Adam's Pick of the Week: Gang of Four - Solid Gold

Gang of Four's 1981 sophomore album is easily overlooked by casual fans of the band. Entertainment!, their debut, is immediately catchy enough for some fans to just groove to it and ignore the scathing, sardonic lyrics. Solid Gold, however, does away with the hooks and dives deep into the dubby, angular grooves. The lyrics still bite, but they waiver from ennui to bitter disappointment, and rather than shouting along to the beat, now they're just straight up shouting.

It's not surprising that the band changed lineups and direction pretty drastically after this album. The band members were clearly fed up with a lot of things, not the least of which being their musical direction and careers. You COULD argue that Solid Gold lacks something that Entertainment! has in spades, but then you'd be neglecting a really good album just because it's not as good as the one that came before it, which is one of the greatest albums of all time. Don't do that. That's silly. Solid Gold is awesome!