Covering Yourself

I was in a record store a few weeks back, and came upon a Gang of Four cd called "Return the Gift". Great! I thought. Most of my Gang of Four is on scratchy records and rapidly deteriorating cassettes. I wondered if I was a greatest hits, tho' I imagine GOF would be politically oppossed to the concept of "hit". The maddening, info-starved booklet didn't tell me anything either.

So I put it on, sounds OK, tho' I momentarily worry it is a live recording. I generally hate live recordings. But no, same screeching slap-in-the-face type songs I remember.

After starring at the cover some more and checking their web-site, turns out, these are re-recorded songs from a reunion-ed Gang. Apparently they've been on tour as well. But I can't figure out the re-recording thing. The songs are great. They were great before. Why not just re-issue like Byrne and Eno's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" (w/the bonus of previously unreleased tracks that are better than some of what was there originally. But I digress)?

It's like they are covering their own songs. Why? I mean, I guess jazz musicians do that all the time, record the same standards over and over, varying their take on the song each time. Ok, that's jazz. This is a whole different thing. Maybe it's the way we listen to rock or pop, which is obsessively over and over. I mean, back in LP days, that particular scratch right before a particular song became just part of the song and you waited for it each time you listened.

Oh, well. Even as good as "Return the Gift" is, maybe I'll just have to go and buy cd copies of all Gang of Four to hear "Ether" and "Natural's not in it" and "What we all want" and "Paralysed" the way I remember them.