High School was challenging if not difficult for me academically and sometimes socially. Looking back, my junior year was the most difficult as I loaded up on college prep classes in an attempt to make my final year easier. The struggles of that time are now seen through the rose-colored perspective of nostalgia as it was really not so bad. That’s how I hope one of my favorite albums of the time will be seen with the distance of time.
Gang of Four was a trailblazer, setting a new standard in clever protest music with the angst of punk and the swagger of funk. Their hard-core experimental-ism inspired a whole generation of rockers who to this day claim Gang of Four as inspiration.
That reputation was based on all the albums before 1983’s Hard. Hard was the final album before the band broke up (and later re-formed). What made it so controversial was that the formula the band developed in its first 5 albums had been abandoned and altered to reflect growing trends in the British music scene. Hard was produced by Ron and Howard Albert, better known for working with more conventional rock bands like Firefall and Crosby Stills & Nash.
This album still makes some hard core Gang of Four fans bitter, as if their rock heroes had suddenly turned to the dark side (literally) and hit the club scene on the local high street. All those Negro backup singers could only mean pop subjugation was just around the corner. The bitterness was unfortunate because Hard pointed to a future many in the English rock press were not ready for but had to see coming.
The edge that Gang of Four cultivated with albums like Solid Gold and Entertainment! had in part been due to drummer Hugo Burnham and bass player Dave Allen, both who were gone by the time Hard was recorded. Jon King was still the lead vocalist, but his lyrics turned towards the cat and mouse themes of most pop. The new sound had become more pop/R&B influenced, angering more critics and fewer fans. On a plus note, Hard introduced Sara Lee’s impressive bass playing to the mix.
Some of the things that made Gang of Four great was still there. There was still the syncopated off-center rhythms in songs like “Womentown”. The neat guitar play of “I Fleed” suggested that there was still some of the old Gang of Four in there. I always thought that Jon King’s vocals sounded interchangeable with those of the lead singers of Heaven 17 and the Human League and Hard only reinforced that belief. “Independence” could have been performed by any one of three Leeds or Sheffield based bands. Gang of Four was moving closer to the dance pop sound that would rule the mid ’80s forward.
It was enviable. After the surprising hit “I Love A Man In Uniform” from Songs of the Free , the band may have been pressured to produce a pop worthy follow-up for it’s new club going fans. “Is It Love” was that follow-up, although not nearly as big as “Man In A Uniform”, it did win the band new fans while rubbing some older ones the wrong way with it’s slick R&B aspirations.
Hard was where many Americans were introduced to Gang of Four. The significance would be like a scenario where the U.K. were introduced to Prince after Sign O’ the Times with the public having no knowledge of the critical peaks that came before. That was what it was like for me in those pre-internet/magazine/word of mouth days. Thank God for college radio, otherwise I might not have known about Gang of Four beyond Hard until much later in life. Having said that, its easy to see why this album might rank near the bottom of hardcore Gang of Four fan’s list.
A video and some air time on MTV made those people who were not club goers (like myself) more aware of Gang of Four, but the band just could not capitalize on the newfound exposure and broke up after Hard (only to reform in the early ’90s). I wonder if breaking up just as you are about to become mainstream was by design. It would seem to fit Gang of Four’s lyrical philosophy The post Hard reunion did have some high points as the band manage to keep their legacy untarnished..
Hard has it’s charms, even if many Gang of Four fans could not get into them right away. For me Hard is one of my favorite of the band’s albums and unlike many of their previous releases, works well as an album and not just a collection of angry songs.
Beatopolis 