THE STRANGLERS

The Stranglers had a hard time being accepted as proper punks given they were a few years older than most bands, had facial hair, played blues songs and wrote songs with four parts to them (labelled a-d) which relied on long instrumental passages. In fact, if punk hadn't reared its ugly head in 1976 it is perchance likely that the Stranglers would have ended up lumped in with the prog crowd instead with little additional fuss. To be fair to the Stranglers I am basing much of this on one song (the final "Down in the Sewer") and they were certainly no more pretentious than the likes of Television or Magazine. Instead it would be fairer to say the Stranglers took the bluesy keyboard/guitar dynamics of the Doors and mixed it with the grittiness of the Velvet Underground and Stooges. Indeed, "Down in the Sewer" really isn't that much divorced from the long Velvet Underground jams (and, if anything, better because it has more structure and melody) and no one in the punk scene at the time had a bad word to say about the Velvets. The Stranglers were also surprisingly commercially successful and somehow managed to get an implicit homage to smack ("Golden Brown") onto Top of the Pops later in their career (this album being their debut). In fact, this commercial success is even more surprising when one considers the general subject matter of the Stranglers' lyrics. Let's just say they weren't concerned with the nicer things in life and their attitude towards women was notoriously ...er, antagonistic. I'm not going to apologise for what I do and do not find offensive but even I squirmed a little when first hearing their open condoning of beating wives and girlfriends and the perverted lasciviousness of the brilliant "Peaches". I suppose it has to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek but, by God, they don't seem that bothered by ambiguity. Amazingly I saw a recent bra advert that used "Hanging Around" as backing music. Either the advertisers were being very risque or simply don't know much about music. In fact, the use of Stranglers song on adverts in the first place is somewhat controversial (Adidas also used "Peaches") as I have been led to believe the Stranglers were committed Trotskyites. Anyway, for most of this album it is fairly clear the band were influenced primarily by the classics, rather than the Ramones or whoever. Indeed, "Princess of the Streets" is just a straight-up slow blues song although such diversity obviously improves the album. By the title alone you can tell the general theme of the song and "London Lady", one of the most straight-forward punk songs on the album, also concerns a woman "on the game". It even refers to Liverpool, which is enough to impress me. To my mind, there is only one poor song on here and that would be "Ugly" which does indeed sound ugly but that doesn't mean we should just forget the melody-less vocals and the monotonous arrangement. On the other hand, there are three great punk(ish) songs on here. The opening "Sometimes" is perhaps the most explicitly misogynistic song on the entire album but it isn't half sung with aggression and the spiralling hook for the chorus is an excellent one. "Hanging Around" is another excellently fast-paced song again with vocals brimming with bitterness and aggression. Its intro warrants a special mention as it expertly cranks up the excitement with a gradual build-up. The most famous song on the album is obviously "Peaches" with its distinctive bass-line and half-narrated and thoroughly unpleasant vocals. Indeed, if the Undertones come across as clean-cut teenagers the Stranglers might be seen as their dirty uncles. The oddly parenthesised "(Get a) Grip (on Yourself)" was also a single and whilst it is a decent song I doubt it matches the aforementioned trio. The album ends with the infamous "Down in the Sewer" which begins with an interesting instrumental passage (part a - "Falling") before reaching a strong composition in its own right (part b - "Down in the Sewer") and then moving into an instrumental finale of parts c and d - "Trying to Get Out Again" and "Rats Rally" respectively. I know in theory it sounds terrible progressive but when actually listening to it (particularly as it is such a good song) it just sounds like the natural end to such a strong album. Indeed, from what I've read I'm not even sure that this is their best album. Certainly, prog or punk, misogynist or ironic, the Stranglers were yet another great band of the era.

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk