Gang of Four (band)
Gang of Four is a style- English post - punk or new wave band that was known mainly by a characteristic, driving, the radio borrowed rhythm and political lyrics.
History
The band was founded in Leeds (England) 1977. Their first single in 1978 earned them a contract with the major label EMI. The debut album Entertainment! in the cast, Andy Gill ( guitar), Jon King (vocals), Hugo Burnham (drums) and Dave Allen ( bass) appeared in 1979.
They played a minimalist variant of punk rock, with elements of funk and dub reggae. The texts dealt with social and political ills in society. With albums like " Songs of the Free" and " Hard" her style was also influenced by disco elements.
With their second single At Home He's A Tourist they came into the UK Top 40 Thus they had in the charts television show Top of the Pops may occur, but they refused the word rubbers ( " gums " ) from the text to remove. So they dropped more or less aware of the chance to reach a larger audience and never came back in the singles charts.
1981 Dave Allen left the band and was replaced by Sara Lee. On their third album, Songs of the Free ( 1982) had lost the band their hard edges. In 1984 she broke up after the release of their fourth album Hard. Parts of the band combined with other fragments of XTC, Pigbag, Glaxo Babies and The Pop Group to Shriekback, the center occasionally had a minor hit by the end of the eighties.
Gill and King were devoted to film music, for example for the film delinquent. 1990 reformed Andy Gill and Jon King and the band released the album Mall in 1991 to the major label Polydor. Four years later another album with Shrinkwrapped. 1998 double CD compilation A 100 Flowers Blooming on Rhino has been released.
Due to the fact that many subsequent bands related to them during the 1980s as the contemporary German band FSK, the rock band REM, Interpol, the young New York disco - punk Radio 4 and the Liverpool band The Dead 60s, Gang were of Four without chart success legend. Due to the current interest in the band's original lineup Burnham / Allen / Gill / King was reformed for their tour in November 2004. Your 2005 released album Return The venom contains new recordings of 14 classics and a bonus CD with remixes by artists such as Ladytron, The Others, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, phones and other.
Two years after the comeback drummer Hugo Burnham left the band to concentrate on his academic work in the U.S., and was replaced by Mark Heaney. Dave Allen retired in 2008 and was replaced by Thomas McNeice.
In 2008, the group focused mainly on the download market and founded for this purpose with Gang Of Four Recordings, Inc. own label. A new, published exclusively in mp3 song, Second Life, reminiscent of early works in the original, has so far remained a single piece, to which only several remix versions have emerged. Also in 2008, guitarist Andy Gill published genomes with his first mini-album MP3.
In January 2011, her ninth studio album was released content.