By Chiddingfold Guildford’s very own pub rockers ‘The Stranglers’ dominated the rock scene and the world in the mid-seventies and onwards, ploughing a heavily Doors-influenced furrow through the hearts of teenagers and “propah nawty barsturds” in the South. But their rise too fame wasn’t an easy ride. According to music industry experts at the time, the pub scene was dying and promoters would give any old band a shot at fame just to establish some sort of hierarchy. This fuelled a little something called punk, and it’s from this rage from musicians, the current political climate at the time and the way the music industry was run that turned the band into some grotesque from the start. A muddy blurge of Door-like keyboard and harsh sounds with attitude that even a deaf man could detect. Highlights of the darkest of songs can be heard on the bands ‘Live, Rare and Unreleased’ – 1994.
In a more PG climate, the bands first UK top ten hit came in the summer of 1977 with the classic “Peaches”. The song wouldn’t have been written, let alone recorded, while the groups reputation as sexual bad boys was only exacerbated by other songs in their repertoire: “London Lady”, “Bring on the Nibbles” and “Choosy Susie”. The fact that their lyrical geniuses was engulfed around the bottomless pit of dark humour never really bothered many people at the time. But hey, it was the 70’s. Unfortunately, though the Stranglers themselves expressed an almost Monty Python-esque musical career, violence and controversies were never too far away seeing them getting into trouble with women activists groups, the London Council and other punk bands on the circuit.
Yet, despite so much heat, the bands reign on the charts seemed unbreakable; following after peaches, two more hit songs under the groups belt and finally, in the midsts of the 80’s, their golden ticket. Golden Brown.
Golden Brown is easily one of my top ten greatest songs of all time. The hypnotic ensemble that entices you with absolute euphoric psycho madness. The everlasting organ (or was it an accordion) that sets the scene for a song about heroin is something I could listen to until the day I die. Not to mention the gorgeous vocals from front-man Hugh Cornwell.
The fact that the Stranglers’ message was actually hysterically funny — as they themselves intended to be — only adds to their modern appeal. And the fact that their fans are still called upon to defend them only proves what humourless zeroes their foes really were.
