Solid Gold is the second album by the British post-punk band Gang of Four, released in 1981. Two of its tracks, "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" and "He'd Send in the Army", are re-recordings of songs previously released as a single in the UK.
Despite not receiving the same acclaim as the band's debut, Entertainment! (1979), the album was well received by critics, though many felt it was not as consistent as the debut. Pitchfork listed as the 24th best album of the 1980s.[11]
The Boston Globe wrote that, "even if musical experiment on this album generally succeeds, there are few memorable riffs, let alone much that's hummable or danceable, unlike the Gang's first album."[12]The Globe and Mail opined that "the guitar work is consistently scratchy and feverish, busting out of the mix at crucial points to carry along some of the duller items."[13] Milo Miles of Rolling Stone gave a positive review, but found "Andy Gill and Jon King's rejection of character nuance and simple, messy pleasures cuts them off from the rock mainstream all right, but it also prevents shared, everyday experiences. Worse, it makes the band members seem as distanced and bland as any arena-rock superstars. The novelty of passionate rock & rollers who are never personal has worn off."[7]
Robert Christgau of The Village Voice, gave it an A, saying "Not for its politics, which unlike some of my more ideological comrades I find suspiciously lacking in charity. And not for its funk, which like some of my more funky comrades I find suspiciously lacking in on-the-one. And certainly not for its melodies. I admire it, and dig it to the nth, for its tensile contradictions, which are mostly a function of sprung harmony, a perfect model for the asynchronous union at the heart of their political (and rhythmic) message."[14]
Andy Kellman of AllMusic observed, "Gang of Four's existence had as much to do with Slave and Chic as it did the Sex Pistols and the Stooges, which is something Solid Gold demonstrates more than Entertainment!", and concluded "This is a nickel less spectacular than the debut, but owning one and not the other would be criminal."[15]
Uncut called it the band's best album, saying it "catches them at their furious finest, shuffling between the personal politics of consumption and longing ("What We All Want") with broader assaults on, for example, US cultural hegemony ("Cheeseburger") and the continuing asset-stripping project of Thatcherism. This is worth owning if only for "History's Bunk", a former B-side with incontinent guitar flamethrowing that demonstrates, like PiL, that punk and fretboard excess weren't incompatible."[16]Joe Tangari of Pitchfork, declared it "a canonical record" saying, "for anyone with even a passing interest in the post-punk era, it's a must-own."[17]
Track listing
All lyrics are written by Jon King; all music is composed by Gang of Four, except as indicated.
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