Consumer Guide Album

Gang of Four: Songs of the Free [Warner Bros., 1982]
What I love about their records is the very thing that keeps me from playing them much--the guitars are so harsh, the rhythms so skewed, the voices so hectoring, the lyrics so programmatic that they function as a critique of casual hedonism. Their pleasure is like Barthes or forward bends--good for you, in a limited way. So while it's all right in theory for "I Love a Man in a Uniform" to make me think I've been underrating the Human League every time its intro makes me want to get up and dance, I don't find such amenities formally appropriate. And never fear--there are almost as few here as they think they can get away with. A−