parasiteinblack wrote: ↑04 Dec 2022, 16:46
Yes that's a good point.
But fair play to JJ on that account because the weird stuff between The Raven and Feline is my favourite and I doubt that would have ended up the same if the first three albums had been really big in America.
I'm not even sure I could name an "american radio" song that the Stranglers recorded during that period! Even the poppier stuff like Strange Little Girl I can't imagine rubbing shoulders with the american pop stuff.
I always forget about Train In Vain, it's always been one of my absolute least favourite Clash songs. As far as I can tell it is regarded as one of their absolute best by American fans, and younger people coming to the band these days, but it is completely not the sort of Clash song I appreciate.
I agree, the most interesting period is from Black and White to La Folie and Feline too, I rate that so incredibly highly, a lot of punters still don’t. I think a lot of people talk of the stranglers with this sense of being English eccentrics, but don’t often refer to the European quality of the stranglers. That’s never going away, and there is a very European sound from The Raven onwards really. Never mind every album prior to that has really strong European references.
It’s pretty much commonplace that European culture gets noted in some way on stranglers records, from the beginning in fact. Sure The Clash brought us “Safe European Home” but the stranglers records are like encyclopaedic knowledge of European affairs. One of the reasons I developed an interest in European history and culture was exposure to the stranglers.
A lot of people are probably indifferent towards Euroman, I think it was a really blessing JJ made that album, The Raven was recorded in Paris, Meninblack across Europe in several studios I believe.
Even though La Folie was recorded in leafy England, it is so very obvious as a European album, and I believe the single of La Folie was more appreciated on the continent. One of my European memories in life is hearing Skin Deep frequently blasting out on the radio in the 90§s still, The Stranglers to this day retain a decent enough following in Europe. I’m fairly sure Hugh does as well, and I would also say Hugh still has European influence in his music, he’s a nifty Spanish style guitar player as well as singing about Cadiz etc
Back onto The Clash briefly, I would say certainly they also had very English sensibilities, but it was perhaps their tendency to lean towards an American sound which helped them break America. Strummer was at times a great singer, but both him and Jonesey especially leaned towards American accents. I have heard this helps British bands to sell, and get the American sales, the more American sounding the singer is, the more likely an American audience will relate, makes a lot of sense
I have to say some of my favourites are their reggae numbers. I think “Guns of Brixton” is a serious contender for a song of all time. I recently find myself appreciating what The Clash were doing with Reggae, to my mind them and The Ruts were around a very limited number of credible white reggae numbers. Police and Thieves, is definitely on par with the original and it represents an important period of white people in England rejecting racism, always a long way to go, people can say what they like about the politics of The Clash, I have said it a lot of it myself, but I do think they had a role, however small in improving race relations in Britain.
Simonon coming from Brixton I think in retrospect wrote something of a prophecy in Guns which at the moment is one of my favourite songs period. I can not recommend enough the history of Brixton podcast of which Simonon was an occasional contributor if anyone wants a bit of history the link is below, oddly enough I don’t think the song Guns of Brixton is mentioned once. It’s a seriously good history documentary series to my mind all white people of Great Britain should engage with such things
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09cyg ... /downloads