Thursday, July 02, 2009

The Cult's Electric

In those months before I discovered Guns n' Roses, one hard rock band I pinned hopes on was The Cult. "Love Removal Machine" was a hard rock gem – part AC/DC (the riff), part Led Zeppelin (Ian Astbury emits a Plant-like "baby baby baby" at one point), part sixties garage rock (a reference to "psychotic reaction.") And even Astbury yelling "boogie!" at some point couldn’t diminish the tune's greatness. Follow-ups on the old KJ104 like "Lil' Devil" and "King Contrary Man" led me to buy the Electric album.

I hadn't listened to the album in years, though when I deejayed I toyed with bringing the LP to the club to play "Love Removal Machine." Having imported all of my CDs into my iTunes a few months back, I'm currently in a period of rediscovering forgotten aspects of my music collection. So last week I broke out Electric for a late-night headphones spin on my turntable. The opener "Wild Flower" – a deifying ode to a woman – still slays. "Lil' Devil" is still fun. But "King Contrary Man", a song I once loved now comes off as a kinda dumb sell-your-soul-at-the-crossroads tune with lyrics such as: "zany antics of a beat generation." Worse, track two on side one is "Peace Dog" which is truly stupid and just stupid (i.e. not stupid fun like "Louie Louie" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit.") Lyrics like "peace is a dirty word / she used to be a painted bird / and war she's a whore" grate. Allmusic.com's review of the album nailed it: "What happens when the Doors are used as a model in the wrong way." (Astbury toured with a version of the Doors a few years back, plus the Doors had a similarly-titled song "Peace Frog".) Also, Astbury sings of wanting a B-52 (and not Kate Pierson, sadly) to "drop your love on me." Except he pronounces it "Bee Five Two." Dumb Brit. I like to imagine American producer Rick Rubin chuckling in the control room, but just letting Astbury go on and on. Hey, you can't produce Run-DMC every year, right?

I didn't make it through side two. After "Love Removal Machine," which is still awesome, they attempted to cover "Born To Be Wild." After Steve Martin's take on Comedy Is Not Pretty!, said song should just be left alone. Electric is a mixed bag of an album, if you listen prepare to be handy with moving that stylus arm up and down.

(And earlier this week, I checked out the video for "Love Removal Machine", which I hadn't seen since back in '87 when I first heard The Cult. I remember one of my roommates at the time loved the Doors and was disgusted by Astbury's Jim Morrison-like look of leather and long dark hair, but don't remember much else. This 2009 time around I loved the rock moves that were certainly not approved by the music intelligentsia of the mid-eighties: Guitarists having fun, Marshall stacks, aforementioned AC/DC and Zep influences, Brits actually acting like meathead rockers and not fashioned-obsessed swishes, and a huge beer can pyramid. Plus certainly-planned continuity problems with wardrobe/guitars and the drummer actually has an action spot!)