The Stranglers - Singles (The UA Years)

So, the Rodney's were queuing up!

Wow, genuinely surprised at the overall number of votes! 'Let Me Introduce You To The Family' at least deserved one, though... 'La Folie' with the same amount of votes as 'No More Heroes'!

It's surprising that No More Heroes fared so poorly. I guess it's overplayed kinda. I went for Duchess.

Really enjoyed this poll/thread. I just thought I'd post one more time before it disappears down the ILX sinkhole w/the rest of the Stranglers threads.

Listening to La Folie now and my god is 'Let Me Introduce You To The Family' underrated, the way the echoing bass shifts into that frentic guitar playing once the song itself kicks in. Great melody, too.

The last time I listened to Black & White -> La Folie I was stunned by the growth you can hear along the way, in both playing and songwriting. An amazing feat for the fun-dumb punk band that made those first two records. (Though you could correctly point out that was just a pose.)

What do you think of Feline?

Love it, with it's weary, late night vibe exemplifoed by "Midnight Summers Dream". That one never fails to play a little film in my head. The total is more than the sum of it's parts.

Yeah, I totally agree... it's such a moody record and mostly wonderful, the only thing I'd really change about it is JJ's vocal on 'Paradise' - I love it, though, how Hugh always complains about 'La Folie' being the follow-up single to 'Golden Brown', yet when they found themselves on a supportive new record label after having hits with 'Golden Brown' and 'Strange Little Girl', they delivered Feline, which, as good as it is, only has one obvious single on it!

Even the b-sides have the same feeling. "Pawsher" isn't much more than a hypnotic repetition of the title but I still love it.

Did they get off the junk when they made Feline, is that why it's so mellow?

No, if anything Feline was the pinnacle of it! Both 'It's A Small World' and 'Ships That Pass In The Night' were written while under the influence... Hugh mentions in his book that it was a struggle to write those songs, because him and JJ kept nodding out during the writing of them. They'd be sat, holding their instruments and working on the song, fall asleep, come around and work on the next bit and so on...

Aural Sculpture was the first one recorded after JJ and Hugh cleaned up. Hugh had quit all drugs by that point.