The Gig Cartel - Artist profiles: The Stranglers

The Stranglers are an English rock music group, formed on 11 September 1974 in Guildford, Surrey.

Scoring a string of UK top ten hits, including "Golden Brown", "No More Heroes" and "Peaches" and UK top forty hits spanning four decades, the Stranglers originally built a following alongside the mid-\'70s pub rock scene. Their aggressive, no-compromise attitude made them one of the instigators of the developing UK punk rock scene, although their idiosyncratic approach rarely followed any single musical genre with the group going on to explore a variety of musical styles, including punk rock, gothic rock, and new wave through to the pop of some of their \'80s output.

With a sound driven by Jean-Jacques Burnel\'s bass, but also heavily reliant on Dave Greenfield\'s keyboards (reminiscent at times of Ray Manzarek), when the instrument was unfashionable. The Stranglers\' early music was also characterised by the growling vocals and sometimes misanthropic lyrics of both Jean-Jacques Burnel and Hugh Cornwell, but their output grew more refined and sophisticated, as critic Dave Thompson writes, "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"