扼杀者乐队

The Stranglers are an English rock band formed in Guildford, Surrey in 1974. The group's classic line-up, active from 1975 to 1990, consisted of guitarist and vocalist Hugh Cornwell, bassist and vocalist Jean-Jacques Burnel, keyboardist Dave Greenfield, and drummer Jet Black. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 20 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning over five decades, the Stranglers are amongst the longest-surviving bands to have originated in the British punk scene.

Formed as the Guildford Stranglers in early 1974, they originally built a following within the mid-1970s pub rock scene. While their aggressive, no-compromise attitude had them identified by the media with the emerging punk rock scene that followed, their idiosyncratic approach rarely followed any single musical genre, and the group went on to explore a variety of musical styles, from new wave, art rock and gothic rock to the sophisti-pop of some of their 1980s output. They had major mainstream success with their 1982 single "Golden Brown". Their other hits include "Peaches", "No More Heroes", "Strange Little Girl", "Skin Deep" and "Always the Sun".

The Stranglers' early sound was driven by Burnel's heavy, melodic bass, but also gave prominence to Greenfield's keyboard playing. Their early music was also characterised by the growling vocals and sometimes misanthropic lyrics of both Cornwell and Burnel. Over time, their output gradually grew more refined and sophisticated. Summing up their contribution to popular music, critic Dave Thompson later wrote: "From bad-mannered yobs to purveyors of supreme pop delicacies, the group was responsible for music that may have been ugly and might have been crude – but it was never, ever boring."

They have experienced several line-up changes following Cornwell's departure in 1990. Black retired in 2018, while Greenfield died in 2020, leaving Burnel as the only original member still touring with the group.

History

Formation and mainstream success (1974–1979)

Prior to forming the band, Jet Black (Brian Duffy) had run various businesses, including a fleet of ice cream vans, and later ran The Jackpot, a Guildford off-licence that would serve as the base for the early Stranglers. Black had also been a semi-professional drummer in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After attaining a degree of financial stability due to his business successes, by 1974 he decided to return to drumming and assemble a band. The Stranglers came to be an influential band in the British punk and new wave scene of the mid-1970s. Black drove the ice cream vans that would serve as the Stranglers' early tour buses.

The group that eventually formed between 1974 and 1975 was originally named The Guildford Stranglers, but they soon dropped the geographical prefix and the name, The Stranglers, was registered as a business on 11 September 1974 by Black. The other original personnel were bass player/vocalist Jean-Jacques Burnel, guitarist/vocalist Hugh Cornwell and keyboardist/guitarist Hans Wärmling, who was replaced by keyboardist Dave Greenfield within a year. None of the band came from the Guildford area apart from Burnel, who was originally from Notting Hill but moved to Godalming during his childhood. Black was from Ilford, Cornwell from Kentish Town and Greenfield from Brighton, while Wärmling came from Gothenburg and returned there after leaving the band.

Cornwell was a blues musician before forming the band and had briefly been a bandmate of Richard Thompson, Burnel had been a classical guitarist who had performed with symphony orchestras, Black's musical background was as a jazz drummer, and Greenfield had played at military bases in Germany. Their early influences included pre-punk psychedelic rock bands such as the Doors and the Music Machine.

From 1976, the Stranglers became associated with the burgeoning punk rock movement, due in part to their opening for the first British tours of American punks the Ramones and Patti Smith. Notwithstanding this association, some of the movement's champions in the British musical press viewed the band with suspicion on account of their age and musical virtuosity and the intellectual bent of some of their lyrics. However, Burnel was quoted saying, "I thought of myself as part of punk at the time because we were inhabiting the same flora and fauna ... I would like to think the Stranglers were more punk plus and then some."