a deadpan Gill monologue about why Gang of Four don’t sing about love (it’s because everyone else does). Imagine being upbraided by a bellicose pub philosopher who jabs a finger in your face while someone destroys the yard with a jackhammer. Only more fun. Entertainment! sounds like a revolution. Even better, it sounds like a riot—gang-war drums and smashed-glass guitars that inspired new bands from Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads over there to the Rapture and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs over here. Remastered and augmented with seven bonus tracks (“He’d Send In the Army” is classic insect-funk from 1980’s Yellow EP; “Blood Free” is a live GO4 song never before released in any form), it’s the definitive statement of a band whose later attempts (minus first Allen, then Burnham) at a smoother mix of black dance music and white pop fell limp.