"She Sells Sanctuary" by the Cult....in actuality the BEST SONG EVER.

The greatest song ever as officially quoted in the Guiness book of records is Teenage Kicks by The Undertones.

No debate.. Only flat earth'ist may be fool enough to disagree

Its just that luckily despite championing Can and other prog rock groups in the mid seventie's Mr Peel saved his reputation forever, by embracing Punk, new wave ETC.

My fave Undertones track, now and forever = "Mars Bar".

I sorta see it as the Cult aiming for something they never really could do -- subtlety -- and actually making it work as such.

Love -vs- The Head on the Door??? I don't care, but damn if this isn't an example of seminal 80s music.

Gotta love the Eddie Cochran-inspired acoustic "cha-ching-ching" guitar riff in this song that, for whatever original song meaning there was, always conjured up feelings, for me at least, of hedonism and near comic debauchery.

the Eddie Cochran-inspired acoustic "cha-ching-ching" guitar riff

This is the part about the song I love most.

Oh yeah it's ALL about that thing.

G is a good chord.

Great song, no doubt.

It's like Unforgettable Fire-era U2 with a giant codpiece

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, September 9, 2004

hence BEST SONG EVER QED

My second fave Cult track is a toss-up between "Spiritwaker" and "Wild Flower"...

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, September 9, 2004

Since you're dead on about LRM as Stones/Zep pastiche, I'll assume you're familiar with a little AC/DC number goes by "Rock'n'Roll Singer"? If you like "Wild Flower" you'll like that one too.

oh man sorry but this song sucks balls.

Go listen to Prince

this is essentially a prince song anyway

I'm going to pretend you never said that.

it sounds like an Around the World in a Day track!

JOhn. you know I love ya, man, but I'm afraid you're now DEAD. TO. ME.

mind you this is totally one of the best tracks ever, although I burned out on it back then by playing it too much & especially by hearing the long mix too many times

and also, it's wrong to be this way I know, but the embarrassment of the Edie Sedgwick song a couple of years later kinda put a patina of ewww on the Cult and fucked up their music for me pretty bad

I don't know if this is the best song ever but Ian Ashbury is definitely the best dancer ever

and also, it's wrong to be this way I know, but the embarrassment of the Edie Sedgwick song a couple of years later kinda put a patina of ewww on the Cult and fucked up their music for me pretty bad

it is really embarrassing but also an awesome "Fade To Black" crib!

You better fucking believe it, bitches.
If it says "embedding disabled by request" just double click it.
Look at that man's threads! He is fucking styling. No doubt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joHcumCAkCM

ah! I screwed up again damnit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuQXS-AP_to

This is what I need, bitch. This is what I need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn9hNQu5SoU

jesus christ @ me in this thread

Do not dance with the king unless you brought your best tap shoes.

Put this on a t-shirt and make a mint.

I'm tempted to go back and list bands for each of those songs but I can't remember if I meant that to be "Dead" by The Pixies or something else

YEAH-HEAHHHHH

Dan's list would make an amazing Spotify playlist imo

Everytime I hear She Sells Sanctuary I keep waiting for the "Love Removal Machine" chorus, and then am mildly disappointed.

YEAH-HEAHHHHH

― Ned Raggett

agree

I remember when this was the very essence of indie-gone-wrong. I think purely because Ian Astbury once turned up at a Stone Roses gig in a leather coat.

I've seen him fronting The Doors, as it happens. It's one strange existence - he actually does inspire a degree of fervour, only it's from middle-aged men holding cameraphones, in comfortable auditoriums.

I started one but gave up half way through, if anyone wants to finish it off.... It is amazing fwiw.

http://open.spotify.com/user/unterwasser/playlist/3Hkocs6acSuTDAoMiFB69V

Per the excellent WAFR (aka What a Fucking Record) account run by UK writer Ian Wade: happy fortieth anniversary to this all time banger.

Even by the standards of that album, a longtime fave of mine, that song jumps out.

Funny, pure coincidence, but I almost bought a Cult "Love" t-shirt just this morning! Of course I'd prefer to buy an official shirt, but it was $35, and around $50 with tax and shipping, so no thanks, Cult. It's not like they are being made in-house by some bespoke team, so I don't know how bad I would feel spending a fraction of that on a knockoff.

She Sells Sanctuary was my mum's getting ready to go out on a Saturday night music in the 80s

(It seems her 80s musical life keeps coming to mind with every thread I pop in today)

Your mum had the right idea.

a highlight of the 'electronic music djs are playing rock music' period of the early 00s for me was prob wandering through the dance tent at glastonbury on a very warm day, in a bit of a state, trying to find my friends, and hearing 2manydjs play la rock by vitalic, then just as that wore off, they played this. i know people love live music but for me it is a little better to have a huge soundsystem and the original record playing to a few thousand people, in the right context anyway. absolutely huge liftoff for the... i shouldn't call it a 'breakdown' or a 'drop' but you know the bit i mean, lol.

I go back and forth between this and "How Soon Is Now?" as the defining indie-riff of the 80's.

manics did a kick ass cover of this when I saw them a few years ago

Yeah they've been doing that for a bit, saw them in 2022 and they busted it out.