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

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (160 of them)

View Previous Page...

I'd say "She Sells Sanctuary" transcends that stigma, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

the Cure certainly are a fine little band

You're fired.

"She Sells Sanctuary" is so utterly ridiculously good that it defies description, and so I shall not describe it.

*checks*

Oh wait, I did.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 10 September 2004 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Sed Naid:

If the Cult has to be remembered for one song and one song only, then there's no question which it is — if Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy whipped up more powerful and explosive numbers later thanks to judicious selection of producers, the sheer energy, drive, and liveliness of "She Sells Sanctuary" remains untouchable. Duffy's liquid, quasi- psychedelic guitar intro over a buzz of flanged feedback suddenly rips into a triumphant, driving lead melody that's jaw-dropping, finding a synthesis between U2, Big Country, and Simple Minds that arguably trumps them all hands down. The addition of a quick acoustic strum as a counterpart doesn't hurt either, while the rhythm section keeps up a relentless drive that's at once solid and notably danceable, something most loud rock acts couldn't manage without remix therapy. All that's needed is for Astbury to top it off with a hell of a performance, and he delivers in spades, his voice strong and commanding, his just-evocative enough imagery of an overwhelming, passionate attraction coming across as celebratory invocation. Right down to his last call of "Sanctuary!" and a slow fadeout on Duffy's original guitar line, it's an early-'80s rock monster that stands the test of time.

DAMN well said, man.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 02:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually really did suddenly remember that review as I was typing out that message, but I wasn't sure until I went into the database.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 10 September 2004 02:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I would've nominated "Love Removal Machine' as the best song ever written.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 10 September 2004 02:58 (twenty-one years ago)

THIS SONG INVENTED GREBO!

(Great song!)

― Grebo Guru, Friday, 10 September 2004 04:09 (twenty-one years ago)

"Brother Wolf and Sister Moon/Your time has come/and the wind will blow my fears away/will dry my tears away/and dry my tears away (who never said they borrowed a smidgeon from Led Zeppelin?)

Embrace the wind with both arms
stop clouds dead in the sky
hang your head no more
and beg no more

Brother Wolf, AAAAAAAAAAAND Sister Moon.....
your time has come.....

And the wind/will blow my fears away/will dry my tears away/and
blow my fears away/and dry my tears away

{killer guitar solo}

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.brasil2000fm.com.br/imagens/Ian-Astbury.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

For God's sake, people, this song is SO GOTHIC! There's even the sound of THUNDER at the end of the song! Can you get more gothic than the sound of thunder at the end of your song called fucking "Brother Wolf, Sister Moon".

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

BIMBLE YOU MISSPELLED GREBO AGAIN. ROOSSEY, WHAT DEED YOU DOO DEES TIME?

― Grebo Guru, Friday, 10 September 2004 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, did you have any particular feeling about the title track of the album "Love"? A guitar wank to some perhaps, but it resonated with me for many years.

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I did not misspell Grebo. The problem is it was only a pretend phenomenon made up by the press. And in any case there are no "grebo" bands today.

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:46 (twenty-one years ago)

HO HO HO YOU ARE WRONG MY FRIEND

― Grebo Guru, Friday, 10 September 2004 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

You are a jolly sort.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.azcentral.com/rep/gifs3/0530andrew.jpg

HOW WOUJOU LIKE SOME ANDROO DOUBLE JOO KAY IN JO HEEEEAAAAD!!!

― Grebo Guru, Friday, 10 September 2004 04:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The title track is okay. Apart from "Sanctuary", I think my favorite tracks on that record are "Nirvana", "Phoenix" and "Hollow Man". I always thought the intro riff to "Big Neon Glitter" was a bit of a "Pretty Vacant' swipe.

Least favorite was "Revolution," which is just too hippy dippy silly shitty for my taste.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 04:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't heard the 21st Century Doors yet! I'm a big fan of the original but is the Astbury group EVEN BETTER?

― dave q, Friday, 10 September 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha ha ha that's pretty funny.

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 10 September 2004 05:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Incidentally, the long version of "She Sells Sanctuary" is the preferred rendition.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 05:12 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Wolfchild had a bathroom problem...he couldn't make it in time!" - Ian Astbury

― mute nostril agony, Friday, 10 September 2004 05:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I would've nominated "Love Removal Machine' as the best song ever written.
-- the music mole

OTM, it's all about "LRM". Listen to them back to back.

― wetmink (wetmink), Friday, 10 September 2004 05:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I love "Love Removal Machine," but c'mon....it's simply a Stones/Zep pastiche, whereas "She Sells Sanctuary" is a much more graceful beast entirely.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 06:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe it's a weird opinion to hold, but I like just about every song on the first side of Electric more than "LRM."

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Friday, 10 September 2004 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

http://img.muzikus.cz/clanky/002453_02.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 06:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, certainly the best CULT song ever, anyways. Shimmering flanged guitars as distinctive as any jangles that the Byrds or Television or Fleetwood Mac ever cooked up. Yeah, it's fucking great, down to the title, even: A true classic and one of the best remembered (and 'best') songs from that particular time/place.

But I gotta say that generally, I was mostly unmoved by most of the music made by most of the English bands of that era. (That era being roughly '84-present, and presumably to infinity.)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 10 September 2004 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

SSS is great, but I have to side with "Rain" on this one.

(I am so ashamed, but that whole album is just such a time such a time and a place and a person (a trailer in upstate NY, loads of drugs and my "sister") that it's just enshrined in greatness for me.)

― Super-Masonic Black Hole (kate), Friday, 10 September 2004 09:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Dan's lengthy list is scuppered by the pole position he gives to "Tower Of Strength."

Unless of course he means the Bacharach and David classic as interpreted variously by Gene McDaniels and Frankie Vaughan, as opposed to that terrible "Kashmir" rip-off perpetrated by the Mission.

― Donnie Smith The Quiz Kid, Friday, 10 September 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

It might be the best Cult song (although I'd say no, there are more than a handful of others on Dreamtime, Electric and even Sonic Temple that I prefer), but every single song on the Death Cult ep pounds it into the ground.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Friday, 10 September 2004 09:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Which in itself is pounded into the ground by "Fatman" by the Southern Death Cult.

― Donnie Smith The Quiz Kid, Friday, 10 September 2004 09:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes.

In fact, the Cult are a great example of a band that got progressively worse with every record, from Day One.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Friday, 10 September 2004 09:52 (twenty-one years ago)

and that's saying something because they were fucking rubbish to begin with

― stelfox, Friday, 10 September 2004 09:55 (twenty-one years ago)

IIRC "She Sells Sanctuary" actually represents the precise moment after which everything The Cult released suddenly stopped being fantastic and became shit (my memory's telling me that it came out after "Go West", "Spiritwalker", The Dreamtime and Dreamtime Live At The Lyceum albums (I was at the gig when they recorded that!) and "Resurrection Joe" but before "Rain").

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 10 September 2004 10:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Stuart, your timeline is correct.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Friday, 10 September 2004 10:22 (twenty-one years ago)

"She Sells Sanctuary" was Peter Powell's Record Of The Week on Radio 1!

― Donnie Smith The Quiz Kid, Friday, 10 September 2004 10:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Ooops, Stewart, obv.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Friday, 10 September 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Dan are there any foxy-attempting long-hairs from the '80s you DO like? Anthrax so don't count.

1. I don't have to like anything, you know.
2. I've explained why I am predisposed against hair metal before.
3. I actually DO like The Cult, I just don't think they're OH MY GOD amazing.
4. I do like Extreme, Cinderella, Scorpions, Motley Crue, selected songs by Skid Row and Bon Jovi. I also like Rush, Pink Floyd, Anthrax, Iron Maiden, early Metallica, Megadeth, Aerosmith, Led Zepplin and The Doors.
5. OFF OF MY DICK, SON.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 10 September 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember being mesmerized by this song and the video in a Georgetown D.C. gothic club - oh, some time in the 80's (pretty much for the same reasons Alex in NYC states)

I downloaded the song a few months back hoping to tingle that ol' familiar feeling.

No such luck.

I dunno, the tempo didn't seem to be as brisk. The song just seemed to lumber along, which actually made the "great soaring vocals" sound like stupid 80's metal histrionics to me.

though hopefully, this thread will provide the proper attitude adjustment for my next listen.

― pheNAM (pheNAM), Friday, 10 September 2004 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

pheNAM, your lack of enthusiasm makes my back, makes my back bu-hurn.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

YEAH-HEAHHHHH

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 10 September 2004 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I do like Extreme

ok, I'll get off your dick now. I'll point and laugh from a distance.

(total disclosure: did like both their acoustic hits in elementary school and was shocked to discover that they were a hated metal band back in my psycho-REM-fan youth when somebody bought me Pornograffiti).

Get the funk out!

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

and in a non-point'n'laugh context, I'm glad you like Cinderella. Tom Kiefer's voice is a marvel.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 10 September 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Please don't sully this thread with discussions about Extreme and Cinderella.

Thanks very much.

― The Management (vassifer), Friday, 10 September 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I would just like to add how utterly surreal it is to hear "Nirvana" knowing that the last time I remember hearing this song was before Nirvana the band even existed. A whole world without Nirvana existing! Those were great days...

― Bimble (bimble), Saturday, 11 September 2004 06:17 (twenty-one years ago)

A whole world without Nirvana existing! Those were great days...

YAY!!!!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 11 September 2004 06:18 (twenty-one years ago)

5 songs better than SHE SELLS SANCTUARY:

Psycho Chicken
Eat It
Dust in the WInd
99 Luft Balloons
Lucky Number

― alice donut, Saturday, 11 September 2004 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

As great as "Lucky Number" is (if you mean the Lene Lovich track), it's still not as great as "She Sells Sanctuary". And the rest of those songs lick big, huge, vast mountains of ass, so you're obviously not in full command of your senses.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 11 September 2004 06:52 (twenty-one years ago)

apparently billy duffy is my gf's fashion hero

― big chaki (chaki), Saturday, 11 September 2004 08:27 (twenty-one years ago)

And the rest of those songs lick big, huge, vast mountains of ass, so you're obviously not in full command of your senses.

I will totally defend "99 Luft Balloons" as a premiere piece of early 80s euro-new wave - it's up there with "Kids Of America".

SSS is a great great song

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 11 September 2004 08:45 (twenty-one years ago)

it's up there with "Kids Of America".

"Kids IN America".

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 11 September 2004 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

(sorry, there should be a :) there )

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 11 September 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 60 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Re the et’s cut— will check jic’s

― Theodor W. Adorbso (Hunt3r), Sunday, 18 May 2025 04:28 (one year ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.