dot_fennel | [music] GANG OF FOUR - Return The Gift (V2)

They weren't kidding; these do sound better than the original records, for the most part. With some of the Entertainment! songs that could just come from the appeal of novelty-- I've listened to the original "Natural's Not In It" a lot. But "I Love A Man In Uniform" definitely wasn't nearly this good before. I don't think "Capital (It Fails Us Now)" was either. If the only appeal were novelty, I doubt I'd have listened to this so much.

If anything, Jon King sounds both angrier and more complicit now. It's hard to think, as I used to, that he sang things like "Fornication makes you happy / No escape from society" with only faceless, oblivious proles in mind; the point is that nobody escapes, certainly not rock musicians getting paid by EMI or Richard Branson.

Even the songs explicitly placed in the third person come out nastily equivocal. On "He'd Send The Army" King intones, "The army has its uses in times of civil crisis," and you're like, okay already, we know authoritarianism is bad. But then Andy Gill comes in with a horrible leer: "Hallo, boys! Seen any... action?" and maybe it crosses your mind that much of Jon King's vocal impact comes from power and certainty, so now who's right?

Remix disc: mostly forgettable. Even the inimitable Paul Epworth (aka Phones) only stands out by not embarrassing himself.