8. The CultElectric

After listening to Love every single day from when I first heard it in my eighth grade photography class, I was always just waiting for the next record. I loved the psychedelic weirdness of Love. It was kind of gothy, kind of Bauhaus-y and I really dug that about it. Then one day Maggie Martin said to me in my English class: "I’ve got the new Cult record…" "Hand it to me," I said. We had a Walkman and we put it on and I first thought: "What the fuck is this AC/DC stuff going on here?" I didn’t know how to respond but I was such a fan at that point – and had seen their transitions from Southern Death Cult to Death Cult and so on – that I gave it a chance and eventually learned to sing because of it. Hell, it got me to and from high school on a daily basis. It was super dry-sounding and they changed their whole look on the back of it. Billy [Duffy, Cult guitarist] went from being a blond Fonzie to growing his hair, wearing ripped jeans and rockin’ out!