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Amazon.co.uk Review
Of all the first wave punk bands, the gruesomely mercurial Stranglers had the highest disregard for law and order and--as this melody-heavy collection serves to remind us--the highest tally of hits. Peaches--The Very Best Of packs 20 of them ("Hanging Around" was never released as a single but it was a hit for Hugh Cornwell's then girlfriend Hazel O'Connor) into one tin but even then there isn't enough room for either "Go Buddy Go" or "Nice in Nice".
Famously short of fuse and occasionally sweary of mouth (at least in the early days) Guildford's self-styled "Meninblack" eventually moved away from the snarling, year-zero tenacity of "Something Better to Change" and "No More Heroes" to plough a sophisticated 1980s adult-rock furrow with the beguiling likes of "Always the Sun", "Skin Deep" and the odd-waltz of "Golden Brown". If anything, the non-chronological running order disproves the "they were punk and then all of a sudden and ever-so-conveniently they weren't anymore" notion which the Stranglers' detractors still persist on carping on about to this day. Things with the Stranglers were never that black and white (except on the band's third album, of course) and to listen to the bikini-ogling quasi-reggae laddishness of "Peaches" or to improve one's command of the French language on the extraordinarily sinister "La Folie" is to experience a band who were creatively flexible and adventurously out-of-step with the times, punk or no punk. Strangely, in a poacher-turned-gamekeeper kind of way, the Stranglers ended up doing charity work for the Metropolitan Police and haven't had a hit in yonks. There's a moral in their somewhere. --Kevin Maidment
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The thing about bands like the Stranglers is that they are a bit of a compilers nightmare. A prodigious output, coupled with a long career and a couple of label-changes make for a difficult all-encompassing best of, as evidenced by a few of the others on the market (No '5 Minutes' or 'Golden Brown? WHAT?!). But this is certainly the best available, with all the crowd-pleasers you would want jammed onto one disc. Ok, so the 1989 version of Get a Grip on Yourself is a bit naff but they had to slip up somewhere. Bottom line is, if you have a Stranglers shaped hole in your CD collection, this is the album to put in it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
fantastic album but only 4 stars due to a lack of a couple of essential stranglers songs, eg. waltzin black, bear cage and i'd liked to have had a few more songs from their masterpiece, "the raven" included.
still a really cool compilation though from a very underrated piece of british musical history. some of the organ solo's will make your head spin, and i have seen it make people nauseous and lunge for the stereo to turn it off, so beware!
you might want to get "the collection 77-88" instead and give the later stuff a miss. it's just a bit tame compared to the older stuff.
still a really cool compilation though from a very underrated piece of british musical history. some of the organ solo's will make your head spin, and i have seen it make people nauseous and lunge for the stereo to turn it off, so beware!
you might want to get "the collection 77-88" instead and give the later stuff a miss. it's just a bit tame compared to the older stuff.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The Stranglers are a great group who have prouduced some fine songs but the manufactureres of this CD need their heads examining. Are they really trying to suggest that the shorter version of the classic "Walk On By" which misses out most of the mind blowing organ solo and which is included in this collection is actually better than the longer version with the solo in all its glory? They must be having a laugh? If you plan to buy this CD, look elsewhere for one with the full version of this outstanding song and ask yourself how a shorter, edited, abridged, censored, clipped, cropped or reduced version of anything can ever be better than the original???
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Peaches, no cream.
I recently heard the Stranglers for the first time in years, from a freebie CD out the papers none the less. I thought i'd buy a compilation. First task is to decide which one? Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2009 by Duncan McDonald
Brilliant Selection!
This is definitely a credit to the band, as every song on it is excellent. The individual tracks represent their era, and are without doubt some of the greatest songs ever written. Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2009 by Samuel Peers
Marvellous
Great selection of tracks, showing off the band's wide-ranging talent. My iPod would be bereft without this fabulous compilation.
Published on 29 Dec 2008 by David Hemsworth
Excellent - every song is superb
This is one of my favourite albums, it's absolute class. I would recommend this to anyone.
Published on 4 Dec 2004
The best of a very talented band.
No greater band of their era. A very good stab at the best of aswell, certainly the earlier stuff anyway. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2003 by Bez
A must for all music fans. PROMISE.
No greater band of their era. A very good stab at the best of aswell, certainly the earlier stuff anyway. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2002 by pbes744934@aol.com
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