Cult Love

The Cult are a British rock band formed in 1983. Before settling on their current name in January 1984, the band performed under the name Death Cult, which was an evolution of the name of lead singer Ian Astbury's previous band Southern Death Cult…

Agents Of Fortune (1976). If ever there were a manifesto for 1970s rock, one that prefigured both the decadence of the decade's burgeoning heavy metal and prog rock excesses and the rage of punk rock, "This Ain't the Summer of Love," the opening track from Agents of Fortune, Blue Öyster Cult's fourth album, was it. The irony was that while the cut itself came down firmly on the hard rock side of the fence, most of the rest of the album didn't. Agents of Fortune was co-produced by longtime Cult record boss Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman, and newcomer David Lucas, and in addition, the band's lyric writing was being done internally with help from poet-cum-rocker Patti Smith (who also sings on "The Revenge of Vera Gemini"). Pearlman, a major contributor to the band's songwriting output, received a solitary credit while critic Richard Meltzer, whose words were prevalent on the Cult's previous outings, was absent…

Best of Rare Cult, the companion piece to the Cult's expansive box set Rare Cult, features an interesting collection of rarities, unreleased material, B-sides, studio experiments, and just plain throwaways.

For curiosity seekers interested in a sampling of the Cult's recording career with CBS, this new "Best Of" is serviceable, but not as thorough as the 2-disc "Workshop of the Telescopes" put out a few years back. The songs on this new disc were compiled based on fan votes for the Oyster Boys' best material, so some of the inclusions are questionable (for example, why "Marshall Plan" but not "Monsters"? or "Goin Through the Motions" but not "Golden Age of Leather"?), but overall the track listing does an admirable job of offering the listener a window on the world of one of the most bizarre, talented, and underrated American rock bands ever.