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That was a great story. Never knew that. I'm just a late comer being a vision thing fan. Sure I heard this song at the clubs, but that album was too much fun too.
All of the gothest songs ever recorded were by bands that swore up and down that they weren't goth. "I'm not a pastry chef! Now eat this croquembouche I made."
There's a reason for that. Goth is merely a bunch of people who took the sounds , ideas and visual aesthetics shared by a collection of unrelated artists and codified it into a style with rules. The artists who inspired goth aren't beholden to those rules. This is why self-procliamed 'goth' music is so derivative -- they're not being original, they're merely copying those who were. Apart from the likes of Robert Smith and Wayne Hussey, who seemed quite happy to regurgitate the same old shit year after year, the other grandfather's of goth have continued to evolve artistically rather than remain confined within the boundaries of a label created by their fanbase.
@@elysiumsexsmith Absolutely agree. The reason why Siouxsie, Bauhaus, The Sisters etc always bristled at being called goth (even though they were all instrumental in its creation) was because they were creating those records way before that term even existed, never mind a scene. It was the later bands that took all the stereotypes and not only copied it but then took it way too seriously, hence all the codified, derivative sounding stuff that's been around since the about the late 80s onwards. Now, some of those later bands were pretty good (Alien Sex Fiend probably being my fave of those) but it can't compare to the originators of the roughly '78-85 era.
@@powrxplor69 precisely. This is the reason why I've never liked describing myself as a goth. I mean, I'm a black-wearing weirdo who listens to a lot of music considered goth but I've always remained on the outskirts of the scene doing my own thing. If you listen to my music, you'd be hard pressed to describe it as goth even though it's heavily inspired by the same same artists that forged goth in the first place.
At the time, I remember well, it wasn't cool to be labeled and categorized. It has nothing to do with musical influence or not wanting to start a movement. If we had said "I'm a Goth", then we would have been seen as posers. Everyone wanted to be individual whilst wearing a uniform. Even the Beatles, 20 years earlier, avoided being called Mods. Times changed, by the late 90s it was cool to be more down to earth and not take yourself too seriously. By then saying, "I'm a Goth" had a rebellious, owning the label feel to it. Denying it, whilst clearly being it, implied that you were both nuts and hypersensitive.
@Claudia Solomon Hi, thanks for asking! My UA-cam channel has the stuff I've made videos for so you can click my name and it'll take you through to that or you click this link here: ua-cam.com/channels/8VeDYbCcHYK7rf_K9cnsEA.html ) My Soundcloud has a few more tracks, mainly demo stuff. You can find that here: soundcloud.com/elysium-sexsmith Bandcamp doesn't have much on it right now. However, I am releasing an album on Halloween which will be available on Bandcamp as well Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, etc etc. (Bandcamp) elysiumsexsmith.bandcamp.com/ (Spotify) open.spotify.com/artist/0qQoP3Bs6iDZcnW570NFMR?si=VlENQMXWTTqaDd8TX1AuDQ I hope it's up your street.
I remember hearing This Corrosion on a "modern rock" show one night when I was 14. Never heard anything like that before and couldn't believe a song on the radio could last almost ten minutes. Still love this song. I sing to my cats, except I change to "hey meow, hey meow meow". They're not impressed.
and now mine won't be either. I already go around the house singing "ich liebe dich my kitty meoooooow" to the tune of Marian and now you've given me a new way to torture them 🖤
Ian Ashbury said on MTV in 85 that Sisters was one of his fav alt band and his distaste for Howard Jones and candy pop...Unfortunately Duffy wanted to go the simple riff ACDC blue-jean route, which were succesfull but hated by the base. If they never started in the Goth years, The Cult would be lumped into the hairband crash.
@@artemusprine Good point. That's true of a lot of bands. I think the minute you pigeon hole yourself into a genre then thats the moment a time scale is placed on your career. For example The Cramps are often called the archetype Psychobilly band but they never considered themselves to be that. Same with The Cure , who were also a go to for Goths early on.
@@chrisodriscoll3077 and yet, with the Cure most goths (that I knew, at least) agreed: they weren't goth, they were just a band that a lot of goths happened to like.
@@glennolson6505 The Cure had Goth moments , either in their stylings or music. They also were well able to knock out a straight up pop song too. Either way great band.
My favourite TSoM anecdote involving line-up changes: Andrew Eldritch wrote “Lucretia My Reflection” as his tribute/thank you to Patricia Morrison. Patricia Morrison’s only solo album, released in 1994, was called Reflect on This.
@@vixen4905 Well, hadn't heard that before. I do suspect that her involvement was intended to do little more than give the impression that Floodland had been recorded by a band though.
Also, the # of goth bands who copied Andrew's singing style...well...it's innumerable. If they weren't goth, they certainly influenced a lot of goth bands.
Me, at 56 years old, dancing to "Temple of Love" whenever it's played; even on the 80s radio stations in the car, hands up in the air 'sweeping cobwebs from the ceiling', whilst hips gyrate in the seat :D
He dresses like a goth. Plays goth sounding music. Using Aleister Crowley in his lyrics and names himself after HP Lovecraft's pantheon of monsters but remember now...Andrew is NOT A GOTH.
Yes, but he was already doing that when the Goth label was fist applied. Admittedly it's why the Goth label was applied, but that's his problem, not ours.
If I remember correctly, he chose the name "Eldritch" because of Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", not because of Lovecraft. EDIT: found this www.loudersound.com/features/sisters-of-mercy-i-wanted-to-sound-like-a-disco-run-by-the-borgias. "People say its’ a reference to Lovecraft and his ilk, but it’s actually a reference to Philip K Dick and his ilk. "
Great stuff! As a side note, I've had the chance to chat w/ Patricia when she did a fantastic job playing for The Damned, and she is a very nice person -- as are all in the Damned. It's nice to encounter people who are sincere and decent folk.
I randomly met captain sensible in a pub a few years ago 😂 I had no idea who he was at the time, but he was chatty and friendly and nice person lmao xD
Back in the 80’s I was at a club with some friends when this song came on. As the chorus rolled around, an impish Goth in our midst sang out, “Hey now, hey now now, please pass the lotion to me...” and from that day forward, those are the lyrics I hear when this song pops up...
When I was a kid, the most important part of being goth was not being goth, unless someone else said they were goth but they had bad taste, then ONLY I was goth.
Peter Steele referred to “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend” as a Cars song with Andrew Eldritch singing. I don’t think they’d have taken offence to that joke.
@@derekgilbert1752 funny because the main riff from My GF's GF is taken from "black Planet" by sisters of mercy, whose video clip shows him driving a car lmao
We all need to talk about Patricia Morrison/Vanian more often. She was in The Bags, Fur Bible, The Gun Club, The Sisters of Mercy, The Damned... And even had a great solo album, Reflect On This. She's true punk and goth royalty!
I once came across a very old press article about how bad Patricia Morisson was treated by Eldritch and often badly paid, if paid at all. The way he talks about her in this video is so despicable. Great music, ugly guy. Patricia is still a goddess for me.
@@gwendrael yet I think she's hideous, and it's true that she doesn't play on any Sisters release. Her being 'in' the band was something upon which the record company insisted, as they knew a female would attract more attention, so increase revenue. That didn't mean Von had to include her playing, which he considered very poor. At the time there were far better female musicians who were also actually attractive, so it's a shame the ultimate triumph of styling over reality was chosen. She looks like the Angry Birds werepig, with a jaw like the Xenomorph. I think he was being kind saying she looked pretty, because she never has been, she just had the right image.
This guys seems happy to swallow any shit Eldritch spouts uncritically. Its bizarre. I dont dislike the Sisters, they are really good to listen to, but its not sophisticated compared to the Mission, or anyone really.
This Corrosion...it's like you board the song and ride it. You get off, but the song is still playing for eternity and you can get on again and again. 10 minutes+ of pure hard-rocking adrenaline and raw emotion. My drive-to-work song and I would sit in the parking lot, stereo cranked, fully enveloped in the song.
Eldritch also allegedly stiffed Patricia Morrison out of her share of the money. So not only was she not allowed to do anything in the recording studio, she never got paid either.
She posed for some photos and appeared in a video or two. So she was probably due something for that. It appears it was all a gimmick of Eldritch to have a woman in the visuals to suck in the young narcissistic females to thinking a woman was part of the music and so they could project themselves into it and like it more. And it worked.
@@ariloveshouse I think everything they made was so damn good, beyond top 10. The song Second Skin, I always feel like I’m in a dark and beautiful mushroom induced surreality when I listen to that song.
Kinda wished Trash Theory went more into the Sisterhood. Alan Vega was also involved in the project. Apparently there's a "This Corrosion" demo with Vega's vocals but I couldn't find it. I did find a "This Corrosion" demo with James Ray's vocals though.
Yes, legally Eldritch couldn't sing on the Sisterhood releases because he was signed to a different label (though it's been suggested he did the speaking part on "Rain from Heaven").
He's a petty little bitch, isn't he? I loved the Sisters but he always came over as such a pretentious wanker who really thought he was all deep n neaningful.
@@randomhumanoidblob4506 That's because he was (is?) a massive meth-head. He was probably a narcissist to begin with, but getting strung out on stimulants will really crank that up into megalomania territory (or psychosis).
@T. N. The whole scene was fuelled by various forms of stimulant, wasn't it? The London Tube after the Slimelight let out was not a pretty sight, full of raddled goths strung out til next Wednesday.Fuck me, they were a bunch of posers. This was the point at which, for me, goth went into oh-do-fuck-off territory, all wankers wafting round graveyards thinking a bit of poetry made them intellectuals. Barf. Seems incredible that is the end-stage of something born from punk. There are some banging dark electro bands around now though - Hocico, Encephalon, Mindless Faith - that, to me, are far more connected to the punk roots. So it didn't all disappear into the vacuum up its own arse!
@@randomhumanoidblob4506 Yes, he is stupidly petty. Ah, but he dropped out of Cambridge, that makes him FULL of hubris and self importance. In reality? Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams were the real talents behind FALAA. Not Fleetwood Mac listening Eldritch. Both have gone on to release numerous albums that have sold well. Eldritch bitterly bitched with his own record company for years, lost his voice and released nothing new. Total loser. But the few albums the band released until then were good.
If you want confirmation of how much of a wanker he is/was, read Wayne Hussey's autobiography. It documents how Adams quit the band in response to Eldritch's treatment of him, Andy's reaction to him quitting, which was plain nasty, vitriolic, petty and unwarranted given Craig's long service to the band. That bitterness towards Craig was the last straw for Hussey, both him and Adams were being treated as mere hired hands to Andy's "greatness", where in reality the real musical talent resided with Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams. The speed with which The Mission's first album was brought out, its massive popularity in Goth circles and beyonf, and The Mission's meteoric rise to success so quickly says all you need to know about their musical talent. Meanwhile Andrew piddled around and took several years to get enough people to work with him to release another album. Who all subsequently left the band because of the way he treated them......
@@2112jonr great reply ! Rumours are that Patricia Morrison gave an interview in 2010 and a radio interview 5 years ago admitting she had been paid out by Eldtritch. Part of this 'pitiful pay out' was that she NEVER reveal on what songs she participated and wrote on Vision Thing; the payment figure which she legally can never disclose. However, Patricia said she would abide by her legally binding contract about non-disclosure on monies received and what songs she wrote on Vision Thing, after September 2021 she can discuss why she was unceremoniously thrown out of the "band." Patricia Morrison has legally looked into the matter and 30 years (yeah . ... can you believe it !) have in fact passed and apart from the discrete payout figure she CAN discuss what happened and why Eldtritch ripped everyone one off who worked on The Sisterhood:Gift fiasco, Floodland where he lied to her, she heard boastful re:compensation and received very little as she was naively trusting whilst Eldtritch pulled a Sharon Osbourne and ALL copyright, royalties and residuals went to the Gnome of Darkness. NOTE Both Floodland and Vision Thing sold millions of records on the then very lucrative US College charts. Rumours abound that these albums have sold up to 7 million copies world wide. If you're the sole copyright recipient this would mean a large revenue. Billy Corgan pulled the same stunt with the Smashing Pumpkins and that's why James & D'arcy hate him to this day.
Always enjoy your fascinating backstories. Whatever Eldritch thought about Floodland, or taking offense at the goth label, the discovery of that album informed a major part of my youth. The choral parts of This Corrosion still energize me.
Are the choral parts, part of something else ? Or were they written/preformed for this track only ?. Always wanted more of that sound, very very soothing and uplifting, then the guitar kicks in and becomes iconic.
@@unkleenkil2764 From what I understand, the New York Choral Society performed the choir section. The production was multi tracked to get that "wall of sound" effect. It really is magnificent
@@MartijnVos Hello Martjin Vos, when I said big three, I should have been more clear, I meant "Big Three Goth Bands". Without a doubt Joy Division is amazing, personal favorites being Digital, Disorder, and Dead Souls, but I wouldn't put Joy Division in the goth category because much of their music falls outside that classification. There were so many great bands in the late 70s early 80s that had dark brooding sounds and lyrics but wouldn't be proper to classify them as "goth". If I had to give examples of bands which made goth music but not necessarily goth bands, I'd be thinking most notably of The Cure or Siouxsie and Banshees. If you cherry picked albums and songs and only listened to them, they would be goth bands, but if you listen to more and more of their catalog, it gets increasingly harder to use that term.
Andrew Eldritch is a literature guy. Literature and languages are his passions. He should know of Death of the Author and just accept that his body of work is goth. :P
@@BarkertheScrunkly screw the press wtf do they know? You know? I love them both for their own jam phrasing .. "poor man's joy division.." that's the 80s version of "trying to get likes👍"
@@vannjunkin8041 The critics were also saying the same thing about Bauhaus. All the dark post-punk acts that came after Ian Curtis, death were getting panned for allegedly ripping off Joy Division.
@@BarkertheScrunkly .. and of course they sound nothing alike.. just because they were in the same musical movement. They said the same thing about Stone Temple Pilots ripping Alice in Chains, again nothing alike. . Not even similar.
Wayne Hussey did write and obviously played guitar for several sisters songs including marian, so saying wasteland sounds like marian while Hussey wrote both songs is like saying Husseys guitarwork sounds like Husseys guitarwork.
@@Morphstock No, several people who don't realise who wrote the music to those songs have made the same accusation. For real world proof, The Mission still play some of the songs Hussey wrote at their gigs, as Wayne has the right to play songs he wrote. If he didn't, I'm certain Andy would have slapped an injunction on him out of bitterness several decades ago. They're still playing them, so it's very safe to assume Hussey was indeed the sole writer of the music, as Eldritch wasn't a musician by his own admission, only a singer and lyric writer.
@@2112jonr I think you're probably right. Eldritch certainly claims to have written some Sisters music including Temple Of Love (written before Hussey joined) although by implication he was acknowledging that usually he didn't write the music. I think it's well known by people who actually know about the Sisters that a lot of First, Last and Always songs were Hussey's work musically.
@@2112jonr Eldritch wrote some of the riffs including Alice but Hussey definitely took the band to a higher level. I’d highly recommend the new book about Sisters that just came out “Paint My Name In Black and Gold”
Eldritch wrote the music for most of the early singles and EP’s as well as programming Dr. Avalanche and producing the recordings. Hussey and Marx wrote the the majority of the music on the first album.
@@unkleenkil2764 I will be controversial and say the non Steinman involved tracks are lacking. Its not a surprise that Eldritch took the Steinman OTT big sound attitude to make the memorable modern tracks Under The Gun, Temple Of Love (90s version) and the co Steinman latter hit More
haha I also saw them for that tour. Gang of Four was also on the bill, at least at the Miami show. The first time any vers of the sisters ever played Fla. Great show
Children, God's Own Medicine and Carved in Sand are brilliant albums. As is 2017's "Another Fall From Grace" - not often a 30 year old band can come out with a strikingly good album that the hardcore fans love. Reached the top 30 albums in the UK in 2018 - very respectable for a "goth" band in the musically diluted 21st century.
Your New British Canon videos are always so well put together and informative! You should do one on Japan, a band that nobody talks about although they were right up there with Gary Numan in spearheading the whole New Wave movement. Their album Quiet Life from 1979 is a trailblazer for the genre. They have a very interesting history full of drama and conflict, and the members continued putting out interesting trailblazing work after their breakup in 82'. (Their singer worked with the likes of King Crimson's Robert Fripp and YMO's Ryuichi Sakamoto, their keyboardist Richard Barbieri would end up playing with Porcupine Tree in the 90s, etc)
Loved This Corrosion when it came out, I remember dancing care-free with 2 mates, fuelled by exhilaration at having The Sisters of Mercy back again, & by cheap watered-down Cider [God Bless those laxer, civilised, licensing laws which let us civilised under-18s into Alt.Clubs]- but I love the song even MORE now I understand the lyrics! Fair play to Eldridge 💜 Saw SoM recently, bit reluctant as I'm lazier & less easy amused now, but it was unexpectedly 1 of the best gigs I've experienced in 40+ years; SoM were on top form, & This Corrosion was an encore; a packed audience caterwauling joyously along together; thinking of it still makes me smile, & feel more alive.
Thank you for this amazing documentary. Sisters of Mercy was my soundtrack growing up as a moody Los Angeles Suburban teen. Know that you told me what it’s about. Corrosion Is now my Anthem as a middle aged woman in Las Vegas🥂💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💯💣
I remember seeing SoM at M'era Luna in Hildesheim in 2000. And Eldritch yelling at the very, very goth audience that 'we are not goth', then getting annoyed that everyone laughed. Love em.
This is a work of art. Accent is like an 80s DJ and punctuation pitch rate an flow of speech conveys the info so well. Glad I got you man its rainy outside and I'm enjoying this. Temple of Love video is amazing.
I don't even think goth is really a musical genre. I see it more like an aesthetic you can layer on top of other genres. Goth rock, goth metal, goth industrial, goth pop--EBM is basically goth techno/electronica.
Nick Cave accepted Goth whole heartedly. Cave hated the VJ's who thought they were better than the bands hence he wrote, Release the Bats with The Birthday Party. Release the Bats is of course a piss take on the very early Goth scene with Bauhaus whom the members of The Birthday Party both laughed at, and, loathed. WHY - Cave and Roland Howard thought Bauhaus were a Z grade version of David Bowie.
It's a damn shame that things didn't work out between Eldritch and Morrison. Her singing voice just complemented Andrew's so well - Truly a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Hey now now (pun intended) - are you presuming their genre? 😉. If people are allowed to decide what pronouns they are referred to with, a band can decide what genre it wants to be associated with. Right? (For the record, I agree with you)
@@drunkvegangal8089 I never suggested that Bauhaus didn’t have influences. They did plenty of covers. The video implies that they were around at the same time as the Sisters. The Sisters were a couple of years later.
The Bauhaus formed in 1978 and their 1st album came out in 1980, the year Sisters were formed. This does actually make them contemporaries. However, the Bauhaus faded from popularity (IMHO) after their 1983 Album and the Sisters did not come out with an entire album until 1985, almost 2 years later. I agree that Eldridge did turn himself into a Peter Murphy clone, for awhile, and was definitely influenced by Bauhaus. They were both very much part of the same, circa '82 , "I'm not a goth" scene.
Saffron Sugar Absolutely. The Bauhaus only really had 5 years as a band, until they thankfully reunited in the early 2000s. Sisters of Mercy were Eldridge and whomever he could stand to be around
Dude, you need to get your facts right. The black leather hat was Wayne Hussey's, NOT Eldritch's. Hussey wore it after being refused entry to rehearse at one of their own gigs in New York after his head was puked on whilst he was asleep en-route to the gig. He couldn't make it back to the hotel to wash it, which was miles away, in time for the gig, so he went to a hat shop and came back with a black leather hat to cover his mass of hair, puke still in place, so he could get into rehearsals. The rest of the band adopted the look too, including Eldritch, and it went from there. Well documented in the man's autobiography.
Two key moments in my life are the day my cousin's fiance gave me a tape with Kraftwerk's Man Machine on one side and Eno's Before and After Science on the other when I was 14, and seeing the video for This Corrosion in the basement bar of Posers in Georgetown, DC when I was 20. Listening to Floodland is like opening up a door to pure aesthetic, and I'm here for every bombastic, theatrical, over-the-GD-top moment of it.
I still love Kraftwerk's Man Machine and Eno's Before and After Science but Floodland, I'd be very happy to see it erased from musical history or at the least to be re-released as "The Andrew Eldritch Project". OK it's good for what is is but it's not "The Sisters of Mercy." It was very wrong of him to re-use the band name for his solo stuff. Even worse with "Vision Thing".
Eldritch's revenge would be breath taking if any of us understood it at the time. Flew over everyones head and all that thought and planning was wasted.
@@everythingability of possible interest, Hussey's prior group, an early lineup of Dead or Alive, were doing the post-punk 60s-inspired gloomy gothic sound for several years before any SoM releases. Hussey's guitar work can be heard I believe on DoA tracks from 1981 to 1984; '82 tracks of interest include "The Stranger", "Some of that", "It's been hours now", "Whirlpool", "Nowhere to nowhere" ... It's the guitar style he continued with in SoM and The Mission.
I love the idea of someone making an intentionally "stupid" song as a swipe at a former bandmate who's work he thought was shit, then seeing much more success with that song than any of his previous original work.
Hey! I’m a huge fan. The way you gather info and create such linear focused content is so interesting and well done. I’d love to see a video on how Sonic Youth made a huge impact/ influenced the alt rock movement of the 90’s or anything Sonic related tbh. Thank you for creating such consistent content!
The first proper gig I went to was Sisters of Mercy at Norwich UEA in around 1985. It was absolutely electric. Packed out and quite an edgy atmosphere. Blew my tiny mind!
Andrew listens to fleetwood mac, foreigner and whatnot. Imagine... in his mind he thinks hes playing music like Bruce Springsteen foghat, reo speedwagon but cant comprehend that it's dark and gothic.
Yeah, I've never really reconciled that with his music. Especially as Wayne and Craig were the rock fans, yet Andy finally managed to release Floodland. Weird juxtaposition of what he listed to vs what he finally produced.
All early goth was satire. I think getting sucked into the Sisters' self-aggrandizing exceptionalism both sells short the value of their actual contributions, and imbues any examination with a sycophantic edge.
Megalomania? Hardly so. Alice, Body Electric, Phantom or 1959 rather are minimalist arrangements. "We need to get inside your head, by any means necessary!" -That's what he is about, and these were the means necessary. Except for that rather doubtful quote at the end, a pretty good tale of the journey. It definitely captures the spirit of it. A journey that enrichened my own life in the passed 30+ years. A huge thank you to my dear Sissies for being there! ^^)
We then teeny goths really wanted and tried to like it when it came out but quickly had to acknowledge it was embarassingly bad and like "Floodlands" had no right to be released as "The Sisters of Mercy".
I'm old enough to have lived thru the time when Gloom was morphed into Goth.. I saw the SOM in a basement of a Los Angeles Hotel on halloween 1985, it was very cool...But I was into them since the early stuff hit California...
Personally speaking, I think Eldritch was right to be petty. That first album by the Mission, lyrically is dreadful and musically just full of ideas he'd taken from the sound of the Sisters. Don't get me wrong, I quite like the Mission but Eldritch is by far the better song writer and I think that shows if you compare God's Own Medicine to Floodland.
This story should be more about "Gift" album where he put some of his best work in terms of lyrics, i think Giving ground has some of his best verses and he was always strong in writing anyway. Spite is one hell of a motivator.
@@LivyathanAD I certainly danced to the 'Mish', and even bought the album, but it was one of the first pieces of vinyl I sold in the 90s. Still have my Sisters of Mercy collection tho :D Plus the Leonard Cohen original (but I'm Canadian, so...!)
@@LivyathanAD First and Last and Always was a split album musically between Marx and Hussey and I much prefer the Marx songs. I've seen The Mission a number of times and to be honest, their first tour IMO was by far their best. Small'ish venues with up close and personal performances, Wayne still managed to be a complete diva and chucked his 12 string off stage as it was out of tune.
It was Eldritch versus the departing members and he threw a few punches back. He was never any more petty than Hussey was when borrowing his style... The Mission had their successes and still have fans today, as do the Sisters.
first and last and always (ep) by far the best work they did. saw them live 85 with smoke machines and dry ice blocked all but their leather hats.thanks for this piece. I had no idea that I caught them live at their best...
Trying to figure out if it's the "direct rock and roll continuation" music I'm not a fan of or if everyone in this story is a petty sphincter who automatically makes me dislike what they do. These dudes became each other because they hated each other so much. That is the most goth love story I've ever heard.
Eldritch was always way, way ahead of the competition from the word go. Back in the mid 80's he'd calculated that TOTP's and the soon to be massive MTV revolution were the way to make the headlines (and the money) so he purposely didn't tour in the Floodland era. However, as the 90's loomed (and many issues going wrong with touring in the Vision Thing era) he soon became completely self-managed and simply toured venues that would regularly sell out (and make a profit) so no debts (aka 'advances') that would need paying off. Something he still does today. Releasing new material would get ever more commercially unviable as the Napster days morphed into the Pirate Bay days and eventually into the multi-platform streaming we all do now that yields all but the most massive of acts very little income. But time has shown that Eldritch, regardless whether you love him or think he's a total dick, was absolutely right in his disdain of "People who miss the point" in his Sounds interview from Sep '87. They simply didn't see the future as clearly as Eldritch did.
I have at times used FLOODLANDS as a form of stop watch when I'm about to go out. Need to leave in half an hour? Play everything up to including THIS CORROSION. Going out in an hour? Play the whole album. When teh club SANCTUARY in Sydney closed the first time, THIS was the song they went out on.
Ironic that everyone left right before Eldridge took the band to its highest point. THAT is Rock n Roll if I've ever heard it. BE WHO YOU ARE! Also, never a bad thing to have a male and female vocal on a song. This Corrosion is one of the finest examples EVER of that!
To me Floodland sounds like exactly what it is: a solo album by one guy after the whole band pretty much left. It has its moments but there's a slight lack of musical invention compared to the debut album. Not surprisingly, my favorite thing on it (Dominion) has a jangle riff that could have come straight from the debut.
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Can pls make a video on radiohead?
Make a video on the replacements
Aphex twin and faithless please!!!
That was a great story. Never knew that. I'm just a late comer being a vision thing fan. Sure I heard this song at the clubs, but that album was too much fun too.
They are great. Excellent music. What does it feel like to be useless, to live in a shadow? Think about that truth.
All of the gothest songs ever recorded were by bands that swore up and down that they weren't goth. "I'm not a pastry chef! Now eat this croquembouche I made."
There's a reason for that. Goth is merely a bunch of people who took the sounds , ideas and visual aesthetics shared by a collection of unrelated artists and codified it into a style with rules. The artists who inspired goth aren't beholden to those rules. This is why self-procliamed 'goth' music is so derivative -- they're not being original, they're merely copying those who were.
Apart from the likes of Robert Smith and Wayne Hussey, who seemed quite happy to regurgitate the same old shit year after year, the other grandfather's of goth have continued to evolve artistically rather than remain confined within the boundaries of a label created by their fanbase.
@@elysiumsexsmith Absolutely agree. The reason why Siouxsie, Bauhaus, The Sisters etc always bristled at being called goth (even though they were all instrumental in its creation) was because they were creating those records way before that term even existed, never mind a scene. It was the later bands that took all the stereotypes and not only copied it but then took it way too seriously, hence all the codified, derivative sounding stuff that's been around since the about the late 80s onwards. Now, some of those later bands were pretty good (Alien Sex Fiend probably being my fave of those) but it can't compare to the originators of the roughly '78-85 era.
@@powrxplor69 precisely.
This is the reason why I've never liked describing myself as a goth. I mean, I'm a black-wearing weirdo who listens to a lot of music considered goth but I've always remained on the outskirts of the scene doing my own thing.
If you listen to my music, you'd be hard pressed to describe it as goth even though it's heavily inspired by the same same artists that forged goth in the first place.
At the time, I remember well, it wasn't cool to be labeled and categorized. It has nothing to do with musical influence or not wanting to start a movement. If we had said "I'm a Goth", then we would have been seen as posers. Everyone wanted to be individual whilst wearing a uniform. Even the Beatles, 20 years earlier, avoided being called Mods.
Times changed, by the late 90s it was cool to be more down to earth and not take yourself too seriously. By then saying, "I'm a Goth" had a rebellious, owning the label feel to it. Denying it, whilst clearly being it, implied that you were both nuts and hypersensitive.
@Claudia Solomon
Hi, thanks for asking!
My UA-cam channel has the stuff I've made videos for so you can click my name and it'll take you through to that or you click this link here: ua-cam.com/channels/8VeDYbCcHYK7rf_K9cnsEA.html )
My Soundcloud has a few more tracks, mainly demo stuff. You can find that here: soundcloud.com/elysium-sexsmith
Bandcamp doesn't have much on it right now. However, I am releasing an album on Halloween which will be available on Bandcamp as well Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, etc etc.
(Bandcamp) elysiumsexsmith.bandcamp.com/
(Spotify) open.spotify.com/artist/0qQoP3Bs6iDZcnW570NFMR?si=VlENQMXWTTqaDd8TX1AuDQ
I hope it's up your street.
I remember hearing This Corrosion on a "modern rock" show one night when I was 14. Never heard anything like that before and couldn't believe a song on the radio could last almost ten minutes. Still love this song. I sing to my cats, except I change to "hey meow, hey meow meow". They're not impressed.
and now mine won't be either. I already go around the house singing "ich liebe dich my kitty meoooooow" to the tune of Marian and now you've given me a new way to torture them 🖤
You would like Shadow Project.
I do that too but all my animals love it XD
Get a dog.
Ian Ashbury said on MTV in 85 that Sisters was one of his fav alt band and his distaste for Howard Jones and candy pop...Unfortunately Duffy wanted to go the simple riff ACDC blue-jean route, which were succesfull but hated by the base. If they never started in the Goth years, The Cult would be lumped into the hairband crash.
What could be more goth than denying you're a goth.
Being Goth is like being Cool; if you are, you won't claim to be, but if you say you are, you probably aren't. 😆
It's almost the same Energy as Iggy Pop saying he "dislikes" punk rock
Wich Is a punk attitude lol
Well actually...
@@nekocherry8161 I picked up on Iggy and Reed interviews. But badly executed.
20 minutes for a shitty single, how many hours would be needed for temple of love?
whenever a goth dies he becomes part of the chorus of this corrosion
Haha!
HAHA best comment
what about Jesus ? How does He play into this equation ?
@@kansascitycomputers Jesus is the lead singer.
Guess the women just don’t
Gotta love how he totally disowned the Goth tag yet as a band they probably inspired more people to the Goth lifestyle than any other.
It was the best thing he could have done for himself and "goth" together. Goth should be what they call you, not what you call yourself.
@@artemusprine Good point. That's true of a lot of bands. I think the minute you pigeon hole yourself into a genre then thats the moment a time scale is placed on your career. For example The Cramps are often called the archetype Psychobilly band but they never considered themselves to be that. Same with The Cure , who were also a go to for Goths early on.
so true
@@chrisodriscoll3077 and yet, with the Cure most goths (that I knew, at least) agreed: they weren't goth, they were just a band that a lot of goths happened to like.
@@glennolson6505 The Cure had Goth moments , either in their stylings or music. They also were well able to knock out a straight up pop song too. Either way great band.
My favourite TSoM anecdote involving line-up changes:
Andrew Eldritch wrote “Lucretia My Reflection” as his tribute/thank you to Patricia Morrison.
Patricia Morrison’s only solo album, released in 1994, was called Reflect on This.
The record company got him to say that. He loathed her. He went through with it all to get the money from them.
@@vixen4905 Mutual then 😉
@@vixen4905 Well, hadn't heard that before. I do suspect that her involvement was intended to do little more than give the impression that Floodland had been recorded by a band though.
She was /is an absolute queen
Andrew: “We’re not goth 😒”
**LA goths dancing to Temple of Love at every goth nite 💃🏻**
They actually called it "Nite" there too? Oh, L.A. ...
Also, the # of goth bands who copied Andrew's singing style...well...it's innumerable. If they weren't goth, they certainly influenced a lot of goth bands.
Me, at 56 years old, dancing to "Temple of Love" whenever it's played; even on the 80s radio stations in the car, hands up in the air 'sweeping cobwebs from the ceiling', whilst hips gyrate in the seat :D
In LA, no goth set is complete without Dominion.
The 4 most Gothic words ever uttered are "Uh, we're Not GOTH!"
Patricia Morrison never received the credit she so justly deserves ! She is the one who journeyed to Germany so the sisters could be reborn !
No one has ever rightly said she wasn't "instrumental" in making it happen.
Eldritch just needed a hand to hold, wild and what it seems.
She did nothing only with her face on a video and album cover
@@uvoikimovundutrauerblume3302 that's andrews version.
According to his ace autobiography Wayne also travelled to Hamburg before leaving the band, a fact this video omits.
@@artemusprine Kill the king with love is the law
Everytime Andrew says "I'm not goth", i just dance harder.
I saw him years ago in London he was tring to reinvent himself doing rap/hiphop
I smile wider.
Was he the one to start the cliche that goths deny being goth?
@@MartijnVos
I'm pretty sure Robert Smith said it before him. And he probably wasn't the first.
@@MartijnVos That award probably goes to Robert Smith
1st rule of the proto-Goth, deny being a Goth.
"No true Goth ever admits to being one."
*jots rule down in notebook* got it
He dresses like a goth. Plays goth sounding music. Using Aleister Crowley in his lyrics and names himself after HP Lovecraft's pantheon of monsters but remember now...Andrew is NOT A GOTH.
perfect case made to illustrate he was certainly trying a bit too hard
Yes, but he was already doing that when the Goth label was fist applied. Admittedly it's why the Goth label was applied, but that's his problem, not ours.
If I remember correctly, he chose the name "Eldritch" because of Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", not because of Lovecraft.
EDIT: found this www.loudersound.com/features/sisters-of-mercy-i-wanted-to-sound-like-a-disco-run-by-the-borgias. "People say its’ a reference to Lovecraft and his ilk, but it’s actually a reference to Philip K Dick and his ilk.
"
He is a NotAGoth.
Tony Iommi: "I never liked heavy metal".
Great stuff! As a side note, I've had the chance to chat w/ Patricia when she did a fantastic job playing for The Damned, and she is a very nice person -- as are all in the Damned. It's nice to encounter people who are sincere and decent folk.
I randomly met captain sensible in a pub a few years ago 😂 I had no idea who he was at the time, but he was chatty and friendly and nice person lmao xD
@@rabbitraisinThat sounds like i imagine him being under the rocker persona, same vibes about Vanian as well. Very cool guys.
Back in the 80’s I was at a club with some friends when this song came on. As the chorus rolled around, an impish Goth in our midst sang out, “Hey now, hey now now, please pass the lotion to me...” and from that day forward, those are the lyrics I hear when this song pops up...
And now it's all I can hear
Oooo, catchy! I'll add that to my fun lyrics collection. : D
Too bad🤣🤣
I almost pissed myself laughing at this!
@@mattgilbert7347 Damn it, now that's all I hear as well. Why is that so freakin contagious?
I fucking love Sisters of Mercy. Most goths I know love them too. Oh well ahhaha
And 54 year old non-goths
When I was a kid, the most important part of being goth was not being goth, unless someone else said they were goth but they had bad taste, then ONLY I was goth.
Thumbs up! As a Metal-head & I too love SoM!!
Another great band that never got the recognition they should've had is "Therapy?" from Ireland!
@@orig6redwings124 Agreed Therapy? is an amazingly underrated band.
truth! i got floodland the 1st day it was released. ever loving: 1959, emma, more, corrosion, TORCH etc....
I used to play "Floodland" for my friends, telling them it was an old demo from Type O Negative.
Peter Steele referred to “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend” as a Cars song with Andrew Eldritch singing. I don’t think they’d have taken offence to that joke.
That's as funny as Black Flag playing ZZ Top's Eliminator to a bunch of mohawked idiots in a squat and insisting it was the new Exploited album 😃
@@jimmytgoose476 haha yeah for sure
"telling them it was an old demo from Type O Negative."
plot twist: you were basically telling the truth
@@derekgilbert1752 funny because the main riff from My GF's GF is taken from "black Planet" by sisters of mercy, whose video clip shows him driving a car lmao
We all need to talk about Patricia Morrison/Vanian more often. She was in The Bags, Fur Bible, The Gun Club, The Sisters of Mercy, The Damned... And even had a great solo album, Reflect On This. She's true punk and goth royalty!
I once came across a very old press article about how bad Patricia Morisson was treated by Eldritch and often badly paid, if paid at all. The way he talks about her in this video is so despicable. Great music, ugly guy. Patricia is still a goddess for me.
@@gwendrael yet I think she's hideous, and it's true that she doesn't play on any Sisters release. Her being 'in' the band was something upon which the record company insisted, as they knew a female would attract more attention, so increase revenue. That didn't mean Von had to include her playing, which he considered very poor. At the time there were far better female musicians who were also actually attractive, so it's a shame the ultimate triumph of styling over reality was chosen. She looks like the Angry Birds werepig, with a jaw like the Xenomorph. I think he was being kind saying she looked pretty, because she never has been, she just had the right image.
And left Sisters because she was not been paid
@@unloveableandre She became a motorcycle courier in London for a while, saying that at least it paid better than being in a band with Eldritch.
Saw her play with Damned in Aberdeen in 2000. Was fantastic!
Wayne Hussey didn't rip off Marian. He's the person who wrote guitar for it, along with half the songs on First Last and Always.
Yes, thank-you for pointing that out. The Mission's albums are musically the continuation of SoM's "First & Last & Always". ...
Worth noting that the Mission sometimes combine "Marian" and "Wasteland" live. I guess Hussey is aware of the similarities
A poor documentary full of inaccuracies.
To be fair, he doesn't claim that Andrew disliked Wayne's music, only the lyrics. And as a fan of both bands, I do not really disagree.
This guys seems happy to swallow any shit Eldritch spouts uncritically. Its bizarre.
I dont dislike the Sisters, they are really good to listen to, but its not sophisticated compared to the Mission, or anyone really.
I aspire to Eldritch's level of pettiness.
Not goth, not petty!
Nothing worth aspiring over
This Corrosion...it's like you board the song and ride it. You get off, but the song is still playing for eternity and you can get on again and again. 10 minutes+ of pure hard-rocking adrenaline and raw emotion. My drive-to-work song and I would sit in the parking lot, stereo cranked, fully enveloped in the song.
Hard rocking adrenaline and raw emotion?!! You should listen to some more music 😃
Eldritch also allegedly stiffed Patricia Morrison out of her share of the money. So not only was she not allowed to do anything in the recording studio, she never got paid either.
And is subject to a gagging order, so cannot legally tell her side of the story.
Isn't her voice on the record?
I reckon thats all a lie anyway. She played, he lied.
@@luxford60 THAT tells you everything you could ever need to know about Andrew. Fucking hell.
She posed for some photos and appeared in a video or two. So she was probably due something for that. It appears it was all a gimmick of Eldritch to have a woman in the visuals to suck in the young narcissistic females to thinking a woman was part of the music and so they could project themselves into it and like it more. And it worked.
Can you do a video on The Chameleons?? They're an underrated Post-Punk band from Manchester
One of the most amazing bands ever!
@@1Atom12 Script of the Bridge is a top 10 post-punk record
Yes! "Swap Thing" always produced a stampede to the dance floor. Consider The Mighty Lemon Drops too!
@@ariloveshouse I think everything they made was so damn good, beyond top 10. The song Second Skin, I always feel like I’m in a dark and beautiful mushroom induced surreality when I listen to that song.
The Chameleons are criminally underrated!
Also, it is important to remember that Andrew did not sing "Giving Ground" or any of the "Sisterhood" songs. That was James Ray.
And Janes Ray has been MUCH more productive in recent years... lots of great recordings!
Kinda wished Trash Theory went more into the Sisterhood. Alan Vega was also involved in the project. Apparently there's a "This Corrosion" demo with Vega's vocals but I couldn't find it. I did find a "This Corrosion" demo with James Ray's vocals though.
For those interested, here's that demo version:
ua-cam.com/video/7_2n4zZw4Jw/v-deo.html
Yes, legally Eldritch couldn't sing on the Sisterhood releases because he was signed to a different label (though it's been suggested he did the speaking part on "Rain from Heaven").
But it sounds like Eldritch, damn , i could never tell it wasn't him, wtf
The only thing more bitter was Christian Death. And yeah, nothing more goth than saying you hate your whole fan base. It made it more goth.
He's a petty little bitch, isn't he? I loved the Sisters but he always came over as such a pretentious wanker who really thought he was all deep n neaningful.
@@randomhumanoidblob4506 That's because he was (is?) a massive meth-head. He was probably a narcissist to begin with, but getting strung out on stimulants will really crank that up into megalomania territory (or psychosis).
@T. N. The whole scene was fuelled by various forms of stimulant, wasn't it? The London Tube after the Slimelight let out was not a pretty sight, full of raddled goths strung out til next Wednesday.Fuck me, they were a bunch of posers.
This was the point at which, for me, goth went into oh-do-fuck-off territory, all wankers wafting round graveyards thinking a bit of poetry made them intellectuals. Barf. Seems incredible that is the end-stage of something born from punk.
There are some banging dark electro bands around now though - Hocico, Encephalon, Mindless Faith - that, to me, are far more connected to the punk roots. So it didn't all disappear into the vacuum up its own arse!
@@randomhumanoidblob4506 Yes, he is stupidly petty. Ah, but he dropped out of Cambridge, that makes him FULL of hubris and self importance. In reality? Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams were the real talents behind FALAA. Not Fleetwood Mac listening Eldritch. Both have gone on to release numerous albums that have sold well. Eldritch bitterly bitched with his own record company for years, lost his voice and released nothing new. Total loser. But the few albums the band released until then were good.
@@t.n.3819 So "hot metal and methedrine" is from personal experience...
This Corrosion is one of those songs you can never play loud enough. :)
as a goth club DJ of 3 decades imho it should never be played. :)
I'd always heard that Eldritch was a wanker, and it's nice to have that confirmed but also hear his side of the story at the same time. Good work!
If you want confirmation of how much of a wanker he is/was, read Wayne Hussey's autobiography. It documents how Adams quit the band in response to Eldritch's treatment of him, Andy's reaction to him quitting, which was plain nasty, vitriolic, petty and unwarranted given Craig's long service to the band. That bitterness towards Craig was the last straw for Hussey, both him and Adams were being treated as mere hired hands to Andy's "greatness", where in reality the real musical talent resided with Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams.
The speed with which The Mission's first album was brought out, its massive popularity in Goth circles and beyonf, and The Mission's meteoric rise to success so quickly says all you need to know about their musical talent. Meanwhile Andrew piddled around and took several years to get enough people to work with him to release another album.
Who all subsequently left the band because of the way he treated them......
@@2112jonr great reply !
Rumours are that Patricia Morrison gave an interview in 2010 and a radio interview 5 years ago admitting she had been paid out by Eldtritch.
Part of this 'pitiful pay out' was that she NEVER reveal on what songs she participated and wrote on Vision Thing; the payment figure which she legally can never disclose.
However, Patricia said she would abide by her legally binding contract about non-disclosure on monies received and what songs she wrote on Vision Thing, after September 2021 she can discuss why she was unceremoniously thrown out of the "band."
Patricia Morrison has legally looked into the matter and 30 years (yeah . ... can you believe it !) have in fact passed and apart from the discrete payout figure she CAN discuss what happened and why Eldtritch ripped everyone one off who worked on The Sisterhood:Gift fiasco,
Floodland where he lied to her, she heard boastful re:compensation and received very little as she was naively trusting whilst Eldtritch pulled a Sharon Osbourne and ALL copyright, royalties and residuals went to the Gnome of Darkness.
NOTE Both Floodland and Vision Thing sold millions of records on the then very lucrative US College charts. Rumours abound that these albums have sold up to 7 million copies world wide. If you're the sole copyright recipient this would mean a large revenue.
Billy Corgan pulled the same stunt with the Smashing Pumpkins and that's why James & D'arcy hate him to this day.
I highly recommend the new book written about SOM, Paint My Name In Black And Gold, great book and I’ve learned alot
Shoulda been called Paint My Name In Shit And Piss 😃
@@FrostedSeagull thanks, Nice to know you can learn something from UA-cam comments.
Always enjoy your fascinating backstories. Whatever Eldritch thought about Floodland, or taking offense at the goth label, the discovery of that album informed a major part of my youth. The choral parts of This Corrosion still energize me.
Are the choral parts, part of something else ? Or were they written/preformed for this track only ?. Always wanted more of that sound, very very soothing and uplifting, then the guitar kicks in and becomes iconic.
@@unkleenkil2764 From what I understand, the New York Choral Society performed the choir section. The production was multi tracked to get that "wall of sound" effect. It really is magnificent
For sure! Singing along to This Corrosion is a huge pump!
Great video. You should make one about Fields Of The Nephilim.
I second that request!
concur! A fairly major early group.
True or not, I considered FotN part of the big three w/ Bauhaus and SoM
@@ascionor If that's your big three, where does Joy Division rank? I see them as the big four.
@@MartijnVos Hello Martjin Vos, when I said big three, I should have been more clear, I meant "Big Three Goth Bands". Without a doubt Joy Division is amazing, personal favorites being Digital, Disorder, and Dead Souls, but I wouldn't put Joy Division in the goth category because much of their music falls outside that classification. There were so many great bands in the late 70s early 80s that had dark brooding sounds and lyrics but wouldn't be proper to classify them as "goth". If I had to give examples of bands which made goth music but not necessarily goth bands, I'd be thinking most notably of The Cure or Siouxsie and Banshees. If you cherry picked albums and songs and only listened to them, they would be goth bands, but if you listen to more and more of their catalog, it gets increasingly harder to use that term.
It's only now 30+ years later that I realize just how funny Andrew is.
Right! It's like cabaret. He was always taking the piss.
This Corrosion sounds like a great band name
I think it's been used.
There used to be a small punk rock band in Dublin, late 80s/early 90s called Testicle Overflow. I taught that was a great name.
This Corrosion Of Conformity ? 😃
a SOM tribute act could call themselves Sis Corrosion
Andrew Eldritch is a literature guy. Literature and languages are his passions. He should know of Death of the Author and just accept that his body of work is goth. :P
He knows Lucretia. Well read sir..
Author doesn't matter when crowd takes the power over his creation. The crowd turns the craft of the artist into something that belongs to the crowd.
He just has this urge to be different and unique
Floodland is still one of my favorite albums ever.
Temple of Love with Ofra Haza on A Slight Case of Overbombing is also a treasure.
Wouldn't Doktor Avalanche be considered s stable member of the band?
nah see, cause it's always been different drum machines.
@@nicholasromig5506 damn, even the drum machines couldn't handle Eldritch lmao
@@anarkie2016 would you wanna be in a band with a dude that resolutely disavowed 65% of his fanbase?
Nicholas Romig Nah Avalanche’s soul was transferred between drum machines
@@depesci7133 haha, he was always there, eh?
Peter Steele totally used to joke about ripping off the Sister's of Mercy
Interestingly the press slammed the Sisters for being a poor man's Joy Division when they released their first singles.
@@BarkertheScrunkly screw the press wtf do they know? You know? I love them both for their own jam phrasing .. "poor man's joy division.." that's the 80s version of "trying to get likes👍"
@@vannjunkin8041 The critics were also saying the same thing about Bauhaus. All the dark post-punk acts that came after Ian Curtis, death were getting panned for allegedly ripping off Joy Division.
@@BarkertheScrunkly .. and of course they sound nothing alike.. just because they were in the same musical movement. They said the same thing about Stone Temple Pilots ripping Alice in Chains, again nothing alike. . Not even similar.
One of my life's great regrets is never seeing Type O Negative live.
Wayne Hussey did write and obviously played guitar for several sisters songs including marian, so saying wasteland sounds like marian while Hussey wrote both songs is like saying Husseys guitarwork sounds like Husseys guitarwork.
Perhaps the accusation was more that he was repeating himself.
@@Morphstock No, several people who don't realise who wrote the music to those songs have made the same accusation. For real world proof, The Mission still play some of the songs Hussey wrote at their gigs, as Wayne has the right to play songs he wrote. If he didn't, I'm certain Andy would have slapped an injunction on him out of bitterness several decades ago. They're still playing them, so it's very safe to assume Hussey was indeed the sole writer of the music, as Eldritch wasn't a musician by his own admission, only a singer and lyric writer.
@@2112jonr I think you're probably right. Eldritch certainly claims to have written some Sisters music including Temple Of Love (written before Hussey joined) although by implication he was acknowledging that usually he didn't write the music. I think it's well known by people who actually know about the Sisters that a lot of First, Last and Always songs were Hussey's work musically.
@@2112jonr Eldritch wrote some of the riffs including Alice but Hussey definitely took the band to a higher level. I’d highly recommend the new book about Sisters that just came out “Paint My Name In Black and Gold”
Eldritch wrote the music for most of the early singles and EP’s as well as programming Dr. Avalanche and producing the recordings.
Hussey and Marx wrote the the majority of the music on the first album.
I totally love that the same guy who played on Addicted to Love also played on This Corrosion. It just makes it that much more perfect.
As much as I like his music, the way Eldritch's obsession with his former bandmates became a years-long preoccupation was kind of pathetic.
He can hold a grudge against an ex band member , although he had nothing on Mark E Smith in that department.
A bit like Morrissey in that respect. Viva Hate!! 😀😀
@@Morphstock it was sad and obsessive and I'm glad he's dead. In fact, he should be dug up and shot.
The man is totally comitted to living out his asshole persona to the fullest extent.
It's hard work but someone's gotta do it.
Everyone has their own form of inspiration.
I woke up this morning in a Sisters Of Mercy mood and here this video is. Thank you!
Fantastic video on a great song. Dominion / Mother Russia on the same album equally brilliant.
I wholeheartedly agree!! I’ll say that Dominion/ Mother Russia is by far my favorite from Floodland!
My favorite song
Absolutely.. One of my favorite albums ever, the one I go too when I'm down, (ahem) Apart from Abba, and boney m of course .
It's the first Sisters song I ever heard! My friend's older brother had it on a mixtape. Got me to seek out their whole catalogue.
@@unkleenkil2764 I will be controversial and say the non Steinman involved tracks are lacking. Its not a surprise that Eldritch took the Steinman OTT big sound attitude to make the memorable modern tracks Under The Gun, Temple Of Love (90s version) and the co Steinman latter hit More
10:38 The Mission sounding like the early Sisters comes from the fact that Hussey wrote half the songs.
Correct. And still play at Mission concerts many of the songs Hussey wrote whilst in the Sisters, as he has the music writing credit.
Saw them in '91 (with Public Enemy (!)) - their stage presence did not disappoint.
haha I also saw them for that tour. Gang of Four was also on the bill, at least at the Miami show. The first time any vers of the sisters ever played Fla. Great show
Saw that tour...in an amusement park.
@@sz6734 Me too. Wonderland.
That tour didn't do well due to goth fans and hip hop fans not getting along
Amazing work. Well done.
This video seems pretty harsh on The Mission, but make no mistake, that first album is an absolute banger
Children, God's Own Medicine and Carved in Sand are brilliant albums. As is 2017's "Another Fall From Grace" - not often a 30 year old band can come out with a strikingly good album that the hardcore fans love. Reached the top 30 albums in the UK in 2018 - very respectable for a "goth" band in the musically diluted 21st century.
They still sound better live today than the Sisters of Mercy
They were never more than a mediocre pop band.
Your New British Canon videos are always so well put together and informative! You should do one on Japan, a band that nobody talks about although they were right up there with Gary Numan in spearheading the whole New Wave movement. Their album Quiet Life from 1979 is a trailblazer for the genre. They have a very interesting history full of drama and conflict, and the members continued putting out interesting trailblazing work after their breakup in 82'. (Their singer worked with the likes of King Crimson's Robert Fripp and YMO's Ryuichi Sakamoto, their keyboardist Richard Barbieri would end up playing with Porcupine Tree in the 90s, etc)
Loved This Corrosion when it came out, I remember dancing care-free with 2 mates, fuelled by exhilaration at having The Sisters of Mercy back again, & by cheap watered-down Cider [God Bless those laxer, civilised, licensing laws which let us civilised under-18s into Alt.Clubs]- but I love the song even MORE now I understand the lyrics! Fair play to Eldridge 💜 Saw SoM recently, bit reluctant as I'm lazier & less easy amused now, but it was unexpectedly 1 of the best gigs I've experienced in 40+ years; SoM were on top form, & This Corrosion was an encore; a packed audience caterwauling joyously along together; thinking of it still makes me smile, & feel more alive.
The Sisters were such a HUUUGE part of my 80s goth girl life! 😍😍😍
I saw them a couple of years ago. Rock posturing galore, every member on the darkened stage wore sunglasses…. I loved every minute of it 🖤
I have Lucretia and Temple of Love on my work playlist. Listen to those two great songs everyday.
Thank you for this amazing documentary. Sisters of Mercy was my soundtrack growing up as a moody Los Angeles Suburban teen. Know that you told me what it’s about. Corrosion Is now my Anthem as a middle aged woman in Las Vegas🥂💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿💯💣
I remember seeing SoM at M'era Luna in Hildesheim in 2000. And Eldritch yelling at the very, very goth audience that 'we are not goth', then getting annoyed that everyone laughed. Love em.
HILARIOUS !!! :-D
When a Goth dies, their voice is added to the choir at the beginning of "This Corrosion."
Great video. Odd that you haven't covered Killing Joke yet.
This is a work of art. Accent is like an 80s DJ and punctuation pitch rate an flow of speech conveys the info so well. Glad I got you man its rainy outside and I'm enjoying this. Temple of Love video is amazing.
They were goth and pop. I don't know why you can't be both. There's no purity to any of these terms, and nothing is mutually exclusive.
Seriously one of the defining traits of goth rock is how fucking catchy and melodic it is despite the morbid subject matter
I don't even think goth is really a musical genre. I see it more like an aesthetic you can layer on top of other genres. Goth rock, goth metal, goth industrial, goth pop--EBM is basically goth techno/electronica.
True
Percentage of goth bands who claim to not be goth: 99.
I reckon it'd be about 66.6% 😂
Nick Cave accepted Goth whole heartedly.
Cave hated the VJ's who thought they were better than the bands hence he wrote,
Release the Bats with
The Birthday Party.
Release the Bats is of course a piss take on the very early Goth scene with Bauhaus whom the members of The Birthday Party both laughed at, and, loathed.
WHY - Cave and Roland Howard thought Bauhaus were a Z grade version of David Bowie.
This Corrosion is a masterpiece - I got nothing to say I ain't said before, I bled all I can I won't bleed no more.
It's a damn shame that things didn't work out between Eldritch and Morrison.
Her singing voice just complemented Andrew's so well - Truly a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
And everyone else Andy ever worked with...
@@2112jonr That's a common belief, but Adam Pearson, Chris Catalyst and Ben Christo (still) were in the band for years.
Thank you very much for this. The sister of mercy have always been one of my favorite bands that I still listen today. 🙂🦇
I’ve been waiting so hard for this band to come up in your canon. great as always. Thanks for doing what you do.
Man, this was really well done, appreciate it. Never knew about the rivalry between the sisters and the mission, explains a lot though
If it looks goth and sounds goth it’s goth no matter what you “consider” yourself
Hey now now (pun intended) - are you presuming their genre? 😉. If people are allowed to decide what pronouns they are referred to with, a band can decide what genre it wants to be associated with. Right?
(For the record, I agree with you)
Bauhaus were pretty much over when the sisters were getting going. They weren’t really contemporaries. The Sisters took a lot from Bauhaus.
Bauhaus took a lot from Velvet Underground and Iggy/Bowie. Everyone takes a lot from everyone...standing on the shoulders of giants :D
@@drunkvegangal8089 I never suggested that Bauhaus didn’t have influences. They did plenty of covers. The video implies that they were around at the same time as the Sisters. The Sisters were a couple of years later.
@@gazfunk Ah ha! You are correct in your timeline. Still, all pop music is a continuous web of devoted, loving thievery. Just ask Paul Simon ;)
The Bauhaus formed in 1978 and their 1st album came out in 1980, the year Sisters were formed. This does actually make them contemporaries.
However, the Bauhaus faded from popularity (IMHO) after their 1983 Album and the Sisters did not come out with an entire album until 1985, almost 2 years later. I agree that Eldridge did turn himself into a Peter Murphy clone, for awhile, and was definitely influenced by Bauhaus. They were both very much part of the same, circa '82 , "I'm not a goth" scene.
Saffron Sugar Absolutely. The Bauhaus only really had 5 years as a band, until they thankfully reunited in the early 2000s.
Sisters of Mercy were Eldridge and whomever he could stand to be around
I did an intervview with Peter Steele in Pittsburgh 1994 and he stated he wanted to tour with sisters. Those were good days
This band changed my life when I discovered them at 15.
Dude, you need to get your facts right. The black leather hat was Wayne Hussey's, NOT Eldritch's. Hussey wore it after being refused entry to rehearse at one of their own gigs in New York after his head was puked on whilst he was asleep en-route to the gig. He couldn't make it back to the hotel to wash it, which was miles away, in time for the gig, so he went to a hat shop and came back with a black leather hat to cover his mass of hair, puke still in place, so he could get into rehearsals. The rest of the band adopted the look too, including Eldritch, and it went from there.
Well documented in the man's autobiography.
I like this series, brings back my youth 😉
Could you please do a video about "Dead can Dance" 👍
I second this motion. 👍🏻
third
It needs to be done.
I NEEDED this video!!!! Thank you! "This Corrosion" is such a BANGER and SOM one of my all time fave bands
"...So they don't have to deal with ANOTHER ego...."
What a great documentary. Thank you.
Two key moments in my life are the day my cousin's fiance gave me a tape with Kraftwerk's Man Machine on one side and Eno's Before and After Science on the other when I was 14, and seeing the video for This Corrosion in the basement bar of Posers in Georgetown, DC when I was 20. Listening to Floodland is like opening up a door to pure aesthetic, and I'm here for every bombastic, theatrical, over-the-GD-top moment of it.
I still love Kraftwerk's Man Machine and Eno's Before and After Science but Floodland, I'd be very happy to see it erased from musical history or at the least to be re-released as "The Andrew Eldritch Project". OK it's good for what is is but it's not "The Sisters of Mercy." It was very wrong of him to re-use the band name for his solo stuff. Even worse with "Vision Thing".
The whole Floodland album slaps
We need a New British Cannon episode on The Fall! Such a great band, I know your video on them would be phenomenal as always!
Yes!
FINALLLYYYYYYY THE EPISODE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR
Eldritch's revenge would be breath taking if any of us understood it at the time.
Flew over everyones head and all that thought and planning was wasted.
He spends a week, maybe a month on a lyric, and then its heard the same as something he writes as parody.
I think he was just fine with that, he pissed those off who it was intended too. And I find it both smart as hell and hilarious.
Good video. Though the change in sound after Wayne left is clear he took his guitar style with him.
That is exactly right.
Spot on. Eldritch had to basically re-start the band after Adams and Hussey left.
The style was there before he turned up. He filched everything he could.
To be fair, so did Gary Marx.
@@everythingability of possible interest, Hussey's prior group, an early lineup of Dead or Alive, were doing the post-punk 60s-inspired gloomy gothic sound for several years before any SoM releases. Hussey's guitar work can be heard I believe on DoA tracks from 1981 to 1984; '82 tracks of interest include "The Stranger", "Some of that", "It's been hours now", "Whirlpool", "Nowhere to nowhere" ... It's the guitar style he continued with in SoM and The Mission.
Can't deny it but the Sisters keep making there way onto my turntable every few months (mainly the early stuff)
I love the idea of someone making an intentionally "stupid" song as a swipe at a former bandmate who's work he thought was shit, then seeing much more success with that song than any of his previous original work.
Hey! I’m a huge fan. The way you gather info and create such linear focused content is so interesting and well done. I’d love to see a video on how Sonic Youth made a huge impact/ influenced the alt rock movement of the 90’s or anything Sonic related tbh. Thank you for creating such consistent content!
I'm not a Goth
So don't forget
It's just a silly phase
I'm going through
The first proper gig I went to was Sisters of Mercy at Norwich UEA in around 1985. It was absolutely electric. Packed out and quite an edgy atmosphere. Blew my tiny mind!
Andrew listens to fleetwood mac, foreigner and whatnot. Imagine... in his mind he thinks hes playing music like Bruce Springsteen foghat, reo speedwagon but cant comprehend that it's dark and gothic.
Yeah, I've never really reconciled that with his music. Especially as Wayne and Craig were the rock fans, yet Andy finally managed to release Floodland. Weird juxtaposition of what he listed to vs what he finally produced.
Thai is one of your best videos yet. Thanks for doing all the production spadework :)
All early goth was satire. I think getting sucked into the Sisters' self-aggrandizing exceptionalism both sells short the value of their actual contributions, and imbues any examination with a sycophantic edge.
Reading the comments makes me happy. SOM are one of my all time favorite bands. Thank you for this video.
Megalomania? Hardly so. Alice, Body Electric, Phantom or 1959 rather are minimalist arrangements.
"We need to get inside your head, by any means necessary!" -That's what he is about, and these were the means necessary.
Except for that rather doubtful quote at the end, a pretty good tale of the journey. It definitely captures the spirit of it. A journey that enrichened my own life in the passed 30+ years.
A huge thank you to my dear Sissies for being there! ^^)
This is awesome... Thanks for using my song "Inner Sound"... works well!
Unfortunate that Vision Thing was barely mentioned. Fantastic album.
Indeed, much underrated and maligned. Intense as hell.
We then teeny goths really wanted and tried to like it when it came out but quickly had to acknowledge it was embarassingly bad and like "Floodlands" had no right to be released as "The Sisters of Mercy".
I'm old enough to have lived thru the time when Gloom was morphed into Goth.. I saw the SOM in a basement of a Los Angeles Hotel on halloween 1985, it was very cool...But I was into them since the early stuff hit California...
Didn't mention THE MOUNTAIN GOATS "ANDREW ELDRICH IS MOVING BACK TO LEEDS" on the GOTHS record
Man I am so grateful for all the work you do.
I never knew the story behind Sisters of Mercy and honestly I wish I didn't. I don't care much for Andrew's pettiness. Oh well cool vid.
Personally speaking, I think Eldritch was right to be petty. That first album by the Mission, lyrically is dreadful and musically just full of ideas he'd taken from the sound of the Sisters. Don't get me wrong, I quite like the Mission but Eldritch is by far the better song writer and I think that shows if you compare God's Own Medicine to Floodland.
This story should be more about "Gift" album where he put some of his best work in terms of lyrics, i think Giving ground has some of his best verses and he was always strong in writing anyway. Spite is one hell of a motivator.
@@LivyathanAD I certainly danced to the 'Mish', and even bought the album, but it was one of the first pieces of vinyl I sold in the 90s. Still have my Sisters of Mercy collection tho :D Plus the Leonard Cohen original (but I'm Canadian, so...!)
@@LivyathanAD First and Last and Always was a split album musically between Marx and Hussey and I much prefer the Marx songs. I've seen The Mission a number of times and to be honest, their first tour IMO was by far their best. Small'ish venues with up close and personal performances, Wayne still managed to be a complete diva and chucked his 12 string off stage as it was out of tune.
It was Eldritch versus the departing members and he threw a few punches back. He was never any more petty than Hussey was when borrowing his style...
The Mission had their successes and still have fans today, as do the Sisters.
first and last and always (ep) by far the best work they did. saw them live 85 with smoke machines and dry ice blocked all but their leather hats.thanks for this piece. I had no idea that I caught them live at their best...
Trying to figure out if it's the "direct rock and roll continuation" music I'm not a fan of or if everyone in this story is a petty sphincter who automatically makes me dislike what they do. These dudes became each other because they hated each other so much. That is the most goth love story I've ever heard.
Loved them. Still do. Had a massive crush on Patricia Morrison. Dave Vanian is a lucky bastard ;)
Eldritch was always way, way ahead of the competition from the word go. Back in the mid 80's he'd calculated that TOTP's and the soon to be massive MTV revolution were the way to make the headlines (and the money) so he purposely didn't tour in the Floodland era. However, as the 90's loomed (and many issues going wrong with touring in the Vision Thing era) he soon became completely self-managed and simply toured venues that would regularly sell out (and make a profit) so no debts (aka 'advances') that would need paying off. Something he still does today. Releasing new material would get ever more commercially unviable as the Napster days morphed into the Pirate Bay days and eventually into the multi-platform streaming we all do now that yields all but the most massive of acts very little income. But time has shown that Eldritch, regardless whether you love him or think he's a total dick, was absolutely right in his disdain of "People who miss the point" in his Sounds interview from Sep '87. They simply didn't see the future as clearly as Eldritch did.
I have at times used FLOODLANDS as a form of stop watch when I'm about to go out. Need to leave in half an hour? Play everything up to including THIS CORROSION. Going out in an hour? Play the whole album. When teh club SANCTUARY in Sydney closed the first time, THIS was the song they went out on.
Ironic that everyone left right before Eldridge took the band to its highest point. THAT is Rock n Roll if I've ever heard it. BE WHO YOU ARE! Also, never a bad thing to have a male and female vocal on a song. This Corrosion is one of the finest examples EVER of that!
To me Floodland sounds like exactly what it is: a solo album by one guy after the whole band pretty much left. It has its moments but there's a slight lack of musical invention compared to the debut album. Not surprisingly, my favorite thing on it (Dominion) has a jangle riff that could have come straight from the debut.
They did the best ABBA cover ever
ok you got me straight in the heart with this one. subbed.