Goddam it, I know they’re cheesy, and Eldritch is a total druggie, and their videos are mostly horrible.
But Floodland got me through some really tough times. Got me out of bed when I didn’t think I could do it.
Does anyone else want to admit to loving them?
I absolutely love them too, especially Floodlands.
They helped me through puberty, along with Fields of the Nephilim.
Heh. Preacher Man is such a great video.
I love them. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve actually come to appreciate the poetic depth to some of Eldritch’s lyrics - the use of Eliot lines, for example. And I have no problem with the vids - very 80s/90s, but for instance, the Dominion video is lovely in all its Petra-esque seersucker-suited glory. Hell, I bought a record of someone reading the specs for the AK-47, so I must be a fan 
Although I first got into the SOM as dance music - there’s nothing like Adrenochrome or Floorshow to get the blood pumping.
Ditto the Neff. All the cod-Crowley post-apocalyptic cowboys stuff was quite cheesy, but damned if I’m not on the dancefloor for Power, Laura or Trees Come Down.
Of course, no one is to mention The Mission…
Oh yes! Also the Temple of Love 12" mix, and "Alice in her party dress….
I’m not embarassed to say so: I love love love them. Under the Gun is one of the few constants on my mental Top Ten and I could listen to the extended version (with the Ofra Hazah wailing) of Temple of Love repeatedly for hours if I’m in the car on a fast motorway on my own.
My brother and I often play a game loosely entitled ‘Let’s imagine just how truly great First, Last and Always, particulalry Amphetamine Logic would have been if it hadn’t been produced in the back room of a cash and carry by a badly trained gibbon’. I think you can guess how the game’s played.
Why yes, this is a topic I could get really obsessive about, how can you tell? I may be all growed up now, but the shy little Goth girl inside is still close to the surface!
I just played This Corrosion for my newly-metal-loving son (“Hangar 18 and Aces High rock, Dad!”) - he loves it. SoM navigate a great line - nicely heavy…
I still contend that “Lucretia (My Reflection)” has one of the best basslines ever. The chorus to “Dominion” is pretty badass, too.
Loved them in college and saw them play in Denver sometime in the late 90s. I still love blasting This Corrosion and Temple of Love.
I have Floodland and First and Last and Always on my iPod. Back in my college poser punk days they were in heavy rotation.
I’ve never heard of them, but I like the user name/thread subject combo.
Another big SoM fan - I still have them in fairly regular rotation when it comes to my musical preferences!
LOVE them. I got one of my office-mates hooked on FLOODLAND and it’s in heavy rotation on my iTunes, last.fm and iPod.
Oh yeah I love 'em. Got my girlfriend hooked on their music too.
Floodland’s my favorite and I have a soft spot for Vision Thing as well.
Finland Red, Egypt White. Love that song. Can’t find it anywhere. Big fan of Floodland!
Yes, Lucretia’s baseline is brilliant. That, and Marian, I’ll still play window-rattlingly loud. Love my SoM.
Big fan. So many of their songs are so well put together. I’ll occassionally dig out the vinyl and turn them up loud. Their concerts were so-so, and Eldritch seemed like a dick, but I just ignored all that and enjoyed the angst.
Lucretia, Dominion, This Corrosion, Alice, Temple of Love (with Ofra Haza)…I’m going play some right now.
I love them
Floodland is one of my favorite albums ever. I’ve written thousands and thousands of words with it playing…it seems to put me in a writing mood.
I saw them in concert with my sister in…1999, I think it was, at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City during their “To The Planet Edge” tour. We had an awesome time, though it seemed like most of the audience was too busy wondering at the brilliant crimson angst of it all to actually, y’know, *dance *and have fun and shit. But we danced and had a great time anyway.
I love, love, LOVE Sisters of Mercy but can’t listen to their albums anymore. I listened to First and Last and Always, Floodland and Vision Thing constantly all the way through my teens. Whenever I hear a song from one of those albums, I get very unpleasant flashbacks to bottomless teen angst and being the uncoolest goth in the yard. Same thing with most albums by the Cure.
Still - Andrew Eldritch rocks socks.
I like that so many people get the same dancey feel - I guess I used to spend too much time fighting off the accusations of ‘they’re just so miserable’.
I saw them 11 times live up to about 1992, including the 10th Anniversary freebie show at Leeds Uni in February 1991, which took place during a typical snowbound Yorkshire winter, so suited perfectly. I have a really clear sense memory of the feel of the snow and the smell of Leeds as I’m making my way to the gig. I was at Leeds Uni at the time anyway, and loved every minute of it, so that’s all part of it.
They’re also part of one of my other favourite times of my life. I was working at Strawberry Studios/Yellow Two in (Stockport) Manchester for a couple of years in the late 80s. Well, not so much working as hanging around on my days off from college, making tea and trying to tap them up for a proper job. One morning I show up and start tidying up the Strawberry studios, whilst the Yellow Two building across the road was still locked up, as none of the office staff had arrived yet. Into the tiny reception sweeps a tall and stick-thin vision in black leather, grease and enormous sun glassess, followed by this harridan with a huge overbite. Turns out it was Eldritch and Patricia Morrison - they were recording the demos for (as it transpired) Floodland in the other studio, and had arrived to find it locked up. They were not happy bunnies, but Eldritch never said a word. Patricia stormed up and down demanding action whilst he sat in the corner glowering. Actually, looking back he was probably too stoned to function. I was already kind of obsessed by the Sisters at that point anyway. Fortunately for them I was too afraid of doing the wrong thing and too conscious of my cool to give in to my natural impulse to spend the next few weeks hanging out by the door of their studio, so I didn’t see much of them whilst they were there. I did get to hear the demos as they were recorded though, which was pretty cool. My initial and lasting impressions were of lots and lots of guitars. And it immediately struck me as much more tuneful than First, Last. I got to crow a little to my friends since this was how we first found out that Eldritch was recording again, it hadn’t been in the music papers till then.