Consumer Guide Album

Gang of Four: A Brief History of the 20th Century [Warner Bros., 1990]
A gorgeous artifact, history by a band that doesn't even control its own--all their product good (Entertainment, Solid Gold, Another Day/Another Dollar, Songs of the Free) and bad (Hard) has been deleted ("is history," one might say), replaced by one otherwise uncompromising nonvinyl retrospective. Explication aplenty is provided by the Greil Marcus essay that supports the package, though he underplays their crabwise rhythmic progress and sporadic militance. Docked a notch so you scour the remainder bins first. A−