Electric by The Cult

Electric, the Cult's third album, came out in 1987, and it's a band ripping up its own blueprint. After their commercial breakthrough Love, they deliberately traded gothic rock for a stripped-down, traditional hard rock sound, and they hired Rick Rubin specifically to remake them, betting on the appetite for hard rock, glam and heavy metal that ruled the decade.

Rubin boiled everything down to bone: dry, punchy drums, big, blunt riffs and not an ounce of atmosphere left over. The result swaggers like a lost classic-rock record from the vintage years, with the singer howling over the top. "Love Removal Machine" is a pure riff-powered stomp, "Wild Flower" struts and bumps, "Lil' Devil" is lean and nasty, and "Peace Dog" rolls on a heavy, chugging groove.

It matched Love's number four peak in the UK and stayed on the chart longer, 27 weeks, the best run any of their albums has had, and it later made the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2013 it was reissued as the double set Electric Peace, pairing the album with the whole of Peace, the record they'd made in the Manor Sessions.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.