Entertainment!
Encyclopedia
Entertainment! is the debut album by English post-punk
band Gang of Four
, released in September 1979. This album was released on EMI
in the UK and on Warner Bros.
in the U.S..
The music on the first album shows clearly the influence of punk, yet also incorporates funk and less-obvious influences of reggae
and dub
, similar to other bands at the time such as Public Image Ltd.
, Pere Ubu
, and The Pop Group
. As with these other influential post-punk bands, the bass is mixed much more prominently than it typically is in rock
or punk.
The album has attracted praise from rock musicians. Flea
of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
stated that the first time he heard the record, "It completely changed the way I looked at rock music and sent me on my trip as a bass player." In 2003, the album was ranked number 490 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
. In March 2005, Q magazine
placed the track "At Home He's a Tourist" at number 52 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
In 2005, the band performed the album live in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties
-curated Don't Look Back
series.
As of 2009, Entertainment! has sold over 100,000 copies in the UK.
and Andy Gill
, typical of their DIY approach. The cover depicts an "Indian
" shaking hands with a "cowboy
" in three heavily processed versions of the same image, the faces are reduced to blobs of red and white—that is, to the stereotypical racial colours. A text that winds around the images reads, "The Indian smiles, he thinks that the cowboy is his friend. The cowboy smiles, he is glad the Indian is fooled. Now he can exploit him." In this way, it approaches themes of exploitation, but taken with the lyrical content of the album, it may also point to simplistic depictions of ethnic, social or political conflict in the media as "cowboys and Indians".
The album's back cover depicts a family
whose father says, "I spend most of our money on myself so that I can stay fat", while the mother and children declare, "We're grateful for his leftovers". On the album's inner sleeve, small photographs depicting scenes shown on television are interlaced with text illustrating what the band suggests are the misleading subtexts of media presentation: "The facts are presented neutrally so that the public can make up its own mind"; "Men act heroically to defend their country"; "People are given what they want".
concept of alienated labour
("Natural's Not in It"), Great Man theory
("Not Great Men"), the commodification of leisure ("Return The Gift"), the condition of the everyman ("At Home He's a Tourist"), Special Category Status prisoners in Northern Ireland
("Ether"), guerrilla warfare
in Central America ("5.45"). A number of songs also challenge traditional concepts of love and love songs ("Anthrax", "Contract") and sex ("Damaged Goods", "I Found That Essence Rare").
, the highest position of any Gang of Four song. The band were originally asked to perform the song on Top of the Pops
. However, when the show's producers heard the line "And the rubbers you hide in your top left pocket" they asked the group to change the word rubbers to rubbish for fear of causing offence; the four band members refused and the appearance was cancelled.
In fall 2010, Microsoft
used portions of the song "Natural's Not in It" in sports-focused advertisements for the Kinect, its motion-based control system for the XBox 360
video game system.
"Natural's Not in It" was used during the opening credits of Marie Antoinette
.
, Hugo Burnham
, Andy Gill
, and Jon King
.
issue (mastered by Andy Gill & John King) includes the following singles:
Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings CD
issue includes the Yellow EP
:
Singles
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
band Gang of Four
Gang of Four (band)
Gang of Four are an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill...
, released in September 1979. This album was released on EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
in the UK and on Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
in the U.S..
The music on the first album shows clearly the influence of punk, yet also incorporates funk and less-obvious influences of reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
and dub
Dub music
Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
, similar to other bands at the time such as Public Image Ltd.
Public Image Ltd.
Public Image Ltd are an English post-punk band formed by vocalist John Lydon , guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Jah Wobble, with frequent subsequent personnel changes. Lydon is the sole constant member of the band....
, Pere Ubu
Pere Ubu (band)
Pere Ubu is an experimental rock music group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. Despite many long-term band members, singer David Thomas is the only constant...
, and The Pop Group
The Pop Group
The Pop Group are a British post-punk band from Bristol, England, formed in 1978, whose dissonant sound spanned punk, free jazz, funk and dub reggae. Their lyrics were often political in nature...
. As with these other influential post-punk bands, the bass is mixed much more prominently than it typically is in rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
or punk.
The album has attracted praise from rock musicians. Flea
Flea (musician)
Michael Peter Balzary , better known by his stage name Flea, is an Australian-American musician and occasional actor. He is best known as the bassist, co-founding member, and one of the composers of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers...
of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
stated that the first time he heard the record, "It completely changed the way I looked at rock music and sent me on my trip as a bass player." In 2003, the album was ranked number 490 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. In March 2005, Q magazine
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
placed the track "At Home He's a Tourist" at number 52 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
In 2005, the band performed the album live in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
-curated Don't Look Back
Don't Look Back (concert series)
Don't Look Back is a yearly series of concerts in which London based promoters All Tomorrow's Parties ask artists and bands to play one of their seminal albums live in its entirety...
series.
As of 2009, Entertainment! has sold over 100,000 copies in the UK.
Artwork
The album's artwork was designed by band members Jon KingJon King
Jonathan King may refer to:*Jon King , English rock musician, founding member of Gang of Four*Jonathan King, singer*Jonathan King...
and Andy Gill
Andy Gill
Andy Gill is a founding member and guitarist for the English rock group Gang of Four, considered among the most influential post-punk bands...
, typical of their DIY approach. The cover depicts an "Indian
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
" shaking hands with a "cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
" in three heavily processed versions of the same image, the faces are reduced to blobs of red and white—that is, to the stereotypical racial colours. A text that winds around the images reads, "The Indian smiles, he thinks that the cowboy is his friend. The cowboy smiles, he is glad the Indian is fooled. Now he can exploit him." In this way, it approaches themes of exploitation, but taken with the lyrical content of the album, it may also point to simplistic depictions of ethnic, social or political conflict in the media as "cowboys and Indians".
The album's back cover depicts a family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
whose father says, "I spend most of our money on myself so that I can stay fat", while the mother and children declare, "We're grateful for his leftovers". On the album's inner sleeve, small photographs depicting scenes shown on television are interlaced with text illustrating what the band suggests are the misleading subtexts of media presentation: "The facts are presented neutrally so that the public can make up its own mind"; "Men act heroically to defend their country"; "People are given what they want".
Lyrics
The diverse thematic elements on Entertainment! range from the MarxistMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
concept of alienated labour
Marx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
("Natural's Not in It"), Great Man theory
Great man theory
The Great Man Theory was a popular 19th century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of "great men", or heroes: highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or Machiavellianism utilized their power in a way that...
("Not Great Men"), the commodification of leisure ("Return The Gift"), the condition of the everyman ("At Home He's a Tourist"), Special Category Status prisoners in Northern Ireland
Special Category Status
In July 1972, William Whitelaw, the British government's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, granted Special Category Status to all prisoners convicted of Troubles-related offences...
("Ether"), guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
in Central America ("5.45"). A number of songs also challenge traditional concepts of love and love songs ("Anthrax", "Contract") and sex ("Damaged Goods", "I Found That Essence Rare").
Song information
"At Home He's a Tourist" reached number 58 in the UK Singles ChartUK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, the highest position of any Gang of Four song. The band were originally asked to perform the song on Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
. However, when the show's producers heard the line "And the rubbers you hide in your top left pocket" they asked the group to change the word rubbers to rubbish for fear of causing offence; the four band members refused and the appearance was cancelled.
In fall 2010, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
used portions of the song "Natural's Not in It" in sports-focused advertisements for the Kinect, its motion-based control system for the XBox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
video game system.
"Natural's Not in It" was used during the opening credits of Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette (2006 film)
Marie Antoinette is a 2006 biographical film, written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It is very loosely based on the life of the Queen consort in the years leading up to the French Revolution. It won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design...
.
Track listing
All songs written by Dave AllenDave Allen (producer/bassist)
Dave Allen was the bass guitarist for the post-punk band, Gang of Four. In 1981, he left Gang of Four to found Shriekback....
, Hugo Burnham
Hugo Burnham
Hugo Burnham was the drummer for the English rock group Gang of Four. Creem magazine's Dave DiMartino said in 1980 "Witness Hugo Burnham, a close-cropped, thickset out-and-out scary drummer who looks like his idea of fun might be pushing young American faces into old American brick walls." He...
, Andy Gill
Andy Gill
Andy Gill is a founding member and guitarist for the English rock group Gang of Four, considered among the most influential post-punk bands...
, and Jon King
Jon King (musician)
Jon King, born 8 June 1955, London, is a singer, musician and founding member of the Leeds based UK rock band Gang of Four. He attended Sevenoaks School, where he was a member of the 'Art Room' that produced musicians Tom Greenhalgh and Mark White of The Mekons, along with Andy Gill of Gang of...
.
Side one
- "Ether" – 3:52
- "Natural's Not in It" – 3:09
- "Not Great Men" – 3:08
- "Damaged Goods" – 3:29
- "Return the Gift" – 3:08
- "Guns Before Butter" – 3:49
Side two
- "I Found That Essence Rare" – 3:09
- "Glass" – 2:32
- "Contract" – 2:42
- "At Home He's a Tourist" – 3:33
- "5.45" – 3:48
- "Anthrax" – 4:23
1995 bonus tracks
EMI Records CDCompact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
issue (mastered by Andy Gill & John King) includes the following singles:
- "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" – 3:27
- "He'd Send in the Army" – 3:40
- "It's Her Factory" – 3:08
Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
issue includes the Yellow EP
Yellow EP
The so-called Yellow EP was an untitled 12" Gang of Four EP released in 1980 by Warner Bros. in the US, consisting of songs issued as singles by EMI Records in The UK. It came to be known as the Yellow EP because of its sleeve color...
:
- "Armalite Rifle" – 2:48
2005 bonus tracks
In addition to the Yellow EP, the Rhino release adds four previously unissued tracks:- "Guns Before Butter (alternate version)" – 4:25
- "Contract (alternate version)" – 2:48
- "Blood Free" (live at The Electric BallroomElectric BallroomThe Electric Ballroom is a performance venue and indoor market located at 184 Camden High Street in Camden Town, London . The Electric Ballroom has been in operation for over seventy years, during which time it has been used in many different ways.The two storey building has two dance floors and...
, London) – 3:17 - "Sweet JaneSweet Jane"Sweet Jane" is a song by The Velvet Underground, originally appearing on their 1970 album Loaded. The song was written by band's leader Lou Reed, who continued to incorporate the piece into live performances years later as a solo artist....
" (live at the American Indian Center) (Lou ReedLou ReedLewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
) – 3:20
Personnel
- Hugo BurnhamHugo BurnhamHugo Burnham was the drummer for the English rock group Gang of Four. Creem magazine's Dave DiMartino said in 1980 "Witness Hugo Burnham, a close-cropped, thickset out-and-out scary drummer who looks like his idea of fun might be pushing young American faces into old American brick walls." He...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, vocals - Dave AllenDave Allen (producer/bassist)Dave Allen was the bass guitarist for the post-punk band, Gang of Four. In 1981, he left Gang of Four to found Shriekback....
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Andy GillAndy GillAndy Gill is a founding member and guitarist for the English rock group Gang of Four, considered among the most influential post-punk bands...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, vocals - Jon KingJon King (musician)Jon King, born 8 June 1955, London, is a singer, musician and founding member of the Leeds based UK rock band Gang of Four. He attended Sevenoaks School, where he was a member of the 'Art Room' that produced musicians Tom Greenhalgh and Mark White of The Mekons, along with Andy Gill of Gang of...
– vocals, melodicaMelodicaThe melodica, also known as the "blow-organ" or "key-flute", is a free-reed instrument similar to the melodeon and harmonica. It has a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. Pressing a key opens a hole,...
Charts
Album| Chart (1979) | Peak |
|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
45 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | "At Home He's a Tourist"/"It's Her Factory" | UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
58 |
| 1980 | "Damaged Goods"/"I Found That Essence Rare" | U.S. Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... Club Play singles |
39 |