Underrated thread. Gang of Four - Songs of the Free...

Underrated thread. Gang of Four - Songs of the Free. Vocalist and guitarist decide the bass player and drummer deserve early retirement. Replace bass player with mercenary Sara Lee and a drum machine. Album, suprisingly good, but lost the fan base.

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youtube.com/watch?v=ocBfbam7TBU
youtube.com/watch?v=zApNRXXaJl4
youtube.com/watch?v=9CrmiTatX84
youtube.com/watch?v=sRZXy1CiMoo
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Cited album:
youtube.com/watch?v=ocBfbam7TBU

Adrian Belew - Desire Caught By The Tail

Belew peels off the safe mask and shows he can make some truly disturbing guitar sounds. The audience wasn't ready.
youtube.com/watch?v=zApNRXXaJl4

this album sucks many penises

generic new wave as performed by a band who had exhausted their only idea

Clor - Clor

Clor takes a Roxy Music approach of mixing popular genres into a single album. Electrofunk, Neo-Wave, Neo-prog. Where most bands would sound like a clusterfuck., Clor makes it work.

youtube.com/watch?v=9CrmiTatX84

I disagree. Gang of Four made songs about people, economics, and war and the detachment. "Their only idea"? They changed the formula because they didn't want to be known as a ironic funk band.

The High Llamas - Gideon Gaye

Sean O'Hagan, ex-Microdisney, produced a string of successful albums for Stereolab. A complete Beach Boys obsessive. Maker of lush musical landscapes. Dumbass included "Gay" in the album title. End of story.

Couldn't find a youtube link.

entertainment era wasn’t ironic funk but it was their only good idea

I have to disagree. They just made songs that featured vocals more. Those lyrics (I know, :mah lyrics") are probably as tight as the first album. They successfully ditched the constant comparisons to Talking Heads and made their own sound. Like a lot of bands, because this formula lost the audience that wanted a funk band, they kept changing the formula until it straight sucked.

who the fuck is comparing gof to talking heads? they made a sound for themselves with their first two records, if anything songs of the free sounds like a talking heads record

You weren't there. No insult. The comparisons were ubiquitous.

what talking heads song sounds like anything off of entertainment

it doesn’t make sense to me

Solid Gold completely doubles down on "that idea" you talk about though, it's not like they cut one record and abandoned ship

yeah I said entertainment era

How do you not see the analogues between the two bands' anxious, high-strung style

Tru, my bad

Anyway, I think Gang of Four did a better job than most early post punk bands this side of New Order in flirting with more sugary production, they were intimate with disco and funk to start with so it's not an outlandish jump.

I agree with OP, Songs of the Free is pretty damn underrated

because gof does it a totally different way, bryne doesn’t do punk vocals and their guitar work is nowhere near as frantic, not to mention all the world music influence in talking heads

I feel you can best hear the comparison with Buildings and Food-era Heads

The funk influence and propensity for a chicken scratch rhythm guitar, the deadpan and stilted vocal delivery, the "telegraphed" anti-solos, the mechanical drums, etc.

Electric Warrior is still the standard but I feel like this is the "most T Rex" T Rex album, and the good songwriting makes allowance for how indulgent amd over the top some of the songs are

okay I see what you mean now but gof is still so much more angular and abrasive, it’s hard to compare them

There weren't that many white bands appropriating black funk for post-punk material. The average late-70's audience wasn't as evolved as a Sup Forums dicussion room. Imagine you had an IQ of 100 and less than 40 vinyl albums to your name and a radio. Average 70's music fan. The audience is almost impossible to imagine to a modern listener, isn't it?

it's Hard that uses the drum machine (and isn't worth listening to at all, they turned into a Human League knockoff). Songs of the free has some surprisingly good arrangements

One of the best "just another synthpop'' albums of all time, made by a band that didn't wanna be just synthpop.

garbage post

I kinda don't see why that's a notable album other than the fact that Al Jourgensen is embarrassed by it. It's polished but I don't think the songwriting is all that good.

Also he should just own it; industrial rock is just Depeche Mode with distortion anyway.

This is awesome, I'd never heard of it. Thanks.

Both Songs of the Free and Hard are super underrated. I love them both, but I like Hard a lot more than Songs. I think a lot of the skeptics in this thread would enjoy Hard a lot more as well, it's definitely more of a return to form after Songs.

>I think a lot of the skeptics in this thread would enjoy Hard a lot more as well, it's definitely more of a return to form after Songs.
ugh not really. I like Independence but not really anything else

youtube.com/watch?v=sRZXy1CiMoo

I'm not complaining about the drum machine (although the Simmons SDS-5 parts are dumb), the songs just aren't really there.

T. Rex creates such a fun rock & roll world. Bolan thought he never made a bad song. That being said, are you trying to say Electric Warrior or The Slider are underrated?

i love this album so much

Feel free to make substantive response. I answered your question. Talking Heads fans were just a few notches smarter than a Van Halen fan. Take Me To The River and Psycho Killer are classic rock staples.

Fair, your opinion. What about Silver Linings?

Do you have any recommendations for albums similar to this (beyond the obvious)?

yeah but you sound like a fag

Lmao, I blame it on Sup Forums. Asshole.

I love most of the bands that inform this album but for me the melodies just don't come together at all. This is frustrating because of how much I wanted to fall in love with this band/guy's work.

This is really The Sounds best album

>Do you have any recommendations for albums similar to this (beyond the obvious)?
you should probably just listen to everything Vince Clarke was involved with

Eh, none of the vocalists he has worked with are anything like Jourgensen on With Sympathy, but thanks.

Better than Japanese Whispers or The Head On The Door IMO, even if it's more indecisive than either of them. It bridges those releases and Pornography sensibly though, pushing in a pop direction on some tunes while also seeing the band deliver some of their most fucked up stuff too. Fascinating album.

How is their post-Lion's Mouth stuff anyways? I've only listened to that and Jeopardy.

I had a crazy week or two with this album. It has recurring melodies. I listen to this album in the background. I can barely tell at what point in time I am with this album. It's pretty deep, yet poppy. I could also respect anyone for not liking it. There's more to life than aural mind tricks.