Good Night Music: The Stranglers

Rattus Norvegicus may have been the first punk album I bought, either that or the Vibrators’ Pure Mania. It’s a long time ago, but recall that:

a) It took a while until a lot of punk bands released full albums; often punk bands just had singles. Even the Sex Pistols album didn’t come out until October of 1977.

b) Most everything was an Import, so only the good record stores carried a lot of this stuff.

I recently bought the Stranglers Old Testament box set instead of simply getting the first two albums, which were the ones I was into. I hadn’t done much with it, but today I listened to those first two. In retrospect, it’s very uneven, some stuff brought a smile to my face, some stuff is pretty crappy and doesn’t hold up.

Here’s a good one:

One thought on “Good Night Music: The Stranglers

  1. During their moment I thought of the Strangers as the punk Doors, I guess because of that organ, which sounds nothing like Manzarek. It’s much more like the Yachts, come to think of it.

    The Strangers best quality was not being afraid to explore the dark thoughts, and occasionally the music hit the mark, but they were often embarrassingly awful, and I never signed on to their fanclub.

    But this song isn’t one of the terrible ones. There are better. I’ll try to find them.

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