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Jon King | |
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 King performing with Gang of Four in 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jonathan Michael King |
| Born | 8 June 1955 Southwark, London, England |
| Genres | Post-punk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, percussion, melodica |
Jonathan Michael King (born 8 June 1955) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, and Grammy nominated [1] art director, best known as the singer of the post-punk band Gang of Four.
King 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 Four, documentarian Adam Curtis, and film director Paul Greengrass. [2]
As Gang of Four lyricist and co-songwriter, he sang and played melodica and percussion such as a microwave oven or wooden block (using a baseball bat or a stick), the latter notably on the song "He'd Send in the Army". Jon Pareles in The New York Times described King's lyrics as "bitterly analytical, infused with theories from Marx, Adorno, Baudrillard and Godard, and the band was determined to puncture pop romance with the consciousness that people are manipulated by power, economics, media and marketing.
Jon King co-wrote and co-produced Entertainment! , Gang of Four's debut album, regularly listed as among the top 100 albums of all time and described by Rolling Stone magazine as "the best debut album by a British band – punk or otherwise – since the original English release of The Clash in 1977. [3]
Referring to the influence of Situationist ideas on Gang of Four's work, Jon King remarked, in a 1980 letter to Greil Marcus, that "where I think that Situationism was good was in the development of its revolutionary tactic: 'reinvesting' the cultural past. Situationism conspicuously used popular imagery in order to subvert it – to make the familiar strange, rather than rejecting the familiar out of hand. The tactic was good, worth ripping off, as in the Entertainment! cover, or the original "Damaged Goods" sleeve." [4] In an interview with NPR [5] the author stated "King's lyrics have always meant different things to different people. Some see his words as a reaction to Margaret Thatcher, unemployment in early-'80s Britain or the unraveling of the unions. But King says he was more interested in "changing the meaning of things by the label". King said in the same feature: "I remember when I was 15, I got incredibly excited when I found some grubby old book in a secondhand bookshop about the revolution in Paris in 1968 (...) There was a picture, which I still cherish – it was a photograph for some kind of perfume and a very glamorous-looking woman on this poster, and someone had written on it in French: "You know I know I'm exploiting you, but I'm not doing it on purpose". I got terribly excited by the fact ... you can change the meaning of things by the label... I wondered how one could play around with these sorts of ideas in music".
King was primary lyricist in the band and wrote words to almost all their most influential songs, including "Damaged Goods", "Natural's Not In It", "I Found That Essence Rare", "What We All Want", "I Love a Man in a Uniform", "Call Me Up" and others. He said of his lyrics, quoted by Michael Hoover: "If you, say, look at the published agenda of music which limits itself to a very small set of subjects and the way it approaches these subjects (which in its most extreme identity is a sort of Bryan Adams-style song), about missing or making up with your girl, driving the car, in some sort of all-white, midwestern high school, which is an incredibly common motif ... I don't know anything about that. That is something which is a very specific American topic, but it seems to be exhaustively gone around. I had a chance to describe it the other night, like a dog returning to its own vomit. The Guardian, in its citation of Entertainment! as one of 100 greatest British albums of all time, said that King's "lyrics performed the minor miracle of rendering deconstructionist slogans - Marx and Engels by way of Guy Debord - into telegrammatic rock'n'roll rabble-rousing". [6] "In other words, pop songs as false emotional advertising and ideology as everydayness are themselves grounds for inquiry", as King told Greil Marcus, because "unless you have an awareness of your views as political manifestations, you won't believe you can change them". A 2014 re-appraisal of Entertainment! said, in reference to King's lyrics, that they "deal with one of Karl Marx’s theories most widely favoured by the Situationists, the guttansweng [Gattungswesen] ("species-being"). The guttansweng is the idea that people become separated from their human nature and thus become alienated within a capitalist environment... "At Home He's a Tourist" is surely inspired by chapter 30 of Guy Debord's definitive text The Society of the Spectacle , which features the lines "the externality of the spectacle in relation to the active man appears in the fact that his gestures are no longer his but those of another who represent them to him. This is why the spectator feels at home nowhere, because the spectacle is everywhere". King himself, talking about the same song, said: "Sometimes, you get lucky and a line comes that makes everything easy. Suddenly getting the answer to a question when you turn off and think about something else. Thrown-ness - if that's a word at all – was something we puzzled over. Why, if everything is like it is, do so many things seem ersatz, phoney. But it's not phoney if you know it's phoney, as Truman Capote said of Holly Golightly "she's not a phoney because she's a real phoney".
King created the cover art for many of their albums, including the outer sleeve designs for the Damaged Goods EP, "At Home he's a Tourist", Entertainment!, Solid Gold and A Brief History of the 20th Century. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2022 for his Art Direction of Gang of Four 77-81, a Matador records box-set issued in 2021
King has written music for TV and film, notably title music for the BBC's Pandora's Box, Scrutiny and Westminster Daily. He co-wrote and produced songs featured on TV and the soundtracks of major movies such as The Karate Kid (1984), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), and Marie Antoinette (2006); "13 Reasons Why" ( Netflix) The OC (HBO); and "Treme" (HBO). "Natural's Not in It" (from the album Entertainment!) was used for 2012's global Xbox ad campaign. He won in 2005 (as Gang of Four) Mojo Magazine's "Inspiration to Music" MOJO Awards. [7] In 2011 he performed with Gang of Four on The David Letterman Show [8] and Jools Holland. [9]
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.
Sir George Ivan MorrisonOBE is a singer-songwriter and musician from Northern Ireland whose recording career spans seven decades.
Gang of Four are an English post-punk band, formed in 1976 in Leeds. The original members were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. There have been many different line-ups including, among other notable musicians, Sara Lee, Gail Ann Dorsey, and David Pajo. After a brief lull in the 1980s, different constellations of the band recorded two studio albums in the 1990s. Between 2004 and 2006 the original line-up was reunited; Gill toured using the name between 2012 and his death in 2020. In 2021, the band announced that King, Burnham, and Lee would be reuniting for a US tour in 2022 with David Pajo on guitar and Sara Lee returning to the band. They continue to perform live, including at the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California; headlining Luna Fest in Coimbra, Portugal, a UK Tour in October '23, and plan to be in Australia and beyond in 2024.
Guy-Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International. He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.
Astral Weeks is the second studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was recorded at Century Sound Studios in New York during September and October 1968, and released in November of the same year by Warner Bros. Records.
The Letterist International (LI) was a Paris-based collective of radical artists and cultural theorists between 1952 and 1957. It was created by Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman rejoined by Jean-Louis Brau and Serge Berna as a schism from Isidore Isou's Lettrist group. The group went on to join others in forming the Situationist International, taking some key techniques and ideas with it.
Entertainment! is the debut album by English post-punk band Gang of Four. It was released in September 1979 through EMI Records internationally and Warner Bros. Records in North America. Stylistically, it draws heavily on punk rock but also incorporates the influence of funk, reggae and dub. Its lyrics and artwork reflected the band's left-wing political concerns. Entertainment! became a seminal album in the post-punk movement.
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics.
Anthology of American Folk Music is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album was compiled from the experimental film maker Harry Smith's own personal collection of 78 rpm records.
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 20, 1965, by Columbia Records. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England. Dylan distilled this draft into four verses and a chorus. "Like a Rolling Stone" was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited.
A Period of Transition is the ninth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1977. It was his first album in two-and-a-half years. At the time of its release it was received with some disappointment by critics and fans: "Most were hoping for a work of primeval vocal aggression that would challenge the emerging élite of Morrison pretenders, whose ranks included Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Phil Lynott, Graham Parker and Elvis Costello." However, the album is still notable for several major compositions, including "Heavy Connection", "Flamingos Fly", "The Eternal Kansas City" and "Cold Wind in August".
"The Christmas Song" is a classic Christmas song written in 1945 by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé.
La Société du Spectacle is a black-and-white 1974 film by the Situationist Guy Debord, based on his 1967 book of the same name. It was Debord's first feature-length film. It uses found footage and détournement in a radical Marxist critique of mass marketing and its role in the alienation of modern society.
"Sail Away" is a song by Randy Newman, the title track to his 1972 album. In a 1972 review in Rolling Stone, Stephen Holden describes "Sail Away" as presenting "the American dream of a promised land as it might have been presented to black Africa in slave running days."
The spectacle is a central notion in the Situationist theory, developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle. In the general sense, the spectacle refers to "the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign." It also exists in a more limited sense, where spectacle means the mass media, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation."
Mémoires (Memories) is an artist's book made by the French social critic Guy Debord in collaboration with the Danish artist Asger Jorn. Its last page mentions that it was printed in 1959, however, it was printed in December 1958. This publication is the second of two collaborative books by Jorn and Debord whilst they were both members of the Situationist International.
Richard Noel Marx is an American adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
Once I Was an Eagle is the fourth studio album by British singer-songwriter Laura Marling, and was released on 27 May 2013. "Master Hunter" was the album's first official single release. It was nominated for the 2013 Mercury Prize. The record achieved unanimous critical acclaim, and has been cited as one of the best singer-songwriter records of the 21st century.
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, known professionally as H.E.R. is an American singer, songwriter and composer. She has won an Academy Award, a Children's and Family Emmy Award, and five Grammy Awards, along with nominations for a Golden Globe Award, three American Music Awards, and four Billboard Music Awards.
"Nine Funerals of the Citizen King" is a 1973 song written by Tim Hodgkinson for the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. It was recorded in May and June 1973 by Henry Cow, and released in September 1973 on their debut album, Legend by Virgin Records.
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