The Cult

With help from producers Rick Rubin and George Drakoulias, the Cult effectively switched from a post-goth rock band into a full-blown Classic Rock band on this 1987 album. Full of straightforward posturing and AC/DC-style riffing, the album presaged the heavy, alt-rock boom of the '90s and also contained the fine tracks "Wild Flower" and "Love Removal Machine."

People who don't like this album are going to say it's haunted. There are enough ghosts
floating around the grooves to crowd Jimi Hendrix's old studio, Electric Lady (where, not
coincidentally, this was recorded). But despite the hovering shades of Zeppelin, Bon Scott
and others, Electric does more than pilfer bygone metal mayhem. It swaggers, crunches
and howls, all right, but it does so with irreverence (not surprising with raunch... More >

Rick Rubin meets the doom fops of the former Southern Death Cult and concocts the metal dreams are made of--Zep for our time, supposedly. One reason it's a great joke is that in 2087 almost nobody will be able to tell it from the real thing. The other reason it's a great joke is that right now almost anybody can. Direct comparison reveals that Jimmy Page's thunderclap riffs, Robert Plant's banshee yowls, and John Bonham's ka-boom ka-boom are just as hard to replicate as you thought they were. I hear Steppenwolf (an unconvincing "Born to Be Wild"), Cream ("Tales of Brave Ulysses" as "Aphrodisiac Jacket"), and Aerosmith--fop but no fool, Ian Astbury apes Steve Tyler rather than the unapproachable Plant. I also hear lots of Zep simplified--no sagas, no tempo shifts, no blues. Inspirational Verse: "Zany antics of a beat generation/In their wild search for kicks." (Grade - B+)