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Dirk Hanssens
Hi all, I'm from 1963 and live in Belgium and have been following music a long time. I have gone through many musical stages like the Beatles, Metal, classic guitar rock, punk music, Indie, Grunge etc but the main focus is still on guitar music: favourite bands are of course the Beatles, but also The Kinks, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, Husker Du, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, dEUS, Metallica, Guided by Voices, Sonic Youth, ...
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Dirk Hanssens's Album Reviews
This is the 21st album of a thread of album reviews in which I'd like to guide you through my personal musical history based on my top100 Album list you can find in my profile: the previous album in the thread was "Seventeen Seconds" by The Cure.
I think the Stranglers were the first punk band we heard of in Belgium, not because we heard the music but because there were a lot of scandal press messages that songs of the Stranglers were banned from the BBC, of course with "Peaches" at the top of that (later on the intro of "Peaches" became the intro of a famous Belgian sports program on national television).
I think the first time, the Stranglers were actually played on the Belgian radio was "Something Better Change" and "No More Heroes", both from their second album which I bought in an earlier stage than their first album.
But in a way I like "Rattus Norvegicus" better with one important reason: "Down in the Sewer", a sort of screwed up mini-opera but an incredibly good song. And there are many other good ones like "London Lady", "Hanging Around" and of course "Peaches" on this album.
Then there came a period when I didn't like them as much with their slower songs like "Golden Brown" and "Always the Sun" but recently they again issued some very good albums like "Norfolk Coast" and "Suite XVI".
Recently I saw them live on the Reorock festival in Roeselare Belgium (together with the Undertones) and they still rocked and most importantly: the pumping bass played by JJ Burnell you can recognize from a mile away was still there.
Come to think of it: although not an original album: check out "Punk: The Early Years"" where the Vibrators do some excellent covers of punk songs which sometimes turn to be more punky, more energetic and in many cases more definitive than the originals of whcih "Get a Grip on Yourself" from the Stranglers but also "Stranded", "White Riot", "New Rose", "Pretty Vacant", "Teenage Kicks", "Beat on the Brat", etc etc.
Of the three songs of The Stranglers which appear on my personal Songs top 1000, 1 appears on this album:
- Down in the Sewer (on this album)
- No More Heroes (No More Heroes)
- Something Better Change (No More Heroes)
Next album in this thread: "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" by the Sex Pistols
I think the Stranglers were the first punk band we heard of in Belgium, not because we heard the music but because there were a lot of scandal press messages that songs of the Stranglers were banned from the BBC, of course with "Peaches" at the top of that (later on the intro of "Peaches" became the intro of a famous Belgian sports program on national television).
I think the first time, the Stranglers were actually played on the Belgian radio was "Something Better Change" and "No More Heroes", both from their second album which I bought in an earlier stage than their first album.
But in a way I like "Rattus Norvegicus" better with one important reason: "Down in the Sewer", a sort of screwed up mini-opera but an incredibly good song. And there are many other good ones like "London Lady", "Hanging Around" and of course "Peaches" on this album.
Then there came a period when I didn't like them as much with their slower songs like "Golden Brown" and "Always the Sun" but recently they again issued some very good albums like "Norfolk Coast" and "Suite XVI".
Recently I saw them live on the Reorock festival in Roeselare Belgium (together with the Undertones) and they still rocked and most importantly: the pumping bass played by JJ Burnell you can recognize from a mile away was still there.
Come to think of it: although not an original album: check out "Punk: The Early Years"" where the Vibrators do some excellent covers of punk songs which sometimes turn to be more punky, more energetic and in many cases more definitive than the originals of whcih "Get a Grip on Yourself" from the Stranglers but also "Stranded", "White Riot", "New Rose", "Pretty Vacant", "Teenage Kicks", "Beat on the Brat", etc etc.
Of the three songs of The Stranglers which appear on my personal Songs top 1000, 1 appears on this album:
- Down in the Sewer (on this album)
- No More Heroes (No More Heroes)
- Something Better Change (No More Heroes)
Next album in this thread: "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" by the Sex Pistols
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