13. Hugh CornwellHooverdam
Hugh Cornwell was the guitarist and vocalist in The Stranglers. You could be forgiven for thinking, "What the fuck and who the fuck is this?", but with a bit of history it makes sense. I always argued with myself about who my favourite strangler was, see. Unfortunately this is the only Hugh Cornwell solo album I’ve loved since his first in 1979. He left The Stranglers and never went back, fair enough; he was my favourite songwriter but never made a decent solo album again. I read this solo album recaptured the spirit of The Stranglers quite satisfactorily, from the viewpoint of some old Stranglers fan. I thought, "Hey I’m an old Stranglers fan" so I thought I’d try it with the luxury of Rdio to hear it without spending 13 quid, or without being a bastard and downloading for free, and I was stunned. It’s a fantastic Hugh Cornwell album. Great sense of melody, captures the spirit of early Stranglers, mixed with contemporary pop punk sentiment, which is fantastic for a 63-year-old. He sounds very youthful and the band is brilliant, they’re about half his age I think. I’ve been listening a lot in the last few weeks because I was utterly jubilant he made a good record again, given that The Stranglers were part of my youth, another band I couldn’t be here without, they were everything for me. Godflesh wouldn’t have that bass sound without The Stranglers, absolutely, 100%.
After the first three songs, I thought, "Here comes skip time. Will we skip three or four here?" Well, I skipped one and I didn’t even hate it, it just didn’t really arrive anywhere quick enough. You know our attention spans these days; I’m just like a 15-year-old with an iPhone, two seconds, and fuck off, you know.
