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Rating: 1980, in the second year of Margareth Thatcher's term, in England the atmosphere had become incredibly heavy. The first signs of economic recovery after the Labour's failure were not enough to quell the spirits of the English working class, robbed by the Iron Lady of many welfare rights. It was the era of the most violent battles among hooligan firms, years of disorder and violence, culminating in the 1981 Brixton riots. As often happens, it is within the darkest socio-political contexts that the best conditions for a musical breakthrough are formed, because music, an artistic yet protest vehicle, remains one of the most immediate and concrete means to capture the masses' attention.
If in the U.S.A. the response to Reaganite fundamentalism is the explosion of hardcore and the first signs of extreme Metal, in the United Kingdom the situation is more complex. Some catch the last train of punk (U.K Subs and company), some fall into negative spirals (P.i.L., Joy Division), some unleash artistic ambitions (Wire). But there are also those who refuse all of this and even more. Those who believe that the only way to heal human society is to destroy it, bringing it back to its rightful and incorruptible beginnings. The myth of the "noble savage" screamed until the throat is torn, screams that ideally belong to those who are more and more tightly gripped by the multinationals seeing their home and traditions destroyed. The cry of pain of millions of people, who to the brutal industrial aggression shout "why?". Their question is transmitted by the Pop Group in the first album "Y" (Why?, indeed), an unprecedented concentration of anger and primitivism in its message as much as it is avant-garde musically. The most frequent comment about this group is that they were ahead of their time, but uniquely enough, those times have yet to arrive. The contemporary Slits tried to resume the discourse in a simplified form, and the more distracted Rip Rig & Panic (both bands boasted members of the Pop Group), but with results admirable yet not even remotely comparable to the supreme masters led by the never too praised Mark Stewart, one of the true geniuses of popular music. As much as Gabriel's "World Music" is benevolent and flabby, so is his anarchic scream which swerves between the exasperated tribalism of Bruce Smith, the funky lines of Underwood first and Dan Katsis later, the acidic sax of Sager, the proto-noise guitars of the same Sager and John Waddington; all of it in a sea of low fidelity reverbs and shot at breakneck speed. If "Y" remains an unparalleled and titanic masterpiece among the masterpieces of '79 and of rock as a whole (even though calling it rock is reductive), the second and inevitably final exploit of such fury nonetheless remains in the Olympus of sonic radicalism. "For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate The Mass Murder?" loses absolutely none of its energy, its only flaw lying in coming after the year zero of "Y".
In the insane attack of "Forces of oppression" we see a neurotic and ultra-fast funky-noise, and we start again from where we left off: "Paramilitary exercises in the ghetto? the rich get richer, and the poor will die". There is little to add to the next track, which already in its title sums up the cruelty of corporations, "Feed The Hungry" with the haunting words "The rape of the Third World, Western bankers decide who lives and who dies", and that lives on hallucinatory percussion and delirious vocals, while of the next "One Out Many" it can only be said that nothing like it had ever been heard (and perhaps never will be? )- tape manipulation, congas, deranged piano, various outbursts, and Stewart reciting a macabre and offbeat rap, which closes suddenly-. "Blind Faith" is the battering ram that breaks through, mad and almost danceable funk, hammering bass, sharp guitar, dissonance everywhere and the manipulated voice intoning "I can't Believe". Slowed down and mongoloid funk that lives only on jerks "For How Much..." is the emblem of the group's prophetic nature, with one phrase above all "The Muslims are rising up -Jihad! That means holy war"...
"Justice" looks at English social hypocrisy, musically acquires a minimum of melody or at least continuity, while being constantly halted, whereas "There are No Spectators" is another full-fledged delirium. The music is absent, only dry beats, screeches, whistles, echoes and Stewart's voice, this time from beyond the grave, reciting "To wash your hands of the conflict, between the powerful and the powerless, means you are taking sides with the oppressors". Truth.
The jerky ride of "Communicate" is, on the other hand, furious and libertarian, chaotic and imaginative. When I looked up the words of this song, I found this written: "Lyrics? Who the hell knows what Mark Stewart's yelling in the background!". The final track "Rob a Band", filled with desperate sarcasm, leverages a military march trumpet and surreal references to Robin Hood to address the disparity of resources afflicting the globe, the eternal injustice that allows wealth and poverty to exist.
Powerful fresco of (in)civilization, "For How Much..." represents the zenith of protest in music, light-years ahead even of sacred monsters like Bob Dylan. The lyrics indeed, besides being genius and poetic, in their own way, with the constant evocation of distant peoples, are filled with a rage born of millennia of inequity in the name of money and power. It is from the anguishing degradation of entire civilizations that the otherwise inexplicable rancor of the Pop Group feeds. Beware not to limit the uniqueness of this band to just the message: incredibly the protagonist is indeed the sound. Amongst the multiple innovations, there is the first systematic use of the recording studio as an instrument in itself, not to mention a revolutionary way of playing the guitar, father of Ranaldo and the associates who will come, and the absorption of tribalistic elements with a spirit not of detached avant-garde, but of passionate identification. For many the true masterpiece of popular music is "Trout Mask Replica," for others "The Doors," for yet others "Velvet Underground & Nico." In my humble opinion too often do we forget about this band, which with two incredible albums truly knew how to change the game with a fervor and a genius simply unique, also having the merit of shunning certain scholarly airs and always proudly defining themselves a POP group.
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