Dear Friends,
as some of you might be aware, the past several weeks have been a difficult time for me. A very special part of my life —- a cherished fixture in my daily existence for the past decade —- is no longer with me.
I’m speaking of course, about my copy of The Cult’s ‘Electric’.
When I learned my copy of this click-tracked masterwork was damaged beyond repair, it was a harsh moment of reckoning. Some of you had warned me previously, but be it wishful thinking, romantic delusion or just pure lust for the guitar playing of Billy Duffy (or whoever was hired to play his parts), I’d hear none of it.
Several sundays ago, however, as I gazed at the shattered shards of disc plastic that lay across my living room, I could no longer deny the truth. The Cult’s ‘Electric’ and I would no longer be together.
I realize that some of you have tried to help as best you can, but this is the sort of thing I’ll only be able to get through on my own. Suggestions that “there’s plenty of other Rick Rubin productions that totally ape ‘Back In Black’ in the sea” aren’t going to make me feel any better. Urging me to “upgrade to a younger model” (sorry, I’ve heard the Four Horsemen album and it just isn’t very good) are juvenille at best, mean-spirited at worse.
I’ll be ok. Even if “Love Removal Machine” is now just a distant memory, I shall somehow manage to face the oncoming day and bring you the finest sports / modern life analysis you could only get by forgetting to visit other sites.
thanks, and G-d bless you all.
Gerard Cosloy
I feel ya brother. COURAGE!
ahhhh….the golden days of college radio, when you can make a Boston sandwich out of “Love Removal Machine”….situating it between the Neighborhoods and Big Dipper.
Skip,
that’s the last time I try to share something painful with you.
you don’t need the cult gc, you might think you might think you do, maybe you can’t imagine your life without the cult in it and there’ll be days where you’ll be hard pressed to think of a reason to get out of bed in the morning because you know you don’t have the cult anymore. but you WILL get out of bed, you WILL go on with your life and each day you’ll think about the cult a little less. and then maybe you’ll find a new band and you’ll see the cult in a new light, perhaps you’ll find that there were a lot of things about the cult that were annoying (wtf w that wolf carcass on that dude’s head anyway? who wears that?). before you know it years will slip by and maybe you’ll run into a copy of “electric” at a record fair or something and of course you’ll be polite and inquire about it but all the while you’ll be silently chuckling to yourself thinking “what did i ever see in THAT?”
and after that record fair you’ll climb into the driver’s seat of your stylish german sedan with the one cd that you were meant to be with. then you and that velvet revolver cd will drive off into the hills with the knowledge that destiny brought you together.
To be fair, Gerard, I think it’s a lot harder to find a vinyl copy of Electric in 2007 than it was back in the day.
And you’re going to be less motivated to find one, and you’ll be less likely to pay for it if you do find it. You’ll get less of a return on your investment at this point. You’re older, less likely to be patient with its many foibles, etc.
I’m not saying it is not an entertaining record. It’s an IMMENSELY entertaining record. But now that you’ve owned it once, it might not be worth buying another copy. You probably have all the good riffs stored in your head already.
y’know, I ‘ve never actually had a copy on vinyl. I had a cassette (which someone helpfully threw out of the window of a moving car), then a CD.
and the album is FOILBLE city. I mean, the lyrics make Lou Gramm look like Bob Dylan. The musicians (I hesitate to use the word “band”) sound as they are playing in different cities, let alone different rooms. It could be the most fantastically cynical album ever made. I cannot believe there’s never been a documentary made about it.
soul shaker!