Name: Gang of Four's Entertainment 33 1/3
Brand: Kevin Dettmar

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

9781623560652

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Colour

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format Books US

Paperback

Format detail

Paperback.

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Limited edition

Release date

2018-01-01

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

1 / Extended format: No / Paperback / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Kevin Dettmar

Genre US

33 1/3 Books

Label US

Bloomsbury

Following hard on the explosion of British punk, in 1979 Gang of Four produced post-punk's smartest record, Entertainment! For the first time, a band wedded punk's angry energy to funk's propulsive beats—and used that music to put across lyrics that brought a heady mixture of Marxist theory and situationism to exposing the cultural politics of everyday life.But for an American college student from the suburbs—and, one expects, for many, many others, including British youth—Jon King's and Andy Gill's mumbled lyrics were often all but unintelligible. 

Political rock 'n' roll is always something of an oxymoron: rock audiences by and large don't tune in to be lectured to. But what can it mean that a band that made pop songs as political theory actively resisted making that theory legible?Coming to terms with the impact of Entertainment! requires us to take the mondegreen—the misunderstood lyric—seriously. The old joke has it that the title of R.E.M.'s debut album should have been not Murmur, but Mumble: true, so far as it goes. But that's the title, too, of rock 'n' roll's Greatest Hits compilation—and that strategic inarticulateness itself, which creates such an important role for the listener, has an important politics.

Gang of Four's Entertainment 33 1/3

Books US