Like LMIYttF it begins with a very simple drum rhythm, but this time with stabs of delayed bass. This is the high point of both the album and Burnel’s song-writing.
Skip the next track (but do feel free to use Google to mug up on Milton Mezzrow) and go straight to The Man They Love to Hate. Regardless, it features a fairly memorable instrumental break and achieved a fresh sound for the time (nor has it dated too badly either – at least not to these ears). I’m not too sure what they were trying to achieve with this cumbersomely titled song though – perhaps a disco number? Who knows. Chart-wise it faltered and died at #42 for three weeks, which was something of an undeserving fate to be fair. Not excellent but definitely a strong effort. Talking of which, track four is La Folie’s first single. In short, this should have been a single – i.e.
Tramp’s chorus is a real lift too and – as we’ve come to expect – there’s a highly effective keyboard solo (possibly one of the best on the album after How to Find True Love and Happiness). Yes I know, the bass guitar is a little too clean-shaven – but it does a great job of creating a song within a song such is the strength of its melodic content. And although Tramp is lyrically naive (romanticising homelessness as it does – no doubt Cornwell would’ve preferred to think of it as, I don’t know, „wanderlust“ or something), we’re still swept along. The end result, marked by a sense of melancholy, is almost as compelling as the aggression of yore. He seems envious of those who’ve abandoned materialism and a love of things. A big step! Rather than embracing animosity Cornwell nearly sounds wistful – whilst also somehow keeping an edge on his delivery (it’s interesting to note that the object of the lyric’s affections here is male). If previously they’d confused aggression with passion (especially in accounts of relations with the opposite sex) this song’s relative subtleties suggest the band can be emotional without getting all mean and angry about stuff. Tramp, however, is brilliant and proves the band had striven to find a way forward that didn’t involve abandoning everything that was good and enduring in previous incarnations (high levels of creativity, expressive musicianship, and a great ear for melody e.g.). The former is a throwaway pop song with little to remember it by apart from a playful sort of keyboard solo, the latter is a morose effort that outstays its welcome even at 2:42. Non-stop and Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead are both pants. It’s not until Tramp – track three – that we get anything of substance from La Folie. In any case, there’s a bit more to the LP than this one track – even if it doesn’t get off to a flying start. Or maybe La Folie’s cool reviews did for it. One explanation is that the band had an unshakable reputation as a singles act. The effect of Golden Brown on La Folie’s sales wasn’t really felt until 13/3 and after that its sales fell away fast (3 weeks later it was nowhere). At this time Golden Brown was at number two. Why weren’t the housewives and yuppies buying the album in droves? It reached #12 on 13/2/’81, and sank to 17 over the next two weeks. It must have puzzled the band and fans at the time – why didn’t the huge sales of Golden Brown translate into similar success for La Folie. Where La Folie fell short of the top ten (spending 17 weeks in the UK album charts and peaking at #11), its predecessor reached #8 (although it did spend only 5 weeks in the top 75).
And yet – inexplicably – it didn’t out-sell Gospel According to the Meninblack – an awkward, abstract effort with no strong singles. Indeed, this record was in some ways their most successful – at least in so far as it contains their best-selling single (Golden Brown).
In one sense they achieved the impossible and pleased everybody. With the inclusion of Golden Brown this is definitely The Stranglers’ most accessible LP, but even without it the record probably wouldn’t have offended – or confused – the ears of day-time radio listeners. But it also contains other discrete parts such as baroque pop (Golden Brown) and strange experiments (La Folie, Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead). In some ways its merely highly-evolved new-wave polished, left-field and occasionally too oblique. Trevor_mehchine Although it wasn’t exactly beamed to us from a distant planet, and while it’s nowhere near as difficult as Gospel According to the Meninblack, it’s still hard to describe this album. B4How to Find True Love and Happiness in the Present Da圓:07.