Andy Gill, RIP
By The leader of the great band Gang of Four is dead, only 64 years old.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of this band. Not only were they critical to the punk scene, but their politics and the way they integrated those beliefs into the music were among the best ever seen in rock and roll. I mean, it wasn’t too uncommon to see social and economic justice material in the punk scene, but for a band of men to sing feminist songs in what could often be an extremely unfeminist movement, particularly within the toxic masculinity of so many of those bands and especially the audiences, was really remarkable. It’s true enough that the overall output of great material was pretty short-lived, but those early albums, especially Entertainment, itself having one of the greatest album covers in rock history, are equal to any music ever made.