Twelve consecutive Stranglers albums carry the same four names, and that is the fact I put in front of anyone weighing up a gift for Stranglers fans. There is the 1977 to 1990 run with Hugh Cornwell, and there is everything after it. My Stranglers Discography Map art print shows both on one sheet, so you can see exactly where the join is.
I built the map from an album by album credit grid I keep for every artist I draw: twenty releases, every credited musician, one row each. What follows only turned up once I had the whole grid in front of me.
The Stranglers Discography Tube Map Art Print
One of the longest runs I have mapped, with the twelve-album Cornwell block and the eight records that follow it laid out on the same sheet.
Explore This Art PrintTwelve Albums With the Same Four Names, Then Hugh Cornwell's Line Stops at 10
Hugh Cornwell, Jean-Jacques Burnel, Dave Greenfield and Jet Black are credited together on twelve consecutive releases, from Rattus Norvegicus in 1977 to 10 in 1990. That is an unusually long unbroken run for a band that started in the punk years. Very few of their 1977 contemporaries managed half of it.
Then Cornwell's line simply stops. He is on twelve of the twenty albums on the map and appears on none of the eight that follow. On the print that is the single most visible event in the whole design, and it is the detail that sells the map to anyone who was buying the records at the time.
There is a quieter run inside that block too. On Live (X Cert) (1979), The Raven (1979), The Gospel According to the Meninblack (1981) and La Folie (1981), the credits list four musicians and nobody else at all. From Feline in 1983 onwards it never happens again.
It Took Two Men to Replace One on Stranglers in the Night
Cornwell sang and played guitar. When he went, both jobs went with him, and the credits for Stranglers in the Night (1992) show two new names arriving at once: John Ellis on guitar and vocals, and Paul Roberts on vocals. One line becomes two.
Neither line lasts. Ellis is credited on four albums, from 1992 to Coup de Grace (1998), where his credit narrows to guitar and production. Roberts runs longer, six albums to Suite XVI (2006), but by that record he is down to percussion on track five and nothing else.
Baz Warne arrives on Norfolk Coast (2004) on guitar and vocals, overlaps with Roberts for two albums, and from Giants (2012) is the only one left. By Dark Matters (2021) he is singing lead on tracks two to seven and nine. The two lines fold back into one, thirty-one years after Cornwell's stopped.
Simon Morton Is the Only Outside Musician on Both Sides of the 1990 Break
This took a second pass to spot. Every guest, horn player and session name sits entirely before the split or entirely after it, with one exception. Simon Morton is credited with additional percussion on Dreamtime (1986), congas on track one of 10 (1990), and additional percussion again on Stranglers in the Night (1992).
So the only person outside Burnel, Greenfield and Black who plays on both the last Cornwell album and the first one without him is a percussionist most fans could not name. If you are buying for someone who thinks they know everything about this band, that is the fact to point at.
Dave Greenfield Is on All Twenty Albums, and Only One Has a Second Keyboard Credit
Greenfield and Burnel are the only two musicians credited on all twenty releases, 1977 to 2021. Greenfield's keyboards are the sound that makes The Stranglers identifiable in about two seconds, and across forty-four years of credits nobody else is listed playing keys on their albums until the very last one.
The exception is Dark Matters (2021), where Louie Nicastro is credited with additional keyboards alongside Greenfield. Greenfield died in 2020 and the album was released the following year with his parts on it. His line runs the full width of the print and then ends.
Jet Black's drums run nineteen of the twenty, from Rattus Norvegicus in 1977 to Giants in 2012. He is absent only from Dark Matters, where Jim Macaulay takes drums, percussion and backing vocals. Black died in 2022.
One Album Only: The Guests Who Turn Up Once in Forty-Four Years
The single-appearance names are my favourite part of any credit grid, and this one spreads them across the whole timeline. The jazz singer George Melly turning up on a punk record in 1978 is one of the odder credits I have transcribed.
| Musician | Credit | Album | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eric Clarke | Guest tenor saxophone, track 7 | Rattus Norvegicus | 1977 |
| George Melly | Vocals on "Old Codger" | Black and White | 1978 |
| Lora Logic | Saxophone on "Hey!" | Black and White | 1978 |
| B.J. Cole | Pedal steel guitar | Dreamtime | 1986 |
| Nigel Kennedy | Violin on track 3 | About Time | 1995 |
| Jon Sevink | Violin solo on track 10 | Norfolk Coast | 2004 |
| Matthew Bourne-Jones | Trumpet on track 4 | Dark Matters | 2021 |
For a casual fan that table is the gift in miniature. Most people know a couple of those names and have no idea they are on a Stranglers record.
About Time Has the Biggest Roster of the Twenty, and Aural Sculpture the Loudest
About Time (1995) carries thirteen credited musicians, more than any other album on the map. Five of them are strings: Gavyn Wright, Wilfred Gibson, Bob Smissen, Caroline Dale and Nigel Kennedy, plus Chris Winter on harmonica and Susie Elliott on vocals. That is a long way from four blokes and a Hammond organ.
Aural Sculpture (1984) is the other bulge, at eleven. Paul Nieman on trombone, Paul Spong on trumpet and Tim Whitehead on saxophone all play the same three tracks, "Ice Queen", "Punch and Judy" and "Mad Hatter", with Carmen Franco singing on "Spain".
Alex Christaki Arranged the Strings and Still Does Not Earn a Line
My rule is simple and I apply it to every map: you get a line if you played something. Production alone does not count, which matters here because The Stranglers produce themselves for most of their career. On Giants (2012) all four members are credited with production, and all four keep their lines only because all four also played.
The clean test case is Alex Christaki on About Time, credited with the string arrangement on tracks three, four and six. He shaped how those tracks sound, but the credits do not have him playing a note, so he stays off the map while Wright, Gibson, Smissen and Dale, who played the parts he wrote, go on it.
Choosing a Gift for Stranglers Fans: A1 for the Full Run, A2 for the Singles
If the person you are buying for is a 1977 to 1990 obsessive, go A1 (594 x 841mm). At that size the twelve-album Cornwell block and the eight albums after it are both readable across a room, and the single-appearance guests in the table above stay legible rather than turning into decoration.
For a casual fan who owns the hits collection and knows "Golden Brown", A2 (420 x 594mm) does the job. Prints start from £42, and both sizes come unframed or in a black wood frame if you want it ready to hang.
For a milestone birthday I would pick A1 framed, particularly for someone who bought No More Heroes new. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm textured matte fine art paper, archival and acid-free.
The Three Emails I Get Most About This One
Does the map cover the albums after Hugh Cornwell left?
Yes, all of them, through to Dark Matters in 2021. That is deliberate. Cutting the map off at 1990 would hide the most interesting thing about the band, which is that the other three kept going for another thirty-one years.
Are the live albums included?
Yes. Live (X Cert) (1979) and All Live and All of the Night (1988) are both on there, and both carry credits worth having. The 1988 live album is one of only three releases with Alex Gifford's saxophone on it, alongside Dreamtime and 10.
Is Dave Greenfield credited on the final album?
He is. Dark Matters lists him on keyboards and backing vocals, and his line on the map runs from 1977 all the way to that record without a gap.
Buying for Someone Who Was There in 1977
The Stranglers Discography Map art print is the one to start with. If you are buying for someone who bought all of these records at the time, the John Lydon Sex Pistols and PiL map and the Blondie discography map cover the same 1977 moment from two other angles.
For the fan who went further into the awkward end of British music, the Fall discography map has an even more brutal line-up chart behind it. The rest of the range is in the Music Wall Art Prints collection.
