Folie (Dig) [Extra tracks, Original recording remastered]

Stranglers | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 21, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Label: Caroline
• ASIN: B00005MAGC
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,349 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Isolationist, misanthropic, and cantankerous, punk survivors the Stranglers were never a band known for ostentatious displays of affection, at least not to music journalists. However, 1981's conceptual La Folie (roughly translated as "madness") has become known in band circles as the Stranglers "love" album. Typically, these were no ordinary chansons d'amour. Songs of faith, familial strife, devotion, and dependency--spanning religion, celebrity obsession, lust, death, and drugs--the nearest the album got to being superficially palatable was on the gorgeous, harpsichord-strewn "Golden Brown," ex-jail-bird Hugh Cornwell's paean to the seduction of heroin. And then there was the chilled-out title-track, six sultry minutes of J.J. Burnel reciting--entirely in French--the true story of a Paris-based student who murdered and ate his girlfriend.

The Raven aside, La Folie found the Stranglers at their most instrumentally dexterous and melodically inventive: witness Burnel's nomadic bass lines, the discordant Four Freshmen harmonies on "It Only Takes Two to Tango," Cornwell's barb at the commercialized martyrdom of deceased pop stars on the waspish "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead." There are some great should-have-been singles too, like "Non Stop" with its cheesy organ licks, and the perky, salacious synth-pop of "Pin Up." Even the bonus tracks are excellent--"Strange Little Girl" (a Top 10 hit and a song covered by Tori Amos) and its even better B-side, the Hot Club de Paris pastiche "Cruel Garden." La Folie is easily the most underrated album from Britain's most underrated band. --Kevin Maidment

Product Description

UK repackaged reissue of 1981 album, includes new artwork with extensive sleeve notes & previously unseen photos. 17 tracks including six bonus tracks, 'Cruel Garden', 'Cocktail Nubiles', 'Vietnamerica', 'Love 30', 'You Hold The Key To My Love In Your Hands' & 'Strange Little Girl'.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DAZZLING combination of sound sculpture and intelligent poetic lyrics, November 20, 2007

By 

D. Garcia "cordedpoodle" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Folie (Dig) (Audio CD)

OH YEAH. I have this one on vinyl too. Haven't listened in years. But just ordered it and put the headphones on.

WOW!

What a treat! I remember their other records as great. But this one seemed kind of too pop, you know, with "Golden Brown." Boy was I wrong.

On second listen now I know why they called the next one Aural Sculpture. The sound here really IS sculpture. This is SOUND on the RAZOR's EDGE. All these guys have intelligence to spare, and one wonders if it was Hugh or all of them but whatever it was... it sure clicked. Especially the original cuts. The extras are OK and historically instructing, but the first 7 are amazing examples of how simple rock forms can become works of the best kind of intelligent art sound.

The choices of timbre, harmony, mix and structure are unexpected, impeccable and swing like mad. There are no fillers and no clichés. All instruments are used sparely to create one coherent sound. All are excellent. I can think of no better bass player and I own thousands of records. The sound he gets is incredible, vicious even. Usually the bass is a supporting instrument, but here its part of the whole contributing to the shape of the sound. The others are just as good. I was never impressed by Hugh's guitar, but now I'm smarter and I hear just how carefully considered Hugh's timbres are. He and Dave simultaneously contrast and complement each other as each player weaves the net.

The lyrics are a little difficult to make out but they are interesting too. No clichés here either. No clear cut meanings but definitely wry comments on philosophy and modern life.

Strong 5 stars from a band inexplicably less famous than most of the standardized punk bands. Unfair of course but that seems to be the way. Challenging listening, not for the background. My only lament is there are not more of these to buy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag, March 11, 2002

By 

"skak1" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Folie (Audio CD)

This album enjoyed some commercial success due to the presence of Golden Brown (ironically a pro-Drugs after the anti-drugs message of 'Don't bring Harry'- Hugh Cornwell had recently served time for possession of heroin). Musically the song Golden Brown was actually based on a tune rejected from their previous album 'The Meninblack'. 'La Folie' was another concept album based around the cynical notion that the only love possible is the love of oneself. 'Let me introduce you to the family' was about the mafia, 'Everyone loves you when you're dead' made a tasteless dig at John Lennon who had recently been assassinated. The Stranglers were always keen to shock and probably caused massive distress at their record company by insisting that the follow-up single to Golden Brown should be the slow paced but beautiful La Folie, sung entirely in French and dealing with the subject of a Japanese student in Paris who ate his girlfriend but was not imprisoned because his father was a diplomat (the theme was later stolen by the Rolling Stones for 'Too much blood'). Needless to say the single flopped. My own favorite on here is 'The man they love to hate'. But alongside the excellent songs there are also some fillers ('it only takes 2', 'how to find', 'ain't nothing to it'). A mixed bag.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The home of the shadows of the night, December 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Folie (Audio CD)

'La Folie' is 'the madness'. This is an album loosely based on the concept of love as madness: love of drugs; love of God; love of the family; love of money. Even cannibalism makes an appearance!

This showcases the Stranglers at their creative peak. If you haven't heard 'Golden Brown', I envy you - I wish I was hearing it for the first time. The sweetest song ever written about smack.

Other standouts for me are 'Tramp' 'Pin up' 'Non Stop' and the spoken French title track. Classic Stranglers - melancholy, maverick; world-weary and weird.

This CD reissue is marred only by the inclusion of 'Cruel Garden' a later b-side, which although a nice song, sits incongruously with the rest of the collection. But hey! You wouldn't expect a record company to understand great art...