Duchess and Tolerate

[Blue Cat]

Duchess sounds NOTHING like tolerate. And it really is a truly awful song. and this:

Originally Posted by strongerthanmensa

as for "ahhhs" in the songs being similar, no not at all, they're just both "ahhhs", which sound different.

is true. Its just an ahh. Not even the same tune really. its as similar as the other hundreds of thousands of songs are that have an "ahhh" in them at some point.

[The Gutless Wonder]

I remember some of the letters on Teletext many moons ago when this was first raised saying about the Manics 'ripping off' The Stranglers. It sounds to me, not having heard Duchess yet, that it's just the vocal that is deemed as being similar which is hardly ripping off the other song!

[Industrial Symphony No.1]

The bits that sound similar to me are the "And the Rodneys are queuing up" and the "And if you tolerate this..." bits. And the endings are similar too.

[bb20850]

The Stranglers are fine, i've never noticed this before, time for a comparison methinks.

[The Gutless Wonder]

Sorry for dragging this back up again but just listened to Duchess for the first time and apart from vocalisations that would have to be slowed down to fit in with Tolerate anyway I hear no similarities at all and think it's shocking that the Manics had to cough up $30,000 (Is that correct!?!) because of it. When NME raised that thing about the riff of James' remix of that Regular Fries track sounding similar to the Have I Got News For You riff the bloke who wrote that just laughed and surely that's what The Stranglers should have done! What a bunch of morons!

[theraven1979]

The Stranglers were totally fine with it - if there were any legal proceedings it would be the record company not The Stranglers.

Originally Posted by The Gutless Wonder

Sorry for dragging this back up again but just listened to Duchess for the first time and apart from vocalisations that would have to be slowed down to fit in with Tolerate anyway I hear no similarities at all and think it's shocking that the Manics had to cough up $30,000 (Is that correct!?!) because of it. When NME raised that thing about the riff of James' remix of that Regular Fries track sounding similar to the Have I Got News For You riff the bloke who wrote that just laughed and surely that's what The Stranglers should have done! What a bunch of morons!

[The Gutless Wonder]

If I was in The Stranglers I'd find out who made that decision and kick off about it.

[theraven1979]

What's the point? Do you know Duchess came out 30 years ago?

[The Gutless Wonder]

Why sue a band 30 years later for having oh-so-slighty similar vocalisations then? Whats the point in that I wanna know!

[theraven1979]

Good point - usually record companies don't want to grab money

Originally Posted by The Gutless Wonder

Why sue a band 30 years later for having oh-so-slighty similar vocalisations then? Whats the point in that I wanna know!

[The Gutless Wonder]

The thieving scallywags! Better watch out for that lawsuit from Queen for the use of 'Nah-nah-nahs!' on Winterlovers! (Think it's Queen I'm thinking of anyway!)

[Irradiata]

Originally Posted by strongerthanmensa

Really dont sound similar at all, any similarity is very very tenuous, I'm genuinely surprised that anything was ever made of it. What do other people think?

Duchess has some chords at the beginning and the choruses are vaguely and tenuously similar, but nothing like "My Sweet Lord"/"He's So Fine".

I own the Stranglers greatest hits, but never liked this song. "Golden Brown"'s not bad.


Didn't the idiot lead singer of the Stranglers quit the group for an acting career that didn't pan out?

[theraven1979]

He quit in 1990 to go off and do his own thing - still touring today www.hughcornwell.com - His last album was released as a free download. www.hooverdamdownload.com

[Irradiata]

Thanks for the info.

Was his solo stuff any good?

"Skin Deep" was a great song, too.

[theraven1979]

His solo stuff gets better and better - When he left the Stranglers he became a bit shy of his guitar but he's back into it. He's great live as well - playing his solo stuff and Stranglers stuff - often throwing in inventive guitar solos where keyboards once were. I prefer to see him solo rather than current day Stranglers.

Download www.hooverdamdownload.com (it's free) and see what you think Liam Watson produced it so it's got a very live vibe about it.

Originally Posted by Irradiata

Thanks for the info.

Was his solo stuff any good?

"Skin Deep" was a great song, too.