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Rating: The lady is clearly drunk.
But so am I, so I bluntly tell her that no, I won’t play "La Cura".
First, because it sucks (I will protect you from fears and hypochondrias/ and you will heal from all diseases). A Rambo, pick up your headband, it fell off.
Second, because I already have "Summer On A Solitary Beach" lined up, which besides being a great piece, doesn’t mess up my bpm.
I dismiss the nuisance, who has already dived into the appetizers, and start sifting through the pile of CDs on my sister’s table (I’m not David Guetta, I just play some music at friends' houses, what did you expect?).
The party is in the (pre)mourning phase, that awkward limbo where the DJ knows he’s gambling his reputation with a single move. If he gets it right, he can extend the set until dawn with the silly friend who will eventually take off his shirt and throw up in the garden, but if he messes up, he’ll fall prey to the dreaded Requesting Hordes.
"Play something by Raffaella Carrà?" "Do you have the latest by Tiziano Ferro?"
None of this will happen, because while I spot the first Requester emerging from the shadows (you can tell by their greasy gait and begging-smile), I already have in my hands the legendary The Gospel According To The Maninblack by The Stranglers, and raising it like the holy Grail above the console, I drive the hordes back into the darkness that belongs to all the poor souls who will never select a cue-point.
"Two Sunspots" is the sound I need, 2' and a bit of honest wave-punk. It’s a success, the homemade dancefloor is flooded by the pneumatic bass of Jean-Jacques Burnel, second/lead-vocal and over-talented musician for the frugal standards of punk-rock. The gracefully skewed melody accompanies the unreal, sci-fi-scented lyrics ("two sunspots are staring at me/ one to left and one to right of me"). The vision of an alien world where Dune's worm meets the Bible and gives it a high-five.
It’s the quirky poetry of this 1981 gem, after all, spinning morbidly around conspiratorial themes that wouldn’t be out of place in an Enrico Ruggeri Mysteries special. Government organizations covering up sightings, multiple machinations, esoteric allusions, and naïve vignettes peek out from the chilling “Waltzinblack” dance-cripple.
The listeners are in a frenzy, just enough time to switch the slider and the speakers are already pouring out the Martian and martial groove of "Just Like Nothing On Earth", a funk-contortionist exercise marked by futuristic production where rhythm section and synthesizer (by Dave Greenfield) twist hyperactively like snogging Mambas.
Someone throws me questioning looks ("Play something by Depeche?"), but at this point, I let them hear this entire alienated proto-techno, proto-goth, proto-everything extravaganza.
Starting with the stunned-reggae of "Second Coming", passing through the progressive-wave of "Hallow To Our Man" (where Hugh Cornwell’s linear arpeggio is only the prelude to a riot of changes and moog tangles), all the way down to the macabre-beat of "Thrown Away" (a piece where The Stranglers, at least in the refrain, reveal the Doors influence repeatedly traced/retraceable in the early days of the Surrey band).
I don’t skip, of course, the very tight "Waiting For The Maninblack", in which Cornwell’s voice and the electro-inserts make uncivilized love with Jet Black’s syncopated drumming. Nor do I skip the gothic tangle of "Top Secret" ("he’s got something to tell/ but he’s got no-one to tell").
I lift my head from the CDJ just to check the vibe, but I realize no one is dancing anymore. They are all standing there, rummaging in the night.
There is a luminous object approaching from the northeast.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Just Like Nothing on Earth (03:54)
A woman in Wellington wet her whistle with a wild man
From way back when,
She sucked her thumb and she held her head for the man she didn't ken
A Nip in Nippon napped a nod and knew a new nomad
Near the nearside window of his Mitsubishi
His kid was scared he said he thought it was something new
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
(Just like nothing on earth)
(Just like nothing on earth)
Just ... like ... nothing ... on ... earth
On ... earth
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
(Just like nothing on, just like nothing on earth)
A man on the main motor mile mesmerised much monkey magic
Meandering piecemeal
You know UFOs utilise euphoric united ecstatic fantastic
Traumatic burning rubber blubber blackout checkout
For philandering sons of magic women
His brain was blazed and amazed he said he thought it was something new
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
(Just like nothing on earth)
(Just like nothing on earth)
Just ... like ... nothing ... on ... earth
On ... earth
Just like nothing on earth
Just like nothing on earth
It was just like nothing on earth
08 Thrown Away (03:30)
If ever you had counted
The centuries you threw away
And all the lies that you had started
And all the chances thrown away
If I set sail for new horizons
Could I still leave you waiting here
I would chase just one set of chances
The others would be thrown away
Even though we tried time wasn't on our side
Then there came the day we threw it all away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
My winter nights are so much colder
Than yours could ever be
I wish I hadn't been a traveller
I would not have had to go away
When all is said and all is over
When all is just a memory
Our ships will stay for just a moment
Leaving false Gods and hypocrisy
Even though we tried time wasn't on our side
Then there came the day we threw it all away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Even though we tried time wasn't on our side
Then there came the day we threw it all away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
Thrown away
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