| Black and White | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 12 May 1978 | |||
| Recorded | February–March 1978 ("In the Shadows", July 1977) [1] [2] | |||
| Studio | T.W. Studios, Fulham, London | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 39:50 | |||
| Label | United Artists (UK) A&M (US) | |||
| Producer | Martin Rushent | |||
| The Stranglers chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Black and White | ||||
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Black and White is the third studio album by English new wave band the Stranglers. It was released on 12 May 1978, through record label United Artists in most of the world and A&M in America.
As with the Stranglers' first two albums, Black and White was produced by Martin Rushent. The album sees the Stranglers adopting a more experimental approach to song structures and time signatures (for example, "Curfew" features 7/4 time). [4]
The band recorded a version of "Sweden" sung in Swedish, called "Sverige", and released it in Sweden. The song was partly inspired by Cornwell's PhD placement at Lund University in the early-1970s. In an anecdote related in the Swedish online magazine Blaskan, it is stated that the song was inspired by a disastrous visit to Sweden during a European tour, when a gig was violently interrupted by a gang of "raggare" (greasers). [5]
The song title "Death and Night and Blood" is taken from a line from Yukio Mishima's novel Confessions of a Mask .
The song "In the Shadows" had previously been released as the B-side to the band's 1977 single "No More Heroes".
Black and White was released on 12 May 1978. The album peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart, spending eighteen weeks on the chart. [6]
The first 75,000 LPs came with a free white vinyl 7" composed of three tracks: "Walk On By" (a cover of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song written for and originally recorded by Dionne Warwick), "Mean to Me" and "Tits".
The US version of the album, on the A&M label, was pressed on black and white marbled vinyl, but came without the three-track single.
Singles released from the album were "Nice 'n' Sleazy", b/w "Shut Up", and "Walk On By", b/w "Tank" and "Old Codger". "Old Codger" featured a guest vocal from jazz singer George Melly. An edited version of "Walk On By" with "Tank" was also pressed as a double A-side radio-play single.
Most of these tracks were included in the remastered 2001 CD re-issue of the album.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [7] |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [8] |
| The Great Rock Discography | 7/10 [9] |
| Record Collector | [10] |
| Record Mirror | [11] |
| Sounds | [12] |
Reviews of the album were positive. NME called the 'A' side "by far the best work they've ever done", Tim Lott of Record Mirror said the album "belies my expectations of The Stranglers as a spent force" and Melody Maker stated the album, while not as good as their debut, showed that the band could "enlarge their ideas and still come up with good tunes". [13]
Some retrospective critics view Black and White in a lesser light to the band's previous albums. AllMusic called it "arguably the weakest" of the Stranglers' first three albums, "yet it still has some absolutely stunning moments." [7] Trouser Press wrote, "Black and White lacks only good songs. Except for "Nice 'n' Sleazy", most of the tracks are merely inferior rehashes of earlier work, making the LP easily forgettable." [14]
Conversely, David Quantick writing for BBC Music said "The Stranglers turned everything round on their third album", stating that the album was both "essential" and "extraordinary" and "displayed clear influences on the work of Gang of Four and Joy Division.". [15] Record Collector's Tim Peacock said Black and White "served notice that the Stranglers had already outstripped punk", calling it "stark, compelling and every inch as necessary as contemporaneous envelope-pushers including PiL's First Issue and Wire's Chairs Missing ." [16]
All tracks are written by the Stranglers (Hugh Cornwell, Jean-Jacques Burnel, Dave Greenfield and Jet Black), except as noted. All CD releases (except the 2018 reissue) have a slightly different running order, with "Hey! (Rise of the Robots)" appearing after "Outside Tokyo" and "In the Shadows" coming after "Threatened"
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Tank" | 2:54 |
| 2. | "Nice 'n' Sleazy" | 3:11 |
| 3. | "Outside Tokyo" | 2:06 |
| 4. | "Mean to Me" (original cassette release only) | 1:55 |
| 5. | "Sweden (All Quiet on the Eastern Front)" | 2:47 |
| 6. | "Hey! (Rise of the Robots)" | 2:13 |
| 7. | "Toiler on the Sea" | 5:23 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 7. | "Curfew" | 3:10 |
| 8. | "Threatened" | 3:30 |
| 9. | "Do You Wanna" | 2:38 |
| 10. | "Death and Night and Blood (Yukio)" | 2:50 |
| 11. | "In the Shadows" | 4:15 |
| 12. | "Enough Time" | 4:16 |
| Total length: | 39:50 | |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Walk On By" | Burt Bacharach, Hal David | 6:22 |
| 2. | "Mean to Me" | 1:55 | |
| 3. | "Tits" (live at the Hope and Anchor Front Row Festival, London, 22 November 1977) | 5:25 | |
| Total length: | 13:42 | ||
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13. | "Mean to Me" | Cassette album track; Black and White bonus single | 1:55 | |
| 14. | "Walk On By" | Bacharach, David | Non-album single, 1978; Black and White bonus single | 6:22 |
| 15. | "Shut Up" | B-side of "Nice 'n' Sleazy" | 1:07 | |
| 16. | "Sverige" | Non-album single, 1978 | 2:49 | |
| 17. | "Old Codger" | B-side of "Walk On By" | 2:49 | |
| 18. | "Tits" (live) | Black and White bonus single | 5:25 | |
| Total length: | 60:13 | |||
Self-released by the Stranglers, Black and White received a deluxe vinyl reissue in 2016, limited to 1000 numbered copies. The original 12-track album is coupled with a bonus 7-track album, which includes various associated tracks from the period and the previously unreleased "Social Secs/Wasting Time". [17]
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Walk On By" | Bacharach, David | Non-album single | 6:21 |
| 2. | "Mean to Me" | Cassette album track; Black and White bonus single | 1:55 | |
| 3. | "Sverige (Jag Är Insnöad På Östfronten)" | Non-album single | 2:49 | |
| 4. | "Shut Up" | B-side of "Nice 'n' Sleazy" | 1:06 |
| No. | Title | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5. | "Social Secs/Wasting Time" | Previously unreleased | 3:54 |
| 6. | "Old Codger" | B-side of "Walk On By" | 2:53 |
| 7. | "Tits" (live) | Black and White bonus single | 5:25 |
| Total length: | 24:23 | ||
| No. | Title | Origin | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13. | "Shut Up" | B-side of "Nice 'n' Sleazy" | 1:06 |
| 14. | "Walk On By" | Non-album single | 6:21 |
| 15. | "Mean to Me" | Cassette album track; Black and White bonus single | 1:55 |
| 16. | "Tits" (live) | Black and White bonus single | 5:26 |
| 17. | "Old Codger" | B-side of "Walk On By" | 2:51 |
| 18. | "Sverige (Jag Är Insnöad På Östfronten)" | Non-album single | 2:51 |
| 19. | "Walk On By" (single edit) | Promo single | 4:25 |
| Total length: | 64:55 | ||
The Stranglers are an English rock band. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 20 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have originated in the UK punk scene.
No More Heroes is the second studio album by English new wave band the Stranglers. It was released on 23 September 1977, through record label United Artists in most of the world and A&M in the United States, five months after their debut album, Rattus Norvegicus.
The Raven is the fourth studio album by English new wave band the Stranglers, released on 21 September 1979, through record label United Artists.
Rattus Norvegicus is the debut studio album by English punk rock band the Stranglers, released on 15 April 1977.
Live (X Cert) is the first live album by the Stranglers, released in February 1979 by United Artists. It contains tracks recorded at The Roundhouse in June and November 1977 and at Battersea Park in September 1978.
The Gospel According to the Meninblack is the fifth album by English rock band the Stranglers, an esoteric concept album released 9 February 1981 on the Liberty label. The album deals with conspiratorial ideas surrounding alien visitations to Earth, the sinister governmental men in black, and the involvement of these elements in well-known biblical narratives. This was not the first time the Stranglers had used this concept; "Meninblack" on the earlier The Raven album and subsequent 1980 single-release "Who Wants the World?" had also explored it.
La folie is the sixth studio album by English new wave band the Stranglers. It was released on 9 November 1981, through the EMI record label Liberty.
Feline is the seventh studio album by the Stranglers and was released on 14 January 1983 on the Epic record label, their first for the label. The first edition came with a free one-sided 7" single "Aural Sculpture Manifesto". Feline drew heavily on two of the dominant musical influences in Europe of the time, by using primarily acoustic guitars and electronic drums as well as synthesizers. The American edition of the album included the British hit single "Golden Brown" as the closing track on side one of the original vinyl.
Greatest Hits 1977–1990 is a compilation album by the Stranglers, released in November 1990 by Epic Records. It contains hit singles selected from their back catalogue from both EMI and Epic Records.
Dreamtime is the ninth studio album by the Stranglers, released in 1986 by Epic Records. The title track was inspired by a belief of the aboriginal peoples of Australia called Dreamtime.
10 is the tenth studio album by English rock band the Stranglers, released in March 1990 by Epic Records. It was the last to feature guitarist/lead singer Hugh Cornwell. 10 peaked at No. 15 and spent four weeks in the UK Albums Chart.
Off the Beaten Track is a compilation album by The Stranglers. It was released by EMI, who had acquired the back catalogues of the Strangler's former labels United Artists and Liberty. The compilation collects tracks which were originally only available as the A-side or B-sides to various 7" vinyl singles released by United Artists and Liberty.
Aural Sculpture is the eighth studio album by the Stranglers, released in November 1984 by Epic Records. It was also the name given to a one-sided 7-inch single given free with a limited number of copies of their Feline album in 1983. The "Aural Sculpture Manifesto" on the 7" single was played before the Stranglers appeared on stage during concerts during both the 1983 "Feline" tour and the 1985 "Aural Sculpture" tour.
About Time is the twelfth studio album from the Stranglers and the second one from the Black, Burnel, Greenfield, Roberts and Ellis line-up. The album was released in 1995 through the When! label. It was co-produced, engineered and mixed by Alan Winstanley, who had worked with the Stranglers on their first four albums. Nigel Kennedy plays electric violin on "Face", and a string-quartet is used on three of the eleven tracks.
IV is a compilation album by the Stranglers, released on 24 September 1980 on I.R.S. Records and only available in the US and Canada.
"Grip", or "(Get A) Grip ", is a single by the Stranglers from the album Rattus Norvegicus. It was the Stranglers' first single, released as a double A-side with "London Lady" in January 1977, and reached number 44 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Hanging Around" is a song by English rock band the Stranglers, released on their 1977 debut album Rattus Norvegicus. The song was written by the band's guitarist, Hugh Cornwell, and is notable for its driving bassline and its lyrics about urban alienation.
Giants is the seventeenth studio album by English rock band the Stranglers and continues the band's return as a four-piece after the departure of singer Paul Roberts. Lead vocals are shared between guitarist Baz Warne and bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel. The album was released on 5 March 2012 and was supported by an extensive UK tour by the band. It was their last album to feature original drummer Jet Black and the last to be released in keyboard player Dave Greenfield's lifetime.
"Sometimes" is a song by The Stranglers, appearing as the first song on their debut album Rattus Norvegicus (1977). The song was written and sung by Hugh Cornwell, and credited to the band as a whole.
"Goodbye Toulouse" is a song by The Stranglers, appearing as the second song on their 1977 debut album Rattus Norvegicus. The lyrics were written by Jean-Jacques Burnel and the music by Hugh Cornwell, although it was credited to the band as a whole.
