It’s not that I don’t like The Stranglers, I do…sorta, it’s that they never did seem very “Punk” to me. Although Hugh Cornwell and Jean-Jacques Burnel looked the part, Dave Greenfield and Jet Black looked, well, old and like they might have played in bands that my Uncle, who is 10+ years older than me, may have enjoyedp. It seems like most of the people I know who really like The Stranglers are a few years older than me and had previous dalliances with Prog ! The Stranglers felt like they were the “punk” band it was acceptable for older people to like. 

One thing The Stranglers did do well though was singles and therefore this collection of those small, round (mostly), black (other colours are available) objects of desire is the perfect thing for me. On the same day that I bought the Sex Pistols life changing single “God Save The Queen” my brother and I acquired between us a copy of The Stranglers “Peaches/Go Buddy Go” coupling. “Peaches” we’d heard on the radio and read in the inkies that the version on the record had a rude word on it that wasn’t included in the version Radio One were playing (not sure that clitoris is now considered a rude word but it certainly would have spontaneously combusted Mary Whitehouse’s over lacquered bouffant back then), and every schoolboy loved a rude word. I always preferred “Go Buddy Go”, a pub rocker concerned with boys chasing girls in nightclubs with a little speed reference thrown in to bolster the Punk cred. 

Those two are preceded here by “(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)” which we’d missed as a single but caught up with when friends of ours played us The Stranglers albums…which brings me to another difficulty I have with our asphyxiating foursome, some of the lyrics on those first two albums are well dodgy and I figured that out even at 14/15 years old. Misogyny drips from the lyrics of “London Lady”, “Princess Of the Streets”, “Ugly” and of course “Peaches”, while “School Mam” on their 2nd album is plain creepy. Their record companies weren’t daft enough to think they could put out that sort of stuff as singles.

And their singles were a different matter as they knocked out, one after another, “Something Better Change”, “No More Heroes” and the superb “5 Minutes”, which kicks off with one of the greatest intros on any single by anyone ever.  Later on they mellowed in sound with singles like “Golden Brown” (taking a song about Heroin to #2 on the hit parade !) and “Strange Little Girl”, then ultimately made a pair of singles that are amongst my very favourites in “No Mercy” and “Skin Deep” (sadly those two aren’t on this comp).

The Stranglers are still at it, still making new music and putting on good shows I’m told. I don’t need to wade in any deeper than this.

5 Minutes - https://youtu.be/mePXtiedEmg?si=HuBcb6Bj6KBwEan9