THE STRANGLERS IV Rattus Norvegicus LP A&M Promo 1977 with Warning Sticker
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Description
THE STRANGLERS IV Rattus Norvegicus LP A&M Promo 1977 Printed Inner Sleeve Archival Sleeve This Band transcends UK Punk Love Em
Rattus Norvegicus (alternative title The Stranglers IV) is the debut studio album by the Stranglers, released on 15 April 1977.
It was one of the highest-selling albums of the punk era in Britain, eventually achieving platinum record sales. Two of its tracks, "Peaches" and "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)", were released as 7-inch singles in the UK
Rattus Norvegicus was ranked at No. 10 among the top albums of the year for 1977 by NME, with "Peaches" ranked at No. 18 among the year's top tracks.NME later ranked it at No. 196 on its 2014 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2000, Rattus Norvegicus was voted number 766 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. It was also included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
Let’s get this straight. It’s not punk. It never was. But that doesn’t matter. It was hard pop - songs played with skill but also with a rough edge to the the vocals and lyrics that today’s PC snowflakes certainly would not tolerate. Check out Peaches or Ugly if you don’t believe me.
This was a band whose individual contributions melded to create something unique and strangely beautiful - not normally a word associated with The punk movement of 1977. But they definitely had a sound all of their own. Hugh Cornwell’s snarling vocals and slashing guitar; Dave Greenfield’s swirling keys that gave the sound much of its character and definitely distanced them from their contemporaries; Jean-Jacques Brunel’s melodic walking bass holds the songs together and Jet Black’s steady drums displayed a fair degree of sophistication and kept things moving along with some style.
And the songs themselves oozed with sleaze and danger. They played like The Doors’ delinquent nephews. Rockers like Hanging Around, Sometimes, Get A Grip and London Lady were angry air-punchers but it was the more complex material that made the band and this album in particular so special. Peaches had everybody singing it all summer, even those who didn’t realize how dirty it was. Princess Of The Streets was almost a ballad with an actual tuneful guitar break and keyboard solo while the epic Down In The Sewer summed the whole thing up with an eight minute mid-tempo slab of punk virtuosity that was the musical equivalent of roadkill.
It all made a huge impression and for good reason this is a band that outlived it’s peers by decades and are still around today. And it was this, their debut and the follow up No More Heroes that will be remembered as their best.
The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have originated in the UK punk scene.
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