Tonight’s selections from the second album by The Cult, 1985’s Love. An encore presentation with a couple of additional videos. Last week was a very “Cult week” for me. Grey days and rain. So fitting to pull this one out of the stacks.
"I admit that what we were doing was fairly controversial at the time," [Ian] Astbury later stated. "It was controversial to be punk rockers and still love Led Zeppelin, and to call an album Love in the aggressive post-punk era was seen as potential suicide. These things drew a lot of heat from the media but, worse still, I remember going out when She Sells Sanctuary got in the charts and some kid came up and punched me right in the face at a concert. There was so much hatred in his eyes, and all that was because we came from the streets in Brixton, we came from punk rock and I think this guy saw us as breaking the code by not pretending we couldn't play our instruments or for having success." — Louder
Nirvana
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Honestly, when I first heard "She Sells Sanctuary" I couldn't understand a word Astbury was singing, aside from the two lines starting with either "the sparkle in your eyes" or "the fire in your eyes". I thought most of the lyrics were in another language. I could make out "sanctuary" two or three times, but no sense of what surrounded it. (And I don't believe those who claim that verses like "make my back burn" or "the world drags me down" are decipherable as such without being told in advance.) For me, the song was even more simple than its content: it was the best damn hook I'd ever heard, and still is today.
I could play "She Sells Sanctuary" any day of the week. Unlike most earworms that offend on too much replay, "Sanctuary" never dulls. It's a constant reset.
[...]
The Cult still enjoys performing it. They're touring right now in 2020 (scheduled to play in Mississippi and Florida in two weeks, if the Covid quarantines are lifted by then) [My note: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA] and guitarist Bill Duffy has said that " 'Sanctuary' is always a joy to play, and I'm happy we've got a song like that. Something like 'Fire Woman' [from 1989's Sonic Temple album] is a very popular song around the world but it's very challenging to play and sing and do. It's not one that we like playing! That's a bit of a chore to play, just the way it was written and constructed. 'Sanctuary' is just fun and rolls along." — The Busybody
She Sells Sanctuary
.
Big Neon Glitter
"The good thing about the songs on Love is that they deal with things that are no less relevant now than they were then: life, death, sex, materialism, spiritualism; all the human experiences," Astbury recently surmised as he looked back on the album that made him a worldwide star. "Creating Love, we were trying to make a flower instead of a barbed-wire fence. That took a real presence to do that." — Louder
The Hollow Man
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Rain
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WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Benson Boone (R 2/1/24)
Jimmy Fallon: Ricky Martin, Marcello Hernández, Manuel Turizo & Yandel
Stephen Colbert: John Dickerson, De La Soul
After Midnight: Beth Stelling, Mo Welch, Zach Noe Towers
Seth Meyers: Peter Dinklage, Rory Scovel, Adrian Young
Watch What Happens Live: Lindsay Hubbard, Carson Kressley
The Daily Show: Awkwafina, host Ronny Chieng
LAST WEEK'S POLL: WOULD YOU RATHER FIGHT
One 25 foot tall duck 12%
Twenty-five 1 foot tall ducks 41%
Pie 47%