Rat Chat

[Josh]

Goes without saying

Jim

You appear to have missed out the words "in", "my" and "opinion" again.

Indeed. All one has to do is listen to Coup de Grace alongside Hi Fi, or Written in Red alongside Guilty, or Totem and Taboo alongside Giants and it all speaks for itself.

Written in Red is vastly superior to Guilty, imo.

[StanInBlack]

Slightly O/T, but anything anyone writes is always their own opinion, there's no need to write it in every post. Toiler always makes a point of writing "that's just my opinion" and "it's the band's choice" and so on in every post, and there's no need for that either, because we can just take it as read.

Exactly! Well put

[StanInBlack]

Written in Red is vastly superior to Guilty, imo.

In what way?

[Greatkudu]

At the end of the day, none of us are right or wrong, it's just our personal opinion, and all opinions should be respected but healthy debate is a good thing. Lt Kudu.

[StanInBlack]

At the end of the day, none of us are right or wrong, it's just our personal opinion, and all opinions should be respected but healthy debate is a good thing. Lt Kudu.

Well, that depends on the subject. But when it comes to judging a piece of music, sure

[Josh]

Written in Red is vastly superior to Guilty, imo.

In what way?

Musically, lyrically...

[Greatkudu]

Written in Red is vastly superior to Guilty, imo.

In what way?

Musically, lyrically...

I have to say, I'm very surprised by what you say, as Guilty possibly Hughs best album after leaving the Stranglers. Lt Kudu.

[aldinblack]

Goes without saying

Jim

Indeed. All one has to do is listen to Coup de Grace alongside Hi Fi, or Written in Red alongside Guilty, or Totem and Taboo alongside Giants and it all speaks for itself.

Written in Red is vastly superior to Guilty, imo.

[Josh]

In what way?

Musically, lyrically...

I have to say, I'm very surprised by what you say, as Guilty possibly Hughs best album after leaving the Stranglers. Lt Kudu.

It just doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid. I don't think it's his best solo album either.

[StanInBlack]

One of them has "Summer in the City" on it, and the other one doesn't - and that's just the very tip of the iceberg in how Written in Red comes off worse.

[Josh]

One of them has "Summer in the City" on it, and the other one doesn't - and that's just the very tip of the iceberg in how Written in Red comes off worse.

I'll give you that in fairness.

[toilerinblack]

I would have no problem and would of thought it better if they had taken the Paul Weller approach of not playing previous material,the problem is Hugh tried it and eventually had to please the paying public who want to hear the old hits,so you can't get away with it.

I don't know why I have to point this out to you, but it's all relative. Paul Weller was - still is - a bigger name than Hugh Cornwell, having led not one but two very successful bands, and even at his lowest ebb had a sizeable amount of hardcore fans that were willing to stick with him. Also, and I've pointed this out a million times on here, The Stranglers have the brand name which is more recognisable to the average person of a certain age than Hugh Cornwell as a solo entity. You see, even during the heyday of The Jam and The Style Council it was clear who the driving force of those bands was. The Stranglers opted to present themselves as a more democratic entity where all four parties were equal, even though it later became clear to those paying attention where the creativity was coming from. As a result, people can reconcile the name Paul Weller with The Jam or The Style Council, yet they can't reconcile the name Hugh Cornwell with The Stranglers. The reason why Hugh plays Stranglers songs in his set is ultimately to promote his solo material, a lot of which is up there with anything he's ever done, including the songs he wrote while a member of The Stranglers. Also, it's to establish that link in people's minds between his current work and the work they may have loved when he was in The Stranglers. I'm pretty sure if he could get away with NOT playing any Stranglers material, he would. Personally, I would prefer him not to play any Stranglers material as I listen to his solo stuff more these days. The Stranglers play a lot of Hugh-era material in their live sets because they can't get away with playing entire sets of new material because if they did, those expecting to hear stuff from the first four albums would piss and moan in exactly the same way as they turned up to Hugh gigs in the early '90s expecting a greatest hits set and threw their toys out of the pram when they realised Hugh wasn't going to give them what they wanted. Of course, none of this has any bearing on the quality of Hugh's solo work, which is a wonderful back catalogue that quite frankly outshines the body of work the band did without him.

I prefer Hugh's solo material too and think he has more than enough to do a full gig without doing any stranglers material which is what i would prefer to see him do.As for Weller yeah he is a bigger name like you say and i too did like the Jam back in the day and hes a great solo artist agreed, i never thought much of the style council apart form the odd single,their two different artists with their bands and followings that can't be compared i think anyway,but for me there's no comparison.