Partly because of their tough reputation and partly because of their personal minders (the infamous "Finchley Boys"), no-one dared slag the STRANGLERS off back in the day without expecting retribution. Times change, though, and 25 years later,it's almost de rigeur to slag the band off and deny their influence.
All pretty stupid when you consider that many of the UK's Britpop heroes (ELASTICA particularly) certainly owe a large debt to our Guildford via Paris heroes and, while the more recent Paul Roberts line-up only sparks intermittently (sorry JJ!),the Hugh Cornwell years are definitely due a critical reappraisal. Cornwell's own book with Jim Drury "Song By Song" goes some way here, but more importantly,EMI have done the sensible thing by remastering the group's heyday 1977-1990 recordings, even if they seem to have been assimilated without much critical fanfare.
So, some record straightening,then. Aside from the violence and Mary Whitehouse-baiting, THE STRANGLERS were actually a fucking good band, recording ("Black And White","Aural Sculpture" and ,especially "La Folie") at least three LPs that should be considered in much higher regard by many more than just the band's devoted fan base.
"La Folie", though, is the absolute cream of the crop(circle).
Coming in the slipstream of the bizarre "Meninblack" album, obsessed with all things extraterrestrial and uncommercial,"La Folie" caught the band on the cusp of a new,gentler, pop-orientated future,whilst retaining some of their previous menacing stance. Indeed, one of the reasons "La Folie" till sounds so fresh is that the group had obviously got right inside the heart of these (broadly) love-obsessed songs. Two decades on, these tracks exude both intelligence and an uncontrived sense of melody.
Of course, this being THE STRANGLERS, "love" is certainly approached from anything but the traditional romantic angle. Here,these (very credible) subjects encapsulate a nun's absolute love of her God ("Non Stop");a tramp's love of his outsider's life (yeah,"Tramp");the average menial working man loves lusting after his daily page 3 fix ("Pin Up") and the album's trailer single,the unusually funky "Let Me Introduce You To The Family" carries some rather sinister Mafioso undertones.
Musically, everything is concise and accessible without sacrificing the group's musicality. As ever Dave Greenfield excels on the keyboards, but he's economic and tasteful,as are Cornwell's sharp guitar bursts (he's ridiculously undervalued as a guitarist!) and the Burnel/Black rhythm section are as disciplined as ever. Consequently, we get great, reined-in anthems like "Tramp", gripping dramas like the self-explanatory "The Man They Love To Hate" and the even more specific "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead". The original vinyl version features illustrations of Che Guevara and John Lennon next to this last one, to hammer the point home. One note to EMI - you could've kept the lyric sheet, they're intriguing throughout.
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However, most of us remember "La Folie" for its' secret weapon, the stately "Golden Brown," the latest in the band's fantastic one-waltz-per-record policy. Needless to say,it sounds as fantastic and mystery-drenched as ever. About drugs or not? Jet says it's about toast...the debate continues, but whatever, the song itself is still a serene wonder, light years away from THE STRANGLERS' previous bullyboy blueprint and none the worse for that. It also had that cool Egyptian promo video. With typical perversity, the band then followed their greatest commercial success with the JJ-sung title track....sung entirely in French, without a translation in sight. And it got to no.47. Who else,eh?
Incidentally, the six extra tracks are pretty throwaway, excepting the superb winsome "Strange Little Girl" post-LP hit single that now closes the CD. The rest are little more than sketches (obvious B-side material,rightly),although the caustic "Vietnamerica" is quite intriguing.
THE STRANGLERS would go on to embrace sophistication with a good measure of continued success until Cornwell's departure in 1990 and mined another distinctive pop vein, not least with 1984's near-equal "Aural Sculpture", before the technical hand of producer Laurie Latham evenually ran amok and the group finally ran out of truly great ideas (sometime after the ace "Always The Sun" single), but "La Folie" especially found the Meninblack carving out a classic pop slab that will weather the vagaries of musical fashion for a long time to come.
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