And then we come to the strange case of The Stranglers’ 1977 debut album Rattus Norvegicus, which I detest with a hard gem-like flame and yet find myself drawn to at the same time, the way you might to watching a guy’s dick split open like an overcooked hot dog, which if I’m being honest is a fate I keep hoping befalls the whole band and especially lead vocalist Hugh Cornwell and occasional lead singer bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, whose shared sexism, overinflated sense of self, and constant steroidal bellowing annoy me almost as much as the organs and synthesizers and saxophone that make me wonder how anyone could have ever called The Stranglers a punk band.
They’re pure showbiz, baby.
Rattus Norvegicus became one of the biggest sellers of the punk era, which I find inexplicable. And I’m hardly alone, although the album has plenty of champions. On my side, you’ll find Robert Christgau (who commented on their sexism before dismissing them forever as “too dumb”) and Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, who eviscerate The Stranglers in their wonderfully scabrous little 1978 book The Boy Looked at Johnny: The Obituary of Rock and Roll. The duo serially describe The Stranglers as “plodders,” “thick as shit,” and an “old-fashioned almost medieval band of manky minstrels” before concluding, “The only thing The Stranglers are anti—is women.”
They also write, “Erected on the tried-and-true foundations of the Manly Virtues, i.e., misogyny, latent homosexuality and heavy physical exercise, preferably in the communal shower, “Rattus Norvegicus” caught them in the raw.” If I could have said it that well, I’d have said it.
Rattus Norvegicus (or Stranglers IV, as it’s also known, despite it being their debut) is all dramatics and no real punk energy. You get no real sense that The Stranglers really mean or stand for anything but selling records. I don’t know what the mugs who bought the album heard when they listened to it, but what I hear is bad Doors and ? and the Mysterians, the neo-glam theatrics of Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (only more metal and devoid of the sensitivity and talent it would take to come up with a “Tumbling Down”) and pub rock, which is basically where The Stranglers got their plodding start. And the real punks knew it.
And yet a sad few of their songs work, in the face of Cornwell and Burnel’s hostility towards women, in the face of The Doors organ, in the face of their decidedly pre-punk sound, in the face of everything that makes me want The Stranglers to take a long sabbatical in a country like Afghanistan, where their attitudes towards women and prehistoric sound might find them a truly appreciative audience. By feminist standards, The Stranglers may as well be the Taliban.
“Princess of the Streets” doesn’t work; in fact, it’s an abomination, a slow, bluesy crawl that couldn’t be less punk—or less listenable. That plodding bass gets on the nerves, the guitar is far too slick and professional, and Burnel offers up, I swear, the worst lead vocals I’ve ever heard. He sounds like a combination of Darby Crash and Glenn Danzig as he whines, “She’s gone and left me/I don’t know why,” although the answer becomes apparent fast enough as he slur-sneers, “What a piece of meat” and “She’s no lady/She’ll stab you in the back.” What a putz. And the long guitar solo and careful keyboard playing date this song back, back, back. To the sixties, in fact.
“Peaches” is even worse with its Lurch organ line and going nowhere fast rhythm, over which Cornwell waxes ineloquently over a day spent leering at the “peaches” at the beach. “Why don’t you come and lap me up?” he sings, and it’s cringe-worthy, as is the organ noodling and the lascivious way he sings,
“Well, I got the notion, girl
That you got some suntan lotion in that bottle of yours
Spread it all over my peelin’ skin, baby
That feels real good.”
Is that a turn-on or what? There are those who defend the song as satire, and that “peelin’” is an indicator that it could actually BE satire, but if so, it’s dumb satire, which is worse than no satire at all. Or maybe I’m being too hard on it. Except I’m not. I would have to hear Pissed Jeans cover it to determine whether it’s satire. They would be able to clarify the issue. Someone call Pissed Jeans.
“Ugly” is a retro-sixties garage rock number on which Burnel stretches his mouth all out of shape the better to bellow about strangling a girl, not so much because she was making him late for work and had laced his coffee with acid but because she had acne, and he’s all testosterone and bile and maybe it’s supposed to be funny too but if so the joke falls flat, he even tosses in a cryptic line about the Jews and says ugly isn’t subjective while he’s at it, which once again makes me think “If this is satire, it’s satire dying an ugly death.”
But Cornwell’s as bad or worse, and manages to ruin the rambunctious New Wave number “London Lady” by—you guessed it—basically betraying an utter contempt for the subject of the song, who was a real-life journalist, or so I’ve been told. Any lyricist with a sense of irony and who wasn’t a woman-hater might have turned these songs into a self-lacerating commentary on the sexist pig singing them, but Cornwell and Burnel were not those fellows—all that comes across is an oppressive, mocking hostility.
“Sometimes” is a catchy pop number with a Doors feel that hits the skids from the opening line. “Someday I’m going to smack your face,” sings Cornwell, which he follows shortly thereafter with “You’re way past your station/Beat you, honey, until you drop.” How charming. And evidently it’s based on a true story, which should put paid to the quixotic notion that these guys were enlightened feminists toiling in the fields of satire. Musically, the song works, even if it’s as far from punk as you can get—The Doors organ is nice—but why would I want to listen to it? The world’s an ugly enough place as it is.
Things finally work with the new wave song “Hanging Around,” a driving, organ-fueled number with pumped-up bass on which Cornwell is constantly repeating the title accompanied by backing vocals. It all gets kind of Blue Oyster Cult in the middle, which once again tells us these guys were about as punk as Focus, but for a change, Cornwell isn’t just slagging women, he’s slagging everybody, all of the people on the street up to no good and who are going nowhere.
“(Get a) Grip (On Yourself)” is even better, despite an excess of organ noodling. Basically it’s a hard rocker on which Cornwell sings, “The worst crime that I ever did was play some rock and roll,” which is a great line even if there is some truth in it—some of these songs ARE crimes. Once again, we’re a million miles from punk; the keyboard lines are practically baroque, and the sax (while nice) has zero Sid Vicious in it, but Cornwell pushes and pushes, and I can listen to it and even enjoy it while not feeling I’m encouraging a twat in his ne’er-do-well.
“Goodbye Toulouse” doesn’t fit on the album despite its in-your-face bass line and grinding guitars because it’s a big production number on which the instrumentalists are all showing off—the thing is far, far closer to progressive rock than punk. It’s all long instrumental passages over which Cornwell sings (rather than foghorns) about lovely Toulouse and there’s not an iota of nastiness in the thing, which is welcome. But it’s a perfect illustration of who these guys were—long-in-the-tooth pros who dressed the punk part, presumably because it was all the rage and sold records. And then they had to gall to say they never called themselves punk. No, they just milked the fad.
Closer “Down in the Sewer” is a medley for Christ’s sake, a true four-part number opening with the instrumental “Falling” which is all guitar and organ and very histrionic and secret agent man and too much for this guy, especially when the organist plays this short and overly bright solo which is followed by “Down in the Sewer” in which Cornwell goes into a whole thespian routine, over-emoting about how he’s down in the sewer and it’s full of rats and while he’s there he may as well mate with ‘em:
“I tell you what I’m gonna do
Gonna make love to a water rat or two
And breed a family
They’ll be called the survivors.”
Then there’s this very Doorsy organ solo that is pure Nowhereville (by this time we’re into “Trying to Get Out Again”) and beneath all the horrible organ which goes on and on and on you hear distant voices saying “I’ll see you in the sewer” and to be honest I can’t tell you when “Rats Rally” begins, although I suspect it’s when the guitars get meaner and the organ gets even more annoying and the band plays this horrible music that will test your sanity because it’s bad Phantom of the Sewer shit, with the tempo picking up and up and rarely have I been so happy to hear a song end. At the end, the rats squeal their approval. Rats like shit like this, especially the Norwegian ones.
On Rattus Norvegicus, The Stranglers engage in some truly inspiring toxic masculinity, prove The Doors never died, ham it up to the nth degree, and in general put a bad dramatic spin on music that isn’t punk and only works on a couple of tracks. On a track that didn’t make it onto the original album (“Go Buddy Go”) Burnel actually cries “Boogie!”, which should tell you everything you need to know about these hoary old punk manques. But if you want a real laugh, check out the bonus track “Peasant in the Big Shitty,” on which keyboardist Dave Greenfield (who’s taking a rare and thank god for that turn on lead vocals) does this truly atrocious Johnny Rotten imitation that is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.
Burchill and Parsons tell a hilarious story about an outraged Smokie fan in luvverly Canterbury actually biting Burnel in the hand and then hissing, “I hate people like you.” I doubt the kid hated them for the same reasons I do. But the hand biting I get.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D
