The thing about writing these blog series is that you can’t put the keyboard away. I promise this is it. The last Underrated Bands of the Eighties.
The Cult.
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Not The Cure. The Cult. The Cure were terrible. How may songs can you have about being melancholy? I’m sorry but. The Cure and Morrisey and The Smiths and the rest can go away and cry. Sorry. Not here for it. Go hug a tree.
Right now those of you who love The Cure and The Smiths are about to burn my house down. Please don’t. We have a second mortgage. I’m only human. But I get why you might be upset. I would be upset if you told me The Cure and The Smiths (and REM and every other band that spent all of its time churning out “oh I’m so sad” alt rock) were better.
The Cult.
Here was a band that somehow found a way to marry Jim Morrison posturing to…to…I haven’t the faintest clue. Judas Priest? The Clash? AC/DC?
The Cult was its own thing.
What if you took the Doors’ Break On Through To The Other Side and reinvented it as standard Eighties arena rock, but then also added a dash of Steppenwolf and a pinch of early Van Halen and then told the lead singer: you ARE Jim Morrison. He’s back from the dead and you ARE him. You are high on peyote and shrooms and you are literally Jim Morrison reincarnated. Wear the leather pants for a week. We are all counting on you.
Obviously I’m joking because while the band owes a massive debt of gratitude to more mainstream bands that came before, they had a unique sound that I really dug from about 1987-92.
Singer Ian Astbury‘s voice alone is a thing unto itself. Plaintive and wailing, guttural and angry, this was a voice that sounds like nothing else. Maybe only Brian Johnson for AC/DC is more associated with a lead singer and his group. I suppose you could say Brad Delp singing Boston or Steve Perry singing Journey. There is NO WAY The Cult exists without Ian Astbury.
Forget the Jim Morrison wannabe posturing. I would wager Ian Astbury is the far superior vocalist to Morrison. And just because almost every Cult song ends with him belting out a mean YEAH YEAHHHHH doesn’t take away from the end product. He’s that good, if underrated and forgotten.
If you own a fast car, I defy you to put on The Cult’s seminal album Electric and not exceed the speed limit. Can’t be done.
Yeah yeahhhhhhhh.
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