The Stranglers
The Gospel According to the Meninblack

THE REVIEW

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.