"After a clutch of weak singles, the Stranglers totally reverse their position, and along with the Banshees shine out as this week's single of the weekers."
— Deanne Pearson
There's none of that 'Record of the week'/'Personal record of the week' stuff going on this fortnight (though someone really ought to have informed the reviewer that she was writing for a fortnightly publication), Deanne Pearson simply has two favourites that she is unable to choose between. This time, there's also less of a divide between her choice cuts: an elegant Cole Porter standard by Ella Fitzgerald and a burst of post-punk energy from The Flowers couldn't have been more different; while there certainly is plenty separating Siouxsie & The Banshees and The Stranglers, both groups came to prominence at a similar time, achieved comparable levels of success and would probably be similarly remembered today. Fans of one may well have been into the other, even if they hardly go hand-in-hand.
Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin had been members of the famed Bromley Contingent, a noted pack of Sex Pistols fans that likely had more talent than the band they followed. While Billy Idol made a career out of this association, Sioux and Severin were quick to distance themselves from the punks. She had started off the notorious Filth and the Fury TV interview with Bill Grundy but it wasn't long after that the pair stopped attending Pistols' gigs. They had already formed a band a year earlier and had used a young John Simon Richie (aka Sid Vicious) to drum for them at their first show. She received a great deal of attention following the Grundy debacle but rather than capitalize on the notoriety, she stepped back and got to work on making The Banshees into a much better group than the one she had attached herself to.
Having said all that, the real reason The Stranglers never quite fit in with punk was that they weren't really punks to begin with — or, at best, they were punks in the same way that Lennon and Keith Richards were punks (ie not at all). They played aggressively, sure, but garage rock had been around since at least the mid-sixties and the only thing punk about, say, "Louis, Louis" by The Kingsman is that people commenting on YouTube videos will claim that they're the first punk (even though they weren't). They may have done well as a result of punk and the genre's rise in popularity opened doors for them that had previously been locked tightly
"Hong Kong Garden" had already been a single-of-the-year candidate back in 1978 so The Banshees were hitting their stride right from the start. Their run of singles stretching over at least the next decade is outstanding, as good as any group of their time. As Pearson suggests, "Christine" is something of a turning point, as they began exploring sounds beyond the bleak and doom-laden. The lineup of Sioux, Severin and Budgie (maybe I'm just not much of a Banshee follower but I often forget that they were just a trio; a lot of five-piece groups would have struggled to match their power and layers of sound) are synched up so well. Siouxsie's voice is confident and only she could do S&M goth rock but I do wish she could be a little more playful, not unlike the way Robert Smith is able to coyly flirt with the listener on The Cure's "The Lovecats". Groups like Strawberry Switchblade and The Belle Stars were swiftly finding a home merging post-punk wastelands with glorious pop but this was beyond the reach of Siouxie Sioux, assuming she ever even wanted it. Nevertheless, "Christine" is a fine track that takes a proud place in The Banshees' admirable discography.
While The Banshees were on a roll, The Stranglers were struggling following their superb early singles like "Peaches", "No More Heroes" and "Nice 'n' Sleazy" which all did well during punk's golden age. While younger groups (so much for their age not being an issue) were progressing, developing as songwriters, trying new things, their more recent material had begun to stagnate. "Who Wants the World?" does have some of that old energy but I'm not as convinced by it as Pearson. The Stranglers boxed themselves into a corner: they were better off when their songs were kept simple but, as a result, this often meant that their records sound incomplete. As she says, Wakefield's organ is as brilliant and distinctive as ever but the rest is lacking. A reasonable stab at their patented brand of dirtbag rock but an unmemorable one. They weren't quite ready to move on from not being punks but the near-number one success of their 1982 single "Golden Brown" would be just what they needed. It only goes to show they weren't new wavers either.
In a Smash Hits singles review that also features an appalling Sex Pistols' cover of The Monkees' "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone", it is clear that some were having trouble letting go from the heady days of '77. Then again, post-Lydon Pistols were all about ripping people off: some of their fans may not have known what was going on but a flash-in-the-pan band was happy to exploit them. The Stranglers had never been punks, Siouxsie & The Banshees weren't any longer and the Sex Pistols were busy proving that punk was just a brand. Maybe no one was punk and no one had ever been punk: now there's a thought.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Bob Marley & The Wailers: "Could You Be Loved"
I've long preferred The Wailers to Bob Marley & The Wailers: the original trio of Marley, Pet Tosh and the recently departed Bunny Wailer was a superstar unit and one in which no one individual deserved to hog the spotlight. (I have nothing against the post-Tosh/Wailer period though I resent reissues of earlier albums that use the latter credit) Now joined by Rita Marley and a bunch of people I've never heard of, it's only right that his nibs would take lion's share of the credit. His work following the Natty Dread album is inconsistent but the bulk of the singles are still pretty good. "Could You Be Loved" is one of those ones that I never need to listen to because I can always count on it winding up played in the mild of a film about backpacking the tropics or political prisoners or bloody romantic comedies since the Marley estate will allow the great man's stuff to spread as far out as possible. Punk had become a brand and the king of reggae would soon follow suit.
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