Does the Spill still do AOTWs? Ok then, do we do proper rock albums? (be nice, you hecklers in the front).
1985. MTV Launched stateside in 1984. The US was flooded with pretty Britpoppers making pretty Britsongs. A quick gander at the top tunes of the year shows the charts populated with the likes of AHA, Simple Minds, Wham, Duran Duran, Paul Young, Thompson Twins, Sting, etc. Meanwhile rocks offerings were neutered down to the likes of Starship, REO Speedwagon, Bryan Adams, and Foreigner. (Thank fuck for Prince and the Smiths).
A somewhat recent (ok, so it’s been 2 years by now) university grad sits catatonically in front of MTV. Somewhere in between drooling over Power Station and AHA videos, the strains of a Within You Without You-ish guitar intro leads into another band setup that’s very pretty indeed. The lead singer looks like he wandered into the video from the Summer of Love. Guitarist switched at birth with Dolph Lundgren. But wait a minute…that sounds like proper hard rock! And it’s so pretty! Sweet balm indeed to RTJ’s poor rock starved ears.
What a blast of badly needed fresh air She Sells Sanctuary was. No fluke either – the follow up single Rain proved that it wasn’t a one-off. I never actually owned this album back in the day, (i had just unloaded my vinyl collection in anticipation of a move to NYC), so i’ve picked it up piecemeal song by song. So I’ll quote some Amazon reviews that sum it up better than i can.
When this 1985 opus was produced, it was lightyears ahead of its time and still stands true to any test in the new century. The fact of the matter is, just about every rock interest has tried to lay claim to this album and this band. Alt rockers claim it, metal heads claim it, goths claim it. It’s all testiment to the fact that no one has ever been able to pin down the Cult to any label and Love demonstrates that better than anything.
one of the greatest and most unique rock albums of the 1980s. Combining melodic hard rock with gothic and punk overtones, Love presents The Cult at their creative peak.
I need to have a quick word about the guitars. Ian Astbury’s vocals were rightly lauded, but Billy Duffy’s guitar work seems to be damned with faint praise. I’m not having it. Duffy co-wrote all of the songs with Astbury, and it’s his ability to combine melody with the driving rock chops that bail out even the most tiresome of the Cult’s songs and make them listenable. Respect.
The Cult has gone through more than a few breakups and re-inventions since Love, most notably as a (proper! imho, but others beg to differ) metal band. But Love was something special. Obviously the Cult realized it as well – they launched the Love Live tour in 2009 to play the full album live. So without further ado -
Now wouldn’t i just Love to see that. First three songs – Nirvana, Big Neon Glitter, and Love – are guitar driven scorchers. To these ears, power ballads aren’t the Cult’s strong suit, so i’d take a cigarette break for Brother Wolf, Sister Moon. But i’d be sure to get back to my seat in time for Rain, psychedelic barnstormer Phoenix, and then Hollow Man. Revolution is a bit of MOR meh, but i’d sit through it so as not to miss She Sells Sanctuary. I’d stay for the Black Angel finale, but only to be polite, and hope for a surprise encore.
I’ll finish off with a clip of Sanctuary performed in 1999. A decade before the Love Live tour, 14 years after Love. Definitely sounding more metallic than 80′s live performances, and all the better for it to me. Enjoy.
Special thanks due to Mr. Maki here. This is my first music player post, and your manual instructions couldn’t have been easier to follow. Kudos.
Great to see AOTM resurrected yet again.
Billy’s 1st band was The Nosebleeds with a certain Steven Patrick Morrissey – wonder what happened to him? 1st saw Billy with Slaughter & The Dogs & many, many times with Theatre Of Hate. Saw The Cult again last year: Ian was a little fat, grumpy & hoarse, but Billy is as good or better than ever.
Ha, didn’t know that about Billy and Morrissey. Sad to hear that Ian’s voice is on the downslide, happens to the best of them i guess. Going to be a sad day when Morrissey’s voice bites it (if it hasn’t already). Glad to hear that there’s more love for Billy out there. Luckt you that you got to see them in your neck of the woods.
Oh I’m there, Amy, I’m there!!
Doing the “make-some-space-on-the-dancefloor-by-leading-with-your-pointy-bits * ” dance in sweaty, black-painted, underground student nightclubs; fuelled by several pints of purple nasty; and with your vindaloo money in a different pocket, so that you don’t get caught financially short at the cash-only curry house later.
* that’s elbows, fingers, knees and clogs/DMs of course.
What did you think I meant?
Aah, memories … Resurrection Joe, White Wedding, Fiesta, Destination Zululand, When Doves Cry, Liberator, Thieves Like Us, Love & Pride, 68 Guns … SIGH!
Ah, i was hoping to flush you out among the few proudly self-outed rock fans on here!
And I do love Billy Idol!
btw, for any relative newcomers to the blog – AOTW is Album of the Week. Just in case you’re moved to do your own post. Maki has a “how to” under the “Manual” tab above. You can search the Spill for previous posts by typing “AOTW” into the search bar.
I love Love. From the beginning to the end, the Jim Morrison posturing, the simplistic but somehow glittery lyrics, the guitar, the hair (the photo on the inside of the record cover was much appreciated), it was all good. Even though my brother compared it unfavourably with proper rock, I defended it vigorously.
Over time, it has endured, although I find myself craving Dreamtime or Death Cult’s Ghost dance more often than this one, it’s reassuringly good and I’ve worn out 2 CDs.
I hoped they’d go in a different direction to that which they did, but I still eagerly watch what they’re up to and recommend the video collection with Ian and Billy’s bemused links if you want to marvel at the hair and silly trousers.
But Amy, you don’t like Brother Wolf, Sister Moon? Ian will send his spirit guide to chide you for that!
Glittery lyrics, and glittery guitar too! No (hangs head), i’m not that big on BWSM. I would never say so on Amazon though, i’d get flamed bigtime. That video collection sounds awesome.
I was kind of surprised that Shoey said that Ian was grumpy, from all reports i’ve seen, he seemed to be one of the genuinely nicer rock stars out there.
He started grumbling about the stage being made of concrete. He may have a point, Most of the new ones are & not so easy to rock out on (especially if your knees are going & you’ve packed on a few pounds). We did try to point out he was at the Hard Rock, but that didn’t seem to help.
Doesn’t explain why he dressed for an artic expedition in sunny Florida though. Rock stars, eh?
From Ian’s Wikipedia page-
He lives in Los Angeles and plays on the soccer team Hollywood United with Billy Duffy and Steve Jones of “The Sex Pistols” and is a supporter of English Premier League club Everton FC.
Maybe he needs to get out of the woods and off the peyote and onto the pitch again.
The DVD is called Pure Cult,
link here
it is jolly entertaining, Ian seems more confused than angry, he certainly swears a lot onstage, perhaps the extra pounds are the answer to that one.
A friend saw the Cult in Newcastle in February and said Ian was looked very cool, but at other gigs he’s turned up in some questionable styles, rock stars, as you say
looking forward to listening to this Amy.
I only know She Sells Sanctuary, but I saw them supporting Guns’N'Roses in 1993 (Milton Keynes Bowl) and I remember them being rather excellent.
(“Album Of The Whenever” surely?!)
Album of the Whatever is definitely more appropriate these days.
A few of the songs in that list don’t seem to be playing for me. I’ve tried to reupload them they but still don’t work for me, can’t figure out what’s going wrong. When i put the song url in the browser and they play just fine that way. Let me know if they’re not playing for you.
Jealous that you got to see GnR too!
saw G’N'R in 1992 at Wembley with Faith No More and Soundgarden and again in 1993 with The Cult, Soul Asylum and Blind Melon….great gigs, but the Wembley one was something special.
The player is indeed acting up, a couple of tracks didn’t play so I ended up downloading ‘em from the Posts feed and putting them into my iTunes, track 2 didn’t show up as an MP3, so I added the .mp3 tag myself. Also, SSS, breaks off into some funny talking at the end!!
Really enjoyed the whole thing though, mostly new to me and it works as a whole album really well. nice choice for AOTW!
Here’s a clip from their later metal incarnation. They’re a pretty good as metal band i think, but may seem a bit tame compared to some of your usual metal playlist. (Ian is wearing one of those questionable outfits Beth was talking about, maybe he ditched the Native American thing and went Buddhist). But the drummer here, and on that album “Beyond Good and Evil” is Matt Sorum, of late GnR and later with Velvet Revolver.
Hi Amy
Good choice. I remember seeing The Southern Death Cult at a disco in Exeter in 1981 or 1982. A great gig. I stubbornly preferred this incarnation for years before giving the Cult a chance. I now like them a lot. Thanks for posting this as it’s brought back a lot of very good memories.
Glad you found the manual useful. I wrote the instructions – it’s true – but I think others (especially GF who struggled with and helped me to improve the original version ) should also receive thanks for the tweeks and rewriting that helped make it all a lot clearer.
Then my thanks is extended to all and sundry for the manual tweaks too! I still can’t figure out why i can’t get some of the songs to play in the player though. But at least they do play via the urls.
I’m going to have to check out the Southern Death Cult, and the other bands and earlier incarnations that Beth and Shoey mentioned. They showed up stateside here as just the Cult, so i missed all of the past history that those of you in the UK knew originally.
Amy
If you want to mail me the code you have used for the players, I’ll have a look and see if I can spot why a few of the tracks aren’t playing.
Cheers
It won’t take you long to check out the earlier incarnations, Amy, there’s only one (non live) album for each and they are both compilations. At the time they were predicted to do great things, I think a sizeable portion their original fanbase were disappointed and surprised with the personnel change and main stream direction they took, but I don’t think it turned out so badly.
Thanks for posting this, I’ve enjoyed the excuse to listen to it again.
Glad you enjoyed. I’m kind of glad for the excuse to listen as well, it’s springtime and all i want to listen to is rock. Thanks to all.
(Just a bit bummed that Ian is fat now).
Well done for resurrecting AOTW, Amy. I always rather liked “She Sells Sanctuary” back in the day but found any other Cult tracks I heard to be pale imitations of it. You know, same-same but minus the killer tune.
Not sure I’m convinced otherwise by what I’ve heard of this album so far (though track 2 won’t play for me either) – nice enough sound but all a bit samey. Ooh no, hang on – have hit power ballad territory now. That’s a bit different. But a bit ponderous. Ah yes, “Rain” – I remember this one. Like it. Not as much as “She Sells Sanctuary” though. But that just might be because the latter has a better name. I shall persevere…
Ooh, SSS goes COMPLETELY BONKERS about 2:23 in… Some sort of mash-up of a kids TV theme and stoner chat. Me likee. Not sure it was what The Cult intended though.
hmm, it’s not even playing for me. It’s a reuploaded version as the original didn’t work (that’ll teach me to rip tunes from youtube.) I do know what you mean about the saminess of it though. I don’t mind because I love the sound, but you’re right there.
Follow related links to this one Amy and you’ll have access to, as beth says, SDC’s rather sparse discography
Ooh, awesome, thanks! I just got your email too. I’m off to the grocery before MFF time, and i’ll email you the code. And take your time the too, obviously other things are going on tonight too. Just wondering what i missed because i fiddled last night and still couldn’t figure it.
Will listen to the vid when i get back before MFF. Thanks!
Ah, i remember it well – hearing Rain (no more than a minute of it) on Roundtable on Radio1 on a Friday night and having to wait for almost a week before i laid my hands on the 12″ vinyl. Ran home from the my local record shop (Kestrel Records in Abergavenny) with it in a brown paper bag as they’d run out of carriers.
MrsEngine is currently watching some shit reality show from the US at the moment on rock star wives and horribly, Billy Duffy is one of the stars (along with Steve Stevens, Duff McKagen and Perry Farrell) and he looks excrutiatingly embarrassed by the entire thing.
On the Billy Duffy/Morrissey link – i also recall hearing that Billy was the one who gave Johnny Marr his first guitar lessons … can anyone else back me up on this?
On the subject of Love, loved it, fell out of love with it and now look back at it with huge warmth and affection. Derided in the music press at the time – i remember this and Strength by the Alarm being reviewed in the same Sounds/NME/Melody maker and having the most scathing reviews i think i’d ever read at that time.
Hi there, thanks for stopping by! And now you have me intrigued about that shit reality show from the US (I’m American). That sounds worth digging around for a looksee, at least once anyway. (No doubt i’d have to shower afterwards though).
@Amylee
Hi There, its called Married To Rock. Bizzarely interesting to see Perry Farrell’s suburban homelife bearing in mind his bacchanalian past. All the couple are married apart from Billy Duffy and his girlfriend, but she’s desparate to tie the knot and he’s not interested, but seems under pressure from everyone else to do it. Think it might be on E! If you love the Cult its great to see Billy, but a little painful too. One of the funniest things is that the makers can’t get past his Mancunian accent (not that its particularly strong) and he ends up being subtitled half the time (???).