The Cult - Love
I think Love is one of the best albums ever released in the 80s and sadly one of the most overlooked.
It's strange to look out how things develop over time. Back in the late 80s The Cult were virtually unique in that they had enough post punk / goth background to appeal to your average NME / Melody Maker indie kid AND at the same time enough chunky riffs & rock god posing to appeal to your average Kerrang reader. The only other two bands I can think of who had this cross appeal around that time were Nirvana & the Manic Street Preachers , and even then they came a few years later.
And yet if you look at them now both sets of fans have virtually disowned the band. Rock & Metal got more extreme over time , a typical 80s metal fan could probably find something to like about The Cult , something that would be inconceivable in 2008. And of course give a Cult album to and indie fan in 2008 and they'll probably be put off by the AC/DC like riffs and just dismiss it as hair metal. Funny to think that what initially was a plus point came back to haunt them in the end.
Regardless of what other people think The Cult were the first band I ever made a concious decision to fly over to London and see live. In fact I remember when ordered the tickets I didn't even bother asking my boss for the weekend off , I just told her I was going
I still listen to this album a lot. It was recorded just around the time that they were just about to ditch the goth stuff and develop a more 'rock' sound (I.E. Copy AC/DC) so in other words it's a bit like a goth album but a goth album by someone in tight trousers who'd f
uck anything in a skirt as opposed to being miserable & arty and hang around in boring black & white music videos.
It's just a shame after this album they decided to jump on every musical bandwagon going (See The Cult go industrial around 1991 and the less said about the self titled 'grunge' album the better) and Ian Astbury's Jim Morrison fixation got more & more ridiculous to the point they just became a parody of themselves is just sad really. But no matter how much s
hit they try & taint this album with none of it sticks , I just love this record too much.
Oh and that wah-wah pedal ..... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
