The Stranglers – Peaches The very Best Of the Stranglers

This best of collection is genuinely that – twenty bona-fide chart hits spanning 1977 through to 1990, a track record most bands can only dream and drool over achieving.

https://youtu.be/Q04y16woPAI

This was achieved with the classic Hugh Cornwell, Jean Jacques Burnel, Dave Greenfield, Jet Black line up who consistently dumbfounded their critics and many of their fans with the diversity of their output.

The bump`n`grind sleaze of ‘Peaches’ being used in TV commercials has once again brought the band back into the spotlight and the last year or so has seen many of their original albums get the full reissue and remaster treatment. But now, with this compilation, you can get all the single highlights on one album for the first time – ‘Golden Brown’, ‘No More Heroes’, ‘Something Better Change’, ‘Nice And Sleazy’, ‘Hanging Around’…the lot, they are all here.

Sadly at the end of the period covers, Cornwell decided he wanted to try something new and left the band and since then they have never been quite such a potent force.

The blend of Burnel’s lopping bass riffs, Greenfield’s swirling keyboards, Black’s simple and solid backbeat topped by Cornwell’s clanking rhythms and soho-sleaze vocal charm gave The Stanglers a sound all of their own and proven timeless. It would be nice for the original line-up to reform for a few live shows, no disrespect to current band members, but things just aren`t the same without Hugh and to hear all of these songs performed again by their creators could be devastating. Meantime I, and others, will have to settle for this pretty nifty little comp. 9/10

Brian Guthrie