The Cult: Electric [BEGGARS BANQUET]

Why you'll love it

This Beggars Arkive reissue comes in a gatefold jacket with a printed inner sleeve. Electric reached No. 4 in the UK and spent 27 weeks on the chart, the band's longest run, and it's in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeve
• Lyrics included
• Stereo mix

About the album

Some albums get made twice. After the success of Love, The Cult spent the summer of 1986 at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire recording an album called Peace with producer Steve Brown. They took one track to New York for Rick Rubin to remix, and Rubin, fresh from hip hop records and Slayer, asked whether they'd rather go the AC/DC and early Led Zeppelin route. They said yes, scrapped the Manor tapes and started again from scratch.

Rubin stripped away the swirling effects and pushed Billy Duffy's riffs and Ian Astbury's howl right to the front. "Wild Flower" struts, "Lil' Devil" barely gets past three minutes before it's done, and "Love Removal Machine" is a slab of riff-rock with a grin. They even tackle Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" and go full boogie on "Memphis Hip Shake." George Drakoulias assisted on production.

Four of the Manor Sessions songs ended up as B-sides, and the whole Peace album finally came out alongside Electric as Electric Peace in 2013. Rubin's brief, roughly, was fewer effects pedals and more rock, and Duffy took it very much to heart.

Also at Kops: more The Cult on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Beggars Banquet (cat# BBQ 2298 LP), a reissue of the 1987 album.