Your favorite album by The Cult?

I wasn't reading about common knowledge; I was reading critical reviews.

I don't follow them like gospel, but I do consider them.

 

It's an opinion. Don't let it ruin your day.

 

Sonic Temple is the only one I love. I love songs from other releases, but not full albums. On the whole, I think they have been quite disappointing post-Sonic Temple.

 

I have the all sets, and though I am not where I can view them now, there is a lot of repetition. Probably at least 80%, if not more. One other differences being that the material on the Rare Cult box is all remastered for the time it was issued (they remastered all the individusl albums around the same time, too), where as the Singles Collection and Ceremony Collection are all original remastering.

 

I have the Rare Cult w/bonus CD, the Best Of Rare Cult single CD compilation and the Demos box and pretty much agree with your assessment. The Rare Cult box is essential listening if you're a fan of the band.

The Demos box has some pretty rough, early stage demos and a fair number of in-studio jams from sessions for the Peace/Electric, Sonic Temple and Ceremony albums in somewhat chronological order (1986 - 1991) grouped by session date. Some of the demos are basically mid-tempo jams with no vocals, a few done to click tracks that really don't hold up to repeated listens. I'm not saying it's worthless and for the most part, the sound is perfectly fine - it's not some crappy bootleg quality compilation but this box is really for the hardcore (and now deep pocket) fan of the band.

There is an interview from about 10+ years ago where the subject of both box sets was brought up and Ian Astbury said the Demos box was done without the band's prior knowledge or permission by Beggars Banquet and he rightfully called it "scrapping the bottom of the barrel."

 

I would add that the Peace/Electric LP vinyl release from a couple years back sounds pretty lousy compared to the original US or UK first pressing (of Electric) or the original 12" "Peace" single b-sides and at least my copy ranks pretty low as far as pressing quality of any newly released album I've bought the past 5 years. Very dirty, noisy and slight warps on both LPs.

 

Sure, it can be viewed as a misfire from individual perception, but the band knew exactly what they wanted to do at the time. They were looking for a bigger, crossover type sound, and specifically enlisted Bob Rock to get it. It should also be pointed out that following the success of Sonic Temple, many big name rock bands started enlisting him as a producer, because they wanted that similar sound.

Personally, I've enjoyed the band through all of their musical evolutions, and never saw any of them as a misstep. I loved Sonic Temple when it came out, although it's not the album I cast my vote towards. Still do. "Sun King" rips, and I've always enjoyed "American Horse". To this day, though, I've always been amazed that they left the album outtake "Bleeding Heart Gaffitti" off of it. That could, and should, have been another easy hit single for them.

Lastly, for anyone who hasn't heard Hidden City yet, that album, imho, features a little bit of all the band's styles throughout their career. There are tracks on it that sound like they could have come from all of their different albums over the years.

 

I saw the cult opening for aerosmith in 1989 and they were great; I saw them again as headlining act in 1991, 1993 and 1995 and also play in a festival before metallica in 1992 and I was never disappointed...

 

I agree that a lot of what's on The Singles Collection is repeated on Rare Cult (if one has the version with the seventh bonus Mixes CD then it's basically everything except the live tracks and the actual A-sides), but my point was that since The Singles Collection is a collection of shorter CDs (most of them are ≈30 mins.), while Rare Cult are full CDs, there is more material on the later box set.

 

One of my favorite alltime bands...

Can't go wrong with the Love/Electric/Sonic Temple trio. As good of a three-album run as you can have. Something for everyone in there.

But I'll cast a vote for "Beyond Good and Evil" - that album didn't have any business being as good as it was, despite the awful trashcan drum mixing. Sounds like it was recorded underwater. It's a shame the album was mostly overlooked.

I'm down with pretty much anything The Cult has recorded, with the exception of about half of "Born Into This."

 

Yeah, I'd have to say that Born Into This was the biggest dud (even over Ceremony).

@Rocketdog I would call Sonic Temple a personal disappointment but it certainly was not commercially. It's just my personal preference. There are some good songs on it. I acknowledge that.

 

"Love", actually.

I just cannae get enough of "She Sells Sanctuary", "Brother Wolf Sister Moon", "Rain", "Revolution", etc.

"Sonic Temple" beats "Electric" IMHO, although I probably play "The Electric Mixes" EP more than either album.

--Geoff

 

Could not agree more about "Bleeding Heart Graffitti". What an amazing song! A sure fire hit indeed. It always bothered me that "Edie" wasn't a bigger hit. The band were at their peak and power ballads were all the rage. How was it not a monster single for them?

 

Love is the best. Sonic Temple was my favorite for a while. Ceremony made me get off the bus. Only cassette I actually returned because I thought it was so terrible.

 

'Love' will always be my favorite album by The Cult. In the winter of '85 I bought the record after hearing it in the cool record-store downtown. 'She Sells Sanctuary' blew my 20-year-old mind. 'Brother Wolf, Sister Moon' gave me chills. 'Phoenix' convinced me that Billy Duffy was God. And don't get me started on those drums...wow. It was the album that made me not lose faith in new music. Need a good pressing? This Canuck copy is killer:
The Cult - Love

 

I think all of their albums are very good to great except for Ceremony and Born Into This. I have to give both of those another listen this week. I didn't love the "capsule" tracks that much either.

 

Ceremony is getting a beating in this thread... It's been a while since I listened to it, so I gave it a spin, and I think there are plenty of things to like about it, I probably prefer it to anything they have done since (with the possible exception of the "Black Sheep" album). "Wild Hearted Son", "Earth Mofo", "White", "Full Tilt", "Heart Of Soul" and "Indian" are all good tracks. A problem is that many of the songs tend to go on for a bit to long, and wear out their welcome. The outtakes "Spanish Gold" and "Join Hands" (on Best Of Rare Cult) are also good, in fact they're better than much of what's on the album.

I have to correct myself here, nine of "The E.Zee Demos" were included on Rare Cult, those are repeated, as the whole 18 track session is on Rare Cult: The Demo Sessions.

 

I used to play in a bar band that did a fair bit of Cult. We did Fire Woman off Sonic Temple and the singer in the band could never sing that " Fiyahhhhhhhh" in the chorus without going all pitchy, dawg...
My teeth still grind when I hear that song. Even now, smoke, she is a-risin'....

D.D.

 

You nailed Ceremony for me. The tracks are too long and the non album songs are stronger! Ceremony isn't bad at all, just a disappointment after Sonic Temple

 

"Earth Mofo" is without a doubt one of my favorite songs by The Cult. I also really like "If", "White" and "Wonderland". I think, back in the day especially, the reason the album got some hate was because it was seen as kind of a carbon copy of Sonic Temple. With a band who were experimenting with their sound every album, this was the first time they kind of played it safe. People were perhaps expecting something more edgy exciting, and leading the pack, but what they got was a bit more of the same they'd grown weary of. Admittedly, by the time Ceremony was released, I was a bit worn out on hearing the hits off of Sonic Temple. In fact, it was quite some time before I could enjoy hearing "Fire Woman" again.

I'll agree that the outtakes were better than many of the songs on the album proper, yet that's seemingly always been the case with The Cult. Even an album like Born Into This, the bonus tracks that were on the "Deluxe Edition" of the album were better than the many on the regular version of the album. In particular, "Stand Alone".

 

I actually don't think Ceremony sounds that much like Sonic Temple, it is a much more stripped down album, both the production, which is more raw, and also the songs themselves, which are simpler. But it is true that with this album they were for the first time not doing something fresh and not creating their their own path, but sitting back and playing it safe, staying in their comfort zone, and it led to them being out of touch with the times, having a sound that was a bit "old".

What if they had come out with a whole album more like this?:

 

It was a toss up for me between Love and Electric. Two different albums, but have aged well and are pretty strong end to end (though I'd swap Born to be Wild for any one the B sides). Sonic Temple gets a bit too produced for my taste, and Ceremony took it even further. I remember being sort of disappointed with the self-titled, though now years later it's a pretty good record and a bit of an evolution. After that I sort of lost track of them until picking up Hidden City, which was a pretty strong album (Dark Energy is a great song).

Saw them at a festival last summer and they were impressive -- had not seen them live for at least 25 years. Went to see them as an opener for Billy Idol when Love was out, then headlining for Sonic Temple and Ceremony. Recall the first headliner show was great, second they were running out of steam.

 

Love for me but they made a lot of good albums. Choice of Weapon a couple of years ago was excellent

 

Cut out bin fodder galore that cassette was...
Gave my old compact disc away to a Native American buddy of mine who was a larger fan than I

 

Thankfully it was not. I am perplexed by the scale of the bashing of Ceremony going on here, especially given the shortcomings of the albums like Electric or Sonic Temple. Probably they should have changed the band name to find a different fanbase.