La Folie is an album by The Stranglers

The Stranglers

The Stranglers are an English punk/rock music group.Scoring some 23 UK top 40 singles and 17 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are the longest-surviving and most "continuously successful" band to have originated in the UK punk scene of the mid to late 1970s...

, recorded and released in 1981.

The Stranglers had initially been the most commercially successful band of the punk/new-wave period in Britain, but by 1981, their success had waned noticeably. The La Folie album was a conscious attempt to deliver a more commercial product. The band's record company, EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

, sent them into the studio with famous producer Tony Visconti

Tony Visconti

Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers; his lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti...

, giving him a brief to "produce each song as if it was a hit single".

The album’s French language title "La Folie" literally translates into English as "Madness". In various interviews, the band related that this referred to "The Madness of Love" and that conceptually, each of the songs on the album was intended to explore a different kind or aspect of "love". The title track is also said to be based upon the story of Issei Sagawa

Issei Sagawa

is a Japanese man who in 1981 murdered and cannibalized a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt. After his release, he became a minor celebrity in Japan and made a living through the public's interest in his crime.-Early life:...

.

The track "Golden Brown

Golden Brown

"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band The Stranglers. It was released as a 7" single in December 1981 in the US and in January 1982 in the UK, on Liberty...

" gave the band the renewed commercial success they were seeking; released as a single, it reached No. 2 in the UK chart in January 1982, and went on to become EMI's highest selling single for many years. Many buyers were seemingly unaware of the meaning of the lyrics, which contain metaphorical references to heroin. This may have been further confused by different band members claiming that the song was about desertification

Desertification

Desertification is the degradation of land in drylands. Caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities, desertification is one of the most significant global environmental problems.-Definitions:...

, imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

 and as said in an interview, "toast".

Other singles from the album were: "Let Me Introduce You To The Family" (No. 42 in November 1981) and the title-track, "La Folie", which reached No. 47 in April 1982.
Upon release "La Folie" looked set to be the band's lowest charting album, but, bouyed by the success of "Golden Brown", the album eventually peaked at no.11 in the UK album chart, and spent 18 weeks on the chart.

Hugh Cornwell related in The Stranglers – Song by Song that the correct title of the album's opening track was in fact "Non Stop Nun", and he apparently had been unaware that the record company had printed it as simply "Non Stop".

Track listing

1. "Non Stop" - 2:29
2. "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead" - 2:41
3. "Tramp" - 3:04
4. "Let Me Introduce You to the Family" - 3:07
5. "Ain't Nothin' to It" - 3:56
6. "The Man They Love to Hate" - 4:22
7. "Pin Up" - 2:46
8. "It Only Takes Two to Tango" - 3:37
9. "Golden Brown
   Golden Brown
   "Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band The Stranglers. It was released as a 7" single in December 1981 in the US and in January 1982 in the UK, on Liberty...
   
   " - 3:28
10. "How to Find True Love and Happiness in the Present Day" - 3:04
11. "La Folie" - 6:04

CD Bonus Tracks

1987 CD:

1. Cruel Garden

2001 CD:

1. Cruel Garden
2. Cocktail Nubiles
3. Vietnamerica
4. Love 30
5. You Hold the Key to My Love in Your Hands
6. Strange Little Girl