The Stranglers - 10 Track Collectors Album

One of my all-time favorite film openings is from Jonathan Glazer's 2000 debut, "Sexy Beast". Ray Winstone's Gal gallumps around his Spanish pool, his internal dialogue soundtracked to the Stranglers' "Peaches". The scene ends with a boulder crashing into the pool, narrowly missing Gal and setting off one of the best crime films of the 21st century, not to mention the source of myriad "cunts" and "fucks".

This was the first time I remember hearing the Stranglers.

I'd guess that has something to do with their fairly limited exposure in the States, or that their punk releases weren't particularly easy to find over here when I was coming up, or that they started out a pub rock band (a genre I ignored until my mid-30s) that was a bit older and more proficient than their first wave brethren. At any rate, it'd take me a while to get hip to how good their early bass-and-keyboard led sound was, or how progressive and uncompromising they were as a band.

This collection came out in 2006, a giveaway packaged into the August 6th edition of the Mail On Sunday. Released a month ahead of "Suite XVI", it's split evenly between acoustic and live versions of a number of their hits. Second vocalist Paul Roberts does the singing, so don't go into this expecting it to be definitive. For that, I'd suggest picking up Parlophone's 2018 "The Classic Collection" CD reissue series. But as far as free shit goes, this is far better than a sharp kick in the ass.

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