4,000,000 TELEPHONES Return With Previously Unheard Track ‘HARD MAN’
24 September 2021
Band: 4,000,000 TELEPHONES
Who: Post-punk indie band formed in 1983. Now nearly
forty years on, the group re-engage with some previously
unreleased material.
Track: HARD MAN
Previously unheard track, recorded in 1986
‘Hard Man’ was/is an uncharacteristically upbeat, melodic song with a big
dollop of irony; a satirical response to the emergence of the “hard men” of
the 1980’s; from the reactionary backlash against post-war progressive and
social gains, aggressive domestic and foreign policies, to the possibility of getting
thumped of an evening because someone’s team had lost earlier that afternoon.
From pitch to politics, hard men were and continue to be, problematic.”
Turn Up The Volume: I swear if you listen to this awe-tastic cracker without
reading anything that I wrote here you’ll ask me who this cool band is. Well,
this is a band sounding like a modern-day Devo playing funky-punky ska, with
Pigbag blowing horns, while Talking Head‘s David Byrne chatters with his typical,
nervous timbre. So, it’s actually back to the 70s/80s, I hear you say? Yep, the two
effervescent decades so many artists try to copy today. Great music has no
expiration date.
Whatever, If you don’t get up and stand up and hop around your kitchen
when you hear Hard Man coming up you need another vaccination.
Dress black and shake your hips…
I knew you would come back
for more. Here’s their 1985
debut LP, re-released
back in 2011…