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Otherwise air guitars & head swirls all round for this sometimes bombastic, always rockin' band of British boys. Um. I'm being a bit pedantic here. Did I also say pretentious. only if digested without a sense of humour. but NO KING CONTRARY MAN. in a greatest hits from the Cult.Three stars only because of that.
The album also features the songs:"She Sells Sanctuary" filled with loud rock guitars with an interesting melody and "Fire Woman" and "Sun King" that does have a slight Doors vibe to it. I used to dance to that song many of times hanging out in the clubs.Singer Ian Astbury's voice is very energetic and has an intense emotion all on it's own -- he wails and screams from song to song. The band's style was rock n roll, but in a slightly electronic new wave style. The Cult seem to still have a name for themselves and haven't been forgotten by rock fans, even though they broke up in 1995. It is a well put together greatest hits collection. Pure Cult:The Singles is a greatest hits compilation of of the band's biggest and best singles throughout those years. Their songs are still on the air. Who doesn't remember the emotional "Fire Woman" or the hard-hitting rockin' tune "Love Removal Machine".
I HAVE TWO WORDS FOR THIS CD PURE CULT TOTALY AWSOM.
"Fire Woman" was the attention getter, but there was also the very cool "Edie (Ciao Baby)" about Andy Warhol cohort Edie Sedgwick and "Sun King" both vying for airplay. Following albums did little to make the band interesting. As solid "Sonic Temple" was, the band was imploding. This Best Of The Cult shows that, while a great band when they were on fire, they couldn't keep that intensity going very long. Duffy had an obvious AC/DC-Led Zep fixation, and Astbury harbored Jim Morrison fantasies. The Cult (or essentially, Billy Duffy and Ian Astbury) had a vision. They were making goth type trendy rock for a little while, even cutting one classic single in the process ("She Sells Sanctuary"). Rubin stripped the band down to basics.
It deserved that status, with the band's most solid set of songs. You could easily just get "Electric" and "Sonic Temple" to get what really mattered about The Cult, since both "Fire Woman" and "Love Removal Machine" would be covered. Duffy wanted to stay with the hard rock, Astbury was getting into mystical/spiritual goo and the booze/dope crushed his focus. Incidentally, 2007's Born into This is suprisingly lively. Bob Rock from "Sonic Temple" was brought back in an attempt to capture the old sound, but the two best songs were "Sacred Life" (not here) and "Coming Down" (which is). Gone were the echo-drenched early productions, in were the loud, bare-bones Back in Black howling guitars of Electric. The lackluster Ceremony found The Cult fiddling with too many experiments, and "Wild Hearted Son" was the best thing there.After that, The Cult found the band down to Astbury and Duffy with a rotating list of guests. But they got bored with that scene pretty darn fast.
Astbury was falling prey to substance issues and he and Duffy were no longer creating creative sparks when they collided. The clashing personalities of Duffy and Astbury also made for great interview fodder, and The Cult exploded worldwide.They were able to hang onto that musical esthetic for Sonic Temple, their only US Top Ten album. Enter Rick Rubin. "Love Removal Machine" (along with its star-maker video) steamrollered rock radio.
A must-have if you are a Cult fan from that time. Includes all the favorites from the early to mid 1980's.
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