Underrated rock bands: The Cult

When it comes to all-time underrated rock bands, The Cult must be at the top of the list.  They are an aggressive blend of Judas Priest and Queensryche with a touch of The Doors who arose from England in the early 1980s as a post-punk Goth rock band.  As their career progressed they fused in hard rock with their original sound to become one of the most distinctive bands of the 1980s. 

Their fourth studio album, 1989's Sonic Temple, provided them the breakthru they'd been looking for in the United States, reaching #10 on the Billboard charts and providing the hit singles "Sweet Soul Sister" and "Fire Woman".  This success follows on the heels of two moderately succesful albums, Love in 1985 which gave them thier first real taste of commercial success in the UK, with the track "She Sells Sanctuary" playing a huge role and Electric in 1987 which saw the band start to become more hard rock than Goth rock.  The band's huge hit from Electric was "Love Removal Machine".

Like most rock bands, The Cult had their share of in-band disagreements and personal problems and began a hiatus in 1995.  However, the band stormed back in a big way with "Painted On My Heart", a prominently featured song in the Nicolas Cage/Angelina Jolie action flick Gone in 60 Seconds.  This led to the release of a 6-disc boxed set titled Rare Cult and a new studio album in 2001 titled Beyond Good and Evil.  Despite good critical reviews and huge airplay overseas, BG&E was not the comeback album thge band hoped for and a second Cult hiatus began.

Ian Astbury, the band's singer and primary lyricist, has one of the most recognizable and distinctive voices in all of rock.  He recorded a song for the Doors tribute album and toured with the surviving memebers of the Doors as their vocalist for 2002's Doors of the 21st Century tour.  Oliver Stone offered Astbury the role of Jim Morrision for the 1991 bio-flick, but Astbury turned the role down because he did not like how Morrison was portrayed in the script. 

Astbury is also the reason Lollapalooza exists.  In 1990, he organized The Gathering of the Tribes, featuring Soundgarden, Ice-T, Iggy Pop, Indigo Girls, Public Enemy and other artists to play in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  The two day festival drew 40,000 fans and inspired the creation of Lollapalooza which began the following year.

The Cult is still recording and touring with their most recent release being Choice of Weapon, released in 2012.