From 1990, "10" was the final album the band released, prior to the departure of founding member Hugh Cornwell. People share mixed emotions on it, I am not that fond of it (they cover "96 Tears" and "All Day and All of the Night") both really fine efforts, but the band is sounding tired.......not a worthless record by any means, "Sweet Smell of Success" is a good one, and at least this is a loaded, bonus edition CD version with a lot of extra tracks.
New members Paul Roberts and John Ellis take over on "Stranglers in the Night".....I like it, personally, it harkens back to thier rough-edged, Music-Machine influenced greatness....often a major participant leaving is a death knell, but in this case, it seemed to offer the band a bbit of breathing room. "Heaven and Hell", "Sugar Bullets", and "Brainbox" all work fine for me, a surprisingly good and listenable album.
"About Time" came out in 1995, andd, reminded me more of what I thought "Stranglers in the Night" may sound like......the horns return, electric violins, is it "interesting"? well, no, not terrible, nor does it rock especially......however, I'm sure it has its fans, here is is for any of you Strangler junkies!
"Written in Red", I think, is kind of a mess as well, it appaers in several versions with live numbers and the like, this version doesn't have much to recommend it, save perhaps "In Heaven She Walks", which really IS a good one.
ALL bands (well, NEARLY) Do reach this point at some time.........often, if I have the maerial, it's good that we can "document" the fall as well as the rise.
in 2004 (2004!) the resurfaced with a new strummer, Baz Warne, and released "Norfolk Coast", it's not NEARLY as awful as I thought it would be.......the title track is realy good, and "Tucker's Grave" is a winner as well........the traditional Stranglers swirling keyboards are FINALLY back up frnt where they belong. No classic, but a good one, worth a download anyway.
I found on the bay something called "Suite XVI".......gotta say, never heard anything on it, and don't REALLY want to......this ship has sailed. It's here for you though......and, aparently, they released another album, subsequently, "Giants", which was not available, I don't have, andI guess we will have to live without.....No matter you have a full picture pretty much of the once-great Stranglers, this will wrap up the studio albums, but I have a LOT of other stuff coming from their glory days. Maybe some even later tonight.
Do you enjoy the Mega-post format? I do, as long as it doesn;t become permanent.....would be too
restrictive for me, you know I GOTTA be free form.........I've "done" many of the greas in :mega" format, but if there is someone else, please suggest.
10-01 Sweet Smell Of Success/02 Someone Like You/03 96 Tears/04 In this Place/05 Celebrate/06 Man of the Earth/07 Too Many Teardrops/08 Where I Live/09 Out of My Mind/10 Never Look Back/11 Instead of this (Bonus)/12 Poisonality (Bonus)/13 Motorbike (Bonus)/14 Something (Bonus)/14 Something (Bonus)/15 You (Bonus)/16 Viva Vlad(Bonus)/17 All Day and All of the Night (Bonus)/18 Always the Sun (Sunny Side Up Mix)
STRANGLERS IN THE NIGHT-01 Time To Die/02 Sugar Bullets/03 Heaven and Hell/04 Laughing in the Rain/05 This Town/06 Brainbox/07Southern Mountains/08 Gain ENtry to Your Soul/09 Grand Canyon/10 Wet Afternoon/11 Never See/12 Leave it to the Dogs
ABOUT TIME-01 Golden Boy /02 Money/03 Face/04 Sinister/05 Little Blue Lies/06 Still Life/07 Paradise Row/08 She Gave It All/09 Lies and Deception/10 Lucky Fingers/11 And the Boat Sails By
WRITTEN IN RED-01 Valey of the Birds/02 In Heaven She Walks/03 In a While/04 Sliver Into Blue/05 Blue Song/06 Here/07 Joy de Vira/08 Miss You/09 Daddy's Riding In the Range/10 Summer in the City/11 Wonderful Land
COUP DE GRACE-01 God Is Good/02 You Don't Think That What You've done Is Wrong/03 Tonight/04 Jump Over My Shadow/05 Miss You/06 Coup de Grace (SOS)/07 I the End/08 No Reason/09 Known Only Unto God/10 The Light
SUITE XVI-01 Unroken/02 Spectre of love/03 She's Slipping Away/04 Summat Outanowt/05 Anthing Can Happen/06 See Me Coming/07 Bless You (Save You.. Spare You, Damn You)/08 A Soldiers Diary/09 Barbara (Shagri-La)/10 I Hate You/11 Relentless
This bout wraps up the Stranglers stuff, as per thier studio efforts.....don't despair, they were a fave of mine for quite a while, so I'm not gonna leave you hanging.......LOTS of more stuff any of you Stranglers-junkies will froth over.......BUT I am going to switch gears once again, REALLY quickly, from my buddy from Greece, ApantaBapanta, who continueally works on the "Encyclopedia of Disbanded Rock Bands".......might take him a while, and he could CERTAINLY use some help (Sorry, I WISH I had the time) , but he'd done a fine job up until now, and his posts are just pehnominal........informative, and with the right links to get you SOLID background information. What Apanta does here is a little different than what others might do, and I salute him bug time, for being an ORIGINAL, as well as a great and knowledgeable guest-poster to this blog, one who is welcome here, ANY time he wishes, yes, a favorite contributor of mine (OK, you ALL are favorite contributors of mine!)
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