Rattus Norvegicus (Album)
| Rattus norvegicus | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Stranglers studio album | ||||
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Publication |
1977 |
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| Label (s) | United Artists | |||
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Format (s) |
LP |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
50:59 |
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| occupation |
Hugh Cornwell (vocals, guitar) Jean-Jacques Burnel (vocals, bass) |
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Studio (s) |
TW Studios & Olympic Studios , London |
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Rattus Norvegicus is the debut album by the British band The Stranglers . The album fell into the heyday of punk in Great Britain. It was released by United Artists in April 1977 and reached position 4 on the UK album charts, making it one of the most successful albums of the British punk era.
Track list
- Sometimes (4:56, Cornwell)
- Goodbye Toulouse (3:12, Cornwell / Burnel)
- London Lady (2:25, Cornwell / Burnel)
- Princess of the Streets (4:34, Burnel)
- Hanging Around (4:25, Burnel / Cornwell)
- Peaches (4:03, Burnel / Cornwell)
- (Get a) Grip (on Yourself) (3:55, Cornwell)
- Ugly (4:03, Burnel)
- Down in the Sewer (7:30 am, Burnel / Cornwell)
History of origin
Rattus norvegicus is the taxon of the brown rat . The naming of the album is not entirely clear. The front cover designed by Paul Henry is titled "The Stranglers IV", the official title "Rattus Norvegicus" is only noted on the back. Originally the album was supposed to be called "Dead on Arrival", but the name was changed shortly before the release. Initially the plan was to publish a live recording of a concert from 1976; however, this plan was dropped due to the poor quality of the recording. Lyrically, the pieces on Rattus Norvegicus deal with everyday situations and people from the band's environment; Only Goodbye Toulouse with reference to prophecies by Nostradamus and Ugly with reference to a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley fall out of this context . The recording and production of the album by Martin Rushent took only a week. The list of tracks corresponded to the band's live set at the time. About half of the follow-up album No More Heroes was co-produced as part of the recording . The first 10,000 copies of Rattus Norvegicus came with a free single with the songs Peasant in the Big Shitty (live) and Choosey Susie . The song Peaches had to be re-recorded for British radio stations because of numerous sexual innuendos with an alternative text. In 2001 the album was re-released on CD, which contained the two tracks of the free single and Go Buddy Go as bonus tracks.
reception
The album stayed in the UK charts for 34 weeks and reached position 4. This makes it the third most successful Stranglers album; the two successors No More Heroes and Black and White reached position 2. The single releases Grip and Peaches reached positions 44 and 8 in the singles charts.
Allmusic's David Cleary described the album as "solid and worthwhile" and gave it four out of five stars. He described the music as "reduced pop with a hardcore feeling; fairly long songs with frequent solos, dominant keyboard and (...) bared vocals".
The single Peaches was used by Adidas for a commercial in 2002 and was featured on the soundtrack of the computer game Driver: Parallel Lines in 2006 and on the soundtrack of the action thriller Killer Elite in 2011 .
Web links
- Rattus Norvegicus on Allmusic (English)
- Lyrics of Rattus Norvegicus in LyricWiki
- Official website of the Stranglers
Individual evidence
- ↑ David Buckley, No Mercy, Hodder & Stoughton 1997, p. 75
- ↑ The Burning Up Times # 3, May 2008, p. 3, available online ( memento of the original from January 29, 2011 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Rattus Norvegicus on Chartarchive.org
- ↑ Review on Allmusic.com
