Floodland
Encyclopedia
Floodland is the second album by the British band The Sisters of Mercy
, which was released in 1987 and marked their commercial break-through.
in March 1985 band leader Andrew Eldritch
intended to record an ABBA
cover as a single. and tried to hire Jim Steinman
as a producer: "Originally I called him up in [1985] when the band had "Gimme Gimme Gimme"
in the set, and I told him about the song and that our version of it had to be absolutely stupid. He agreed with me but he was busy at the time. Then the band broke up."
The break-up occurred while the band prepared their second LP in October 1985. Eldritch: "The next Sisters album was going to be called 'Left on Mission and Revenge'."
Eldritch, who still intended to record the album as a solo artist, on the same day called bassist Patricia Morrison
, currently on a UK tour with her band Fur Bible supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees, and asked her to collaborate with him. Morrison: "The day they fell apart he called me and said 'Will you do it?' and I said yes. [...] We had some tours set up so I waited until that was cleared, then left."
The music press reported the break-up on 2 November 1985: "The Sisters of Mercy were down to singer Andrew Eldritch and his faithful drum machine Avalanche this week after guitarist Wayne Hussey
and bassist Craig Adams
left the band. Although this has scuppered recording plans for a new album this month, Andrew now intends to record the same album in the New Year and could well be using Wayne as a session guitarist. [...] Andrew has also approached former Gun Club bassist Patricia Morrison—now in Fur Bible—to play on the album, but it's not yet known whether Andrew will continue with the name Sisters of Mercy."
Andrew Eldritch later stated that he had no intention to carry on under the old band's name: "The band was finished for me." "The people that are now The Mission
and myself had an agreement no-one would use the name when the band went its separate ways."
, which featured vocals by his musician friend James Ray
.
At the end of February 1986 the Merciful Release
label announced the "forthcoming Andrew Eldritch album which for some months has had the working title 'Left on Mission and Revenge'."
This solo album which was finally titled Gift was released in July 1986, again under the Sisterhood moniker. On the album (on which Eldritch did not sing because of contractual reasons), recorded at Fairview Recording Studios in Hull
. Patricia Morrison collaborated with Eldritch for the very first time, even if her only confirmed contribution was just a spoken passage on the track "Jihad".
The album was a financial failure and only got bad reviews in the music press, as a result Eldritch lost his publishing deal
with RCA Music Limited.
A planned Sisterhood 12" EP This Corrosion which according to Sounds
magazine (20 February 1986) would "soon be in shops, featuring the same line-up but with the addition of a mysterious and so far undisclosed American vocalist", had been recorded at Fairview Recording Studios with Alan Vega
but remained unreleased.
James Ray: "We then spent weeks on what was to be The Sisterhood's second single, 'This Corrosion', but Eldritch decided he was going to use it to kickstart The Sisters Mk II."
Eldritch, who in 1985 first moved to Bramfeld
and then to St. Pauli
, began to compose a new WEA
album in Hamburg. The demos were mainly recorded with a Casio CZ-101
synthesizer, acoustic guitars and a new drum machine: "By the time 'Floodland' was being written, Andrew had spent all the ready cash on a computer and a sequencer, and was looking for a reasonably priced midi drum machine with a tighter snare drum. So he got a Yamaha RX5 for the snare sound (the kick was quite tight too) and wrote the album with that."
With the exception of "This Corrosion", Eldritch in 1986 recorded demo versions of all Floodland songs which began to turn up in 1988 on the bootleggers' market. In addition a 7-minute instrumental without title exists which was written in the same musical style as the later Vision Thing track "I Was Wrong" and remained unused.
According to Eldritch, Patricia Morrison didn't contribute to the songwriting: "The record was a full-on solo album. My partner Patricia Morrison obviously suffered from writer's block. She didn't come up with any musical ideas, I couldn't even get her to pick up the bass in the first place." Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson: "Her musical contributions were very minimal."
Eldritch denied that his approach to songwriting had changed since the band split: "'This Corrosion' sounds like 'Temple of Love' II, '1959' sounds like 'Afterhours' part 2. I don't see any difference or any real change. I think I just carry on where I stopped."
Eldritch licensed the publishing to SBK Songs Limited (now part of EMI Music Publishing
) and began to negotiate with his record company WEA
.
The starting point was the song "This Corrosion", which was to be produced by Jim Steinman
: "As soon as I had 'This Corrosion' I immediately thought of him." "Steinman is the man for extremes. It was the first Sisters records for years so it had to be something really special." "When we were trying to sell 'Corrosion' to Steinman, we told him it was like the high-point of a Borgia's disco evening and he went for it."
Eldritch also used Steinman to get his record company to concede an appropriate recording budget: "That's one of the reasons why I used Jim Steinman, cos when he says to the record company 'We want choirs and you're going to pay for it now!' they just hand over the money. Whereas if I asked for it they'd think 'What's he really going to spend the money on?'"
According to Boyd Steemson (Merciful Release office manager) the head of Warners' A&R, Max Hole, got the band a budget of £50,000 for the song: "We knew we had something with 'This Corrosion'. [...] The record company said 'Well, £50,000—that's not bad for an album,' and Max said 'No, that's for one song!'"
Steinman and Eldritch used Power Station Studios
in Manhattan
, where they worked with engineer Larry Alexander. Alexander: "I engineered the two Jim Steinman tracks at the Power Station in New York, ended up as co-producer on 'Dominion/Mother Russia'."
On both songs Steinman used six background singers and 40 members of the New York Choral Society. Eldritch: "We had an awful lot of people on the record, made a very loud noise. Never had so many people on a record before. Why? I really don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have 40 people singing at once. I've no idea why. [...] Every time you think to yourself 'Do we really want to go this far?' and you say to Jim, 'Jim, are you sure about this?' and anybody else will go 'Don't do it!', Jim goes 'More! More! More people, singing!'. It works."
According to Eldritch Steinman mainly focussed on the production of the choral singings: "I have to point out that he didn't contribute to the composition or the arrangements. [...] That's why he got only half of the production credit on 'Dominion', he's not interested in drums, bass or guitars. All he wants to do is the backing vocals and choirs."
Initially Eldritch worked with an unknown producer: "I had a producer but I had to fire him. That's why I had to do it all by myself which was quite demanding."
Eldritch called Larry Alexander in New York and hired him as a co-producer: "I was then invited to go to England and co-produce the rest of the album. I think the first studio was called Strawberry Studios
in Manchester. We worked there for a while, then moved over to Bath to a studio called The Wool Hall. Next was AIR Studios
in London where we finished up."
Roy Neave engineered the sessions, one of the in-house engineers of Fairview Recording Studios in Hull
. Originally Eldritch intended to work with his colleague John Spence (who had worked with The Sisterhood
in 1986), who was committed to another project and recommended Neave as his replacement. Neave had already produced the Merciful Release band James Ray and the Performance
.
In addition to the remaining album tracks the band recorded a long version of "Never Land" (finally released in 2006). Eldritch also sang his own version of the Sisterhood
track "Colours" which was slightly remixed and edited for the purpose.
For the opulent video WEA Records
conceded a budget of over £50,000. The video, which starred models from Ugly Enterprises Ltd. as well as some friends of the band, was set in the ruins of a post-nuclear attack London and was directed by Stuart Orme. Patricia Morrison: "'This Corrosion' was shot in Wapping
or thereabouts in a warehouse or soundstage. We wanted to go to Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, but at the same time the Russian record company (Melody
or something it was called) were in negotiations with the West regarding video rights. We were not allowed to go as we would have botched up the negotiations."
The single was released on 18 September 1987. Each format (7 inch, 12 inch, CD and cassette) contained a different mix of the song, a fact that Eldritch explained this way: "Originally I only wanted the long version, for me the song had to be this way. But the record company vetoed that, so I spent a weekend at the mixing desk. I liked the three minute edit the best, then I thought I'd do another one at mid-length. The LP mix is the same as the 12 inch version, it just fades out a bit earlier. The cassette version is different again cos Jim insisted on doing an edit of his own. He's more into little bits and pieces."
The B-side of the single was "Torch", Eldritch had played every instrument himself and produced the track on his own. "Torch" had been written in 1985 for the aborted Left on Mission and Revenge album. The 12 inch single added Eldritch's version of the Sisterhood
song "Colours".
In the UK the single reached number 7 in the charts. Eldritch and Morrison, backed by members of James Ray and the Performance
, appeared on the TV shows Top of the Pops
and The Roxy
.
In the USA the single did not enter the Billboard Hot 100
, but on 19 December 1987 reached number 38 in the Billboard Club Play chart.
In Germany the single entered the charts in November 1987 and reached number 17.
to mostly positive press reactions.
Patricia Morrison's name was nowhere to be found on the record although she was pictured on the sleeve. Morrison downplayed this fact in interviews: "If you look at Sisters' records, the names for what people play usually aren't there. Andrew writes the songs so there's no reason for anyone else to be featured. I was well aware of that when the album came out but what I didn't realise was that it would confuse other people. If people haven't seen the press we've done, they don't know I'm in the band."
In the UK Floodland reached number 7 in the album charts. Preorders alone assured the album silver status on the day of its release, on 11 March 1988 it went gold with 100,000 sold units. According to Eldritch the album had recouped the high production costs in 1989.
In Germany, according to Eldritch The Sisters' second large market behind the UK, Floodland entered the top 100 albums chart
on 14 December 1987, staying there for twenty weeks and reaching number 32. In 1993 it went gold, with 250,000 sold units.
In the USA Floodland was released on 11 January 1988 by Elektra Records
. It reached number 101 in the Billboard 200
on 12 March 1988, but had not the impact on the mainstream as in other parts of the world.
The single had already been announced back in December 1987, but its release was delayed because Eldritch recorded a version of the Hot Chocolate hit "Emma
" as a 12 inch single B-side in January 1988.
Producer Hugh Jones: "Most of the music for 'Emma' was recorded at The Church Studios in Crouch End, North London, with final overdubs and mixing done at Master Rock (horrible name!!) Studios in Kilburn. Patricia did technically play bass on the track, although there was a lot of sampling individual phrases, moving them around and inserting them where we wanted. Yes indeed, we did record the vocals at a live venue. Andrew had attempted to record 'Emma' several times before but had never considered the result to be as good as when they played the song live. So we hired the Kilburn National Theatre and the Rolling Stones Mobile
recording truck, played the track to Andrew through the stage monitors, and recorded a number of performances with him singing on the stage. There were lights, dry ice, everything to invoke the atmosphere of a live experience (other than an audience!) The final result is a compilation of a number of those vocal 'takes'. Very indulgent, very eighties, particularly for a B-side!!"
The other B-side tracks of the single, made from various segments out of "Dominion", were apparently prepared shortly before the "Dominion" video shot. "Sandstorm" consists of various sampled saxofone and keyboard parts from "Dominion", mixed to a moody short instrumental track which was used in the opening section of the video. "Untitled" is a slowed-down instrumental excerpt from "Dominion". The CD single contained "Ozymandias" which is "Dominion" played backwards.
The video for "Dominion" was filmed in February 1988 in the Jordan
ian city of Petra
. After the commercial success of "This Corrosion" WEA
had again conceded a budget of £50,000 and enlisted director David Hogan, who shot the video in two days after four-and-a-half months of preparation. Eldritch called the video "Lawrence of Arabia
part two."
In the UK the single reached number 13 in the charts. Eldritch and Morrison, backed by members of James Ray and the Performance
, appeared on the TV shows Top of the Pops
and The Roxy
.
In the USA the single was only released as a promotional 12 inch. Nevertheless it reached number 30 in the Billboard Club Play chart on 18 June 1988.
In Germany, the single did not chart.
As Eldritch spent a month at Slaughterhouse Recording Studios in Driffield
in the spring of 1988, the 7 inch mix and the extended 12 inch mix were probably made during these sessions. Studio owner Russell Webster: "Andrew Eldritch spent a whole month on his own at the studio. We had a lot of fun together and I loved his dynamic music so much that I thought I should do something similar myself." Patricia Morrison: "The remix is really over the top. I liked it when I first heard it and I still do."
The song's lyrics mentioned the words "long train", so the eponymous Sisters track was selected as a B-side. "Long Train" was originally released as a flexi disc in 1984 and had already become a collector's item.
The video was filmed in India with director Peter Sinclair, at a "Bombay cotton factory" and other places. Additionally a video to "1959" was filmed in India. For a while Eldritch had toyed with the idea of releasing "1959" as a single. It was hovewer released as a promo for the radios.
In the last week of May 1988 The Sisters of Mercy appeared at Montreux
Rock Festival in Switzerland, which was organised by BBC, MTV
and TSR
and broadcasted worldwide on television. During this mimed appearance, the only one in front of a large audience during the Floodland era, they were again backed by members of James Ray and the Performance
. Andrew Eldritch: "This was never designed to go out live. [Floodland] was incarnated that way because playing live was never an issue." Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson: "It was an absolute nightmare. He put out the 'Floodland' record, [...] and Andrew refused to tour."
In the UK the single reached number 20 in the charts. A mimed performance on Top of the Pops
on 16 June 1988 was the last public appearance of The Sisters for the next two years.
In the USA the single did not enter the Billboard Hot 100
, but on 20 August 1988 reached number 30 in the Billboard Club Play chart.
In Germany the single did not chart.
Patricia Morrison: "We want to get out with the next record, and the way we want to present ourselves live is going to take quite a lot of effort and time. And we'd rather get another record under our belts before we attempt that."
In April 1989 work on the next album Vision Thing began with new guitarist Andreas Bruhn. On 17 July 1989 Eldritch Eldritch registered a new publishing company Eldritch Boulevard Limited for the new material.
In October 1989 WEA
released the VHS video Shot containing all four Floodland promotion videos.
In the same month Eldritch split up with Patricia Morrison. Andrew Eldritch in June 1990: "Patricia has left the band for good in October last year. Patricia was an asset in every respect, she can play bass, she had input, she was a great moral support for many years."
, which had been recorded in a conventional way, Floodland was pieced together on the computer with the help of sequencers
.
Eldritch: "I learned how cool it is to work with computers in 1987 during the recording of the Sisters album 'Floodland'."
Eldritch worked on the recorded parts with a Voyetra Sequencer Plus
, as effects unit
a Yamaha SPX-90
was used, the parts were saved on a Compaq Portable 286
.
The guitars were played by Eldritch himself, "apart from the solo on 'This Corrosion' which was played by a friend of Steinman's. [...] I use electric guitars when I want to be ironic." The solo was done by session guitarist Eddie Martinez, who in the previous year had played the famous guitar solo on Robert Palmer's number one hit "Addicted to Love
".
Most of the bass on the album was not played on a bass guitar but by Eldritch himself using synth bass. Patricia Morrison was only featured in some places (most notably on "Driven like the Snow"), Eldritch later suggested that she did not appear at all on the album. In an interview he commented on the issue of Morrison playing on Floodland: "That's an assumption which a lot of people make, [...] but obviously I question that assumption." Morrison later stated: "Yes I did play on 'Floodland', though Andrew did record over some of my parts."
The piano track "1959" was pieced together with a sequencer by Eldritch: "This one was programmed on the computer note by note without even touching a piano key."
The drum sounds were sampled together from various drum machines with an Akai S900. The tom sound was from an Oberheim DMX
which had been used on First and Last and Always
. The remaining drum sounds were from a Yamaha RX-5
.
The centre piece of the album, "This Corrosion", goes back to the conflict between Eldritch and his former band mates who were now in The Mission
. The lyrics are a parody of clichéd meaningless rock lyrics as especially Wayne Hussey
wrote them:
"It is, of course, directed at somebody and it doesn't take a genius to work out who, although it'll probably take the person concerned some considerable time. [...] Nearly all of [the lyrics] should be thought of in quotation marks. It would be too confusing to print them all." "The words THIS CORROSION are printed in capitals because it's the title of somebody else's song. I invented this fictitious band and made them sing all these stupidities. [...] Wayne used to withdraw himself with a book of song titles, select those which sounded best and piece together a song lyric from it. It didn't have to have any meaning, it just had to sound good."
"Dominion/Mother Russia" was inspired by the well-known poem Ozymandias
from which one line is lifted (Eldritch: "The song is about erecting monuments in outrageous places to one's own personal power and then crumbling away."), while the second part of the song is about the nuclear accident in Chernobyl
when "Mother Russia" rained down on the Northern hemisphere in the form of nuclear fallout
.
"Lucretia My Reflection" Eldritch called "my 'Welcome on board Patricia' song. [...] Patricia always strikes me as a Lucretia
-type person."
"Flood I" and "Flood II" uses the word flood as a metaphor: "It's sex—at least in this context. Most people, if you think about it, only get wet under certain circumstances. [...] Water is something so mammoth, so a flood is emotionally very stimulating."
"Driven like the Snow", like "Nine While Nine" on the previous album
, is about Eldritch's former girlfriend Claire Shearsby: "There's not a decent vocal on this because I could never get to the end without having to stop. It's like the song on the first album, 'Nine While Nine', this is really 'Nine While Nine' part two. Too close for comfort. [...] I didn't really want to write or sing it, but I think the song helped to explain very logically why we had to fall apart." "I often wish that the songs were much less based on personal experience."
On "Never Land" Eldritch commented that it imagines "the entire population of the earth starting to travel from some indefinable point in space toward the earth at increasing speed. It would take an eternity to reach the earth—by which time you'd be reasonably spiritualised—and even when you reached the destination, you wouldn't actually hit the ground. You'd be going so fast you'd just go through and out the other side, where there is another eternity of nothingness. I just tried to write a song about these impressions." The lyrics Eldritch referred would finally be found on the 12 minute long version of the song which was released in 2006.
; "Dominion/Mother Russia" produced by Steinman/Alexander/Eldritch; "Torch" produced by Eldritch ; "Emma" produced by Hugh Jones.
The original CD included the bonus tracks "Torch" and "Colours". In the original cassette version the bonus track "Torch" followed "1959" at the end of side one.
" have also been recorded by the following musical groups or artists:
The Sisters of Mercy
The Sisters of Mercy are an English rock band that formed in 1980. After achieving early underground fame in UK, the band had their commercial breakthrough in mid-1980s and sustained it until the early 1990s, when they stopped releasing new recorded output in protest against their record company...
, which was released in 1987 and marked their commercial break-through.
Break-up of the original band
After the release of the debut album First and Last and AlwaysFirst and Last and Always
First and Last and Always is the debut album by the British gothic rock band The Sisters of Mercy, which was released in 1985 and proved to be style-shaping in the musical category of gothic rock.- Background :...
in March 1985 band leader Andrew Eldritch
Andrew Eldritch
Andrew Eldritch is the English frontman, singer, songwriter and only remaining original member of The Sisters of Mercy, a band that emerged from the British post-punk scene, transformed into a gothic rock band and, in later years, flirted with pop and hard rock.Eldritch also programs the tracks...
intended to record an ABBA
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
cover as a single. and tried to hire Jim Steinman
Jim Steinman
James Richard "Jim" Steinman is an American composer, lyricist, and Grammy Award-winning record producer responsible for several hit songs. He has also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer...
as a producer: "Originally I called him up in [1985] when the band had "Gimme Gimme Gimme"
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! ", originally titled "Been and Gone and Done It", is one of Swedish pop group ABBA's biggest disco hits. It was recorded and released in 1979 with "The King Has Lost His Crown" as the B-side. It appears on ABBA's Greatest Hits Vol...
in the set, and I told him about the song and that our version of it had to be absolutely stupid. He agreed with me but he was busy at the time. Then the band broke up."
The break-up occurred while the band prepared their second LP in October 1985. Eldritch: "The next Sisters album was going to be called 'Left on Mission and Revenge'."
Eldritch, who still intended to record the album as a solo artist, on the same day called bassist Patricia Morrison
Patricia Morrison
Patricia Morrison is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. She worked with The Bags, The Gun Club, The Sisters of Mercy, and The Damned.-Biography:...
, currently on a UK tour with her band Fur Bible supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees, and asked her to collaborate with him. Morrison: "The day they fell apart he called me and said 'Will you do it?' and I said yes. [...] We had some tours set up so I waited until that was cleared, then left."
The music press reported the break-up on 2 November 1985: "The Sisters of Mercy were down to singer Andrew Eldritch and his faithful drum machine Avalanche this week after guitarist Wayne Hussey
Wayne Hussey
Wayne Hussey is a British musician, best known as lead singer of The Mission and guitarist with The Sisters of Mercy....
and bassist Craig Adams
Craig Adams (musician)
Craig Adams is a British musician, bass guitarist and songwriter. Over his career he worked with a variation of rockbands while also being part of a touring crew....
left the band. Although this has scuppered recording plans for a new album this month, Andrew now intends to record the same album in the New Year and could well be using Wayne as a session guitarist. [...] Andrew has also approached former Gun Club bassist Patricia Morrison—now in Fur Bible—to play on the album, but it's not yet known whether Andrew will continue with the name Sisters of Mercy."
Andrew Eldritch later stated that he had no intention to carry on under the old band's name: "The band was finished for me." "The people that are now The Mission
The Mission (band)
The Mission are a gothic rock band formed in 1986 from the splinters of the freshly dissolved rock band The Sisters of Mercy.The band was started by frontman Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams , soon adding...
and myself had an agreement no-one would use the name when the band went its separate ways."
The Sisterhood and "This Corrosion"
On 20 January 1986 Andrew Eldritch released the single "Giving Ground" under the name The SisterhoodThe Sisterhood
For movie, See The Sisterhood The Sisterhood was a side project by Sisters of Mercy singer Andrew Eldritch that recorded songs, which he had intended for a second Sisters album, with guest musicians.- Background :...
, which featured vocals by his musician friend James Ray
James Ray (rock musician)
James Ray is a rock singer and band-leader, best known as a member of Andrew Eldritch's side-project The Sisterhood and for his own band James Rays Gangwar....
.
At the end of February 1986 the Merciful Release
Merciful Release
Merciful Release is a record label started by Andrew Eldritch, frontman with Leeds outfit The Sisters of Mercy. As Eldritch states in an early interview, he wanted to hear himself on the radio. He and Gary Marx played and recorded on the Sisters Of Mercy's initial single "Damage Done" and pressed...
label announced the "forthcoming Andrew Eldritch album which for some months has had the working title 'Left on Mission and Revenge'."
This solo album which was finally titled Gift was released in July 1986, again under the Sisterhood moniker. On the album (on which Eldritch did not sing because of contractual reasons), recorded at Fairview Recording Studios in Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
. Patricia Morrison collaborated with Eldritch for the very first time, even if her only confirmed contribution was just a spoken passage on the track "Jihad".
The album was a financial failure and only got bad reviews in the music press, as a result Eldritch lost his publishing deal
Publishing contract
A publishing contract is a legal contract between a publisher and a writer or author , to publish written material by the writer or author...
with RCA Music Limited.
A planned Sisterhood 12" EP This Corrosion which according to Sounds
Sounds (magazine)
Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...
magazine (20 February 1986) would "soon be in shops, featuring the same line-up but with the addition of a mysterious and so far undisclosed American vocalist", had been recorded at Fairview Recording Studios with Alan Vega
Alan Vega
Alan Vega For several years other sources stated that he was born in 1948 – see 'Myth' section is an American vocalist, primarily known for his work with electronic protopunk duo, Suicide...
but remained unreleased.
James Ray: "We then spent weeks on what was to be The Sisterhood's second single, 'This Corrosion', but Eldritch decided he was going to use it to kickstart The Sisters Mk II."
Preparation of the album
After the "Sisterhood fiasco" Eldritch decided to continue under the name The Sisters of Mercy: "I think that reflected rather badly on the name The Sisters of Mercy and it's probably due for re-instatement for that reason if no other." "I couldn't have gotten rid of the name even if I'd tried. So changing it wouldn't have made any sense. I'm still writing and recording the songs in very much the same way."Eldritch, who in 1985 first moved to Bramfeld
Wandsbek
Wandsbek is the second-largest of seven boroughs that make up the city of Hamburg, Germany. The name of the district is derived from the river Wandse which passes here. The quarter Wandsbek, which is the former independent city, is urban and, with the quarters Eilbek and Marienthal part of the...
and then to St. Pauli
St. Pauli
St. Pauli , located in the Hamburg-Mitte borough, is one of the 105 quarters of the city of Hamburg, Germany. Situated on the right bank of the Elbe river, the Landungsbrücken are a northern part of the port of Hamburg. St. Pauli contains a world famous red light district around the street Reeperbahn...
, began to compose a new WEA
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
album in Hamburg. The demos were mainly recorded with a Casio CZ-101
Casio CZ synthesizers
The CZ series were a family of low-cost Phase distortion synthesizers produced by Casio mid-1980s. There were eight models of CZ synthesizers released: the CZ-101, CZ-230S, CZ-1000, CZ-2000S, CZ-2600S, CZ-3000, CZ-5000, and the CZ-1. Additionally the home-keyboard model CT-6500 used 48...
synthesizer, acoustic guitars and a new drum machine: "By the time 'Floodland' was being written, Andrew had spent all the ready cash on a computer and a sequencer, and was looking for a reasonably priced midi drum machine with a tighter snare drum. So he got a Yamaha RX5 for the snare sound (the kick was quite tight too) and wrote the album with that."
With the exception of "This Corrosion", Eldritch in 1986 recorded demo versions of all Floodland songs which began to turn up in 1988 on the bootleggers' market. In addition a 7-minute instrumental without title exists which was written in the same musical style as the later Vision Thing track "I Was Wrong" and remained unused.
According to Eldritch, Patricia Morrison didn't contribute to the songwriting: "The record was a full-on solo album. My partner Patricia Morrison obviously suffered from writer's block. She didn't come up with any musical ideas, I couldn't even get her to pick up the bass in the first place." Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson: "Her musical contributions were very minimal."
Eldritch denied that his approach to songwriting had changed since the band split: "'This Corrosion' sounds like 'Temple of Love' II, '1959' sounds like 'Afterhours' part 2. I don't see any difference or any real change. I think I just carry on where I stopped."
Eldritch licensed the publishing to SBK Songs Limited (now part of EMI Music Publishing
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
) and began to negotiate with his record company WEA
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
.
The starting point was the song "This Corrosion", which was to be produced by Jim Steinman
Jim Steinman
James Richard "Jim" Steinman is an American composer, lyricist, and Grammy Award-winning record producer responsible for several hit songs. He has also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer...
: "As soon as I had 'This Corrosion' I immediately thought of him." "Steinman is the man for extremes. It was the first Sisters records for years so it had to be something really special." "When we were trying to sell 'Corrosion' to Steinman, we told him it was like the high-point of a Borgia's disco evening and he went for it."
Eldritch also used Steinman to get his record company to concede an appropriate recording budget: "That's one of the reasons why I used Jim Steinman, cos when he says to the record company 'We want choirs and you're going to pay for it now!' they just hand over the money. Whereas if I asked for it they'd think 'What's he really going to spend the money on?'"
According to Boyd Steemson (Merciful Release office manager) the head of Warners' A&R, Max Hole, got the band a budget of £50,000 for the song: "We knew we had something with 'This Corrosion'. [...] The record company said 'Well, £50,000—that's not bad for an album,' and Max said 'No, that's for one song!'"
New York, 1987
The recording of This Corrosion and Dominion/Mother Russia started in January 1987 in New York.Steinman and Eldritch used Power Station Studios
Avatar Studios
Avatar Studios, formerly known as The Power Station, is a recording studio at 441 West 53rd Street in Manhattan, New York City.The building was originally a Consolidated Edison power plant; but after a period of vacancy, it was used as a sound stage for the television game show Let's Make a Deal...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, where they worked with engineer Larry Alexander. Alexander: "I engineered the two Jim Steinman tracks at the Power Station in New York, ended up as co-producer on 'Dominion/Mother Russia'."
On both songs Steinman used six background singers and 40 members of the New York Choral Society. Eldritch: "We had an awful lot of people on the record, made a very loud noise. Never had so many people on a record before. Why? I really don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have 40 people singing at once. I've no idea why. [...] Every time you think to yourself 'Do we really want to go this far?' and you say to Jim, 'Jim, are you sure about this?' and anybody else will go 'Don't do it!', Jim goes 'More! More! More people, singing!'. It works."
According to Eldritch Steinman mainly focussed on the production of the choral singings: "I have to point out that he didn't contribute to the composition or the arrangements. [...] That's why he got only half of the production credit on 'Dominion', he's not interested in drums, bass or guitars. All he wants to do is the backing vocals and choirs."
England, 1987
The remainder of the album was recorded in England.Initially Eldritch worked with an unknown producer: "I had a producer but I had to fire him. That's why I had to do it all by myself which was quite demanding."
Eldritch called Larry Alexander in New York and hired him as a co-producer: "I was then invited to go to England and co-produce the rest of the album. I think the first studio was called Strawberry Studios
Strawberry Studios
-Formation:The facility was originally called Inner City Studios and located above a music store in the town centre. In early 1968 it was bought by Peter Tattersall, a former road manager for Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. Tattersall invited Eric Stewart – then lead guitarist and singer of...
in Manchester. We worked there for a while, then moved over to Bath to a studio called The Wool Hall. Next was AIR Studios
Associated Independent Recording
Associated Independent Recording , an independent recording company, was founded in London in 1965 by Beatles producer George Martin and his partner John Burgess after their departure from EMI....
in London where we finished up."
Roy Neave engineered the sessions, one of the in-house engineers of Fairview Recording Studios in Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
. Originally Eldritch intended to work with his colleague John Spence (who had worked with The Sisterhood
The Sisterhood
For movie, See The Sisterhood The Sisterhood was a side project by Sisters of Mercy singer Andrew Eldritch that recorded songs, which he had intended for a second Sisters album, with guest musicians.- Background :...
in 1986), who was committed to another project and recommended Neave as his replacement. Neave had already produced the Merciful Release band James Ray and the Performance
James Ray (rock musician)
James Ray is a rock singer and band-leader, best known as a member of Andrew Eldritch's side-project The Sisterhood and for his own band James Rays Gangwar....
.
In addition to the remaining album tracks the band recorded a long version of "Never Land" (finally released in 2006). Eldritch also sang his own version of the Sisterhood
The Sisterhood
For movie, See The Sisterhood The Sisterhood was a side project by Sisters of Mercy singer Andrew Eldritch that recorded songs, which he had intended for a second Sisters album, with guest musicians.- Background :...
track "Colours" which was slightly remixed and edited for the purpose.
"This Corrosion" single (September 1987)
As the first single from the album This Corrosion was selected, although Eldritch initially had pleaded for 'Dominion'.For the opulent video WEA Records
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
conceded a budget of over £50,000. The video, which starred models from Ugly Enterprises Ltd. as well as some friends of the band, was set in the ruins of a post-nuclear attack London and was directed by Stuart Orme. Patricia Morrison: "'This Corrosion' was shot in Wapping
Wapping
Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which forms part of the Docklands to the east of the City of London. It is situated between the north bank of the River Thames and the ancient thoroughfare simply called The Highway...
or thereabouts in a warehouse or soundstage. We wanted to go to Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, but at the same time the Russian record company (Melody
Melodiya
Melodiya is a Russian record label. It was the state-owned major record company/label of the Soviet Union.-History:It was established in 1964 as the "All-Union Gramophone Record Firm of the USSR Ministry of Culture Melodiya"...
or something it was called) were in negotiations with the West regarding video rights. We were not allowed to go as we would have botched up the negotiations."
The single was released on 18 September 1987. Each format (7 inch, 12 inch, CD and cassette) contained a different mix of the song, a fact that Eldritch explained this way: "Originally I only wanted the long version, for me the song had to be this way. But the record company vetoed that, so I spent a weekend at the mixing desk. I liked the three minute edit the best, then I thought I'd do another one at mid-length. The LP mix is the same as the 12 inch version, it just fades out a bit earlier. The cassette version is different again cos Jim insisted on doing an edit of his own. He's more into little bits and pieces."
The B-side of the single was "Torch", Eldritch had played every instrument himself and produced the track on his own. "Torch" had been written in 1985 for the aborted Left on Mission and Revenge album. The 12 inch single added Eldritch's version of the Sisterhood
The Sisterhood
For movie, See The Sisterhood The Sisterhood was a side project by Sisters of Mercy singer Andrew Eldritch that recorded songs, which he had intended for a second Sisters album, with guest musicians.- Background :...
song "Colours".
In the UK the single reached number 7 in the charts. Eldritch and Morrison, backed by members of James Ray and the Performance
James Ray (rock musician)
James Ray is a rock singer and band-leader, best known as a member of Andrew Eldritch's side-project The Sisterhood and for his own band James Rays Gangwar....
, appeared on the TV shows Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
and The Roxy
The Roxy (TV series)
The Roxy was a British television music programme that was broadcast on ITV in the late 1980s. It was produced by Tyne Tees Television following the demise a few months earlier of its more successful music show The Tube....
.
In the USA the single did not enter the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, but on 19 December 1987 reached number 38 in the Billboard Club Play chart.
In Germany the single entered the charts in November 1987 and reached number 17.
Floodland album (November 1987)
On 13 November 1987 the album Floodland was released by WEA RecordsWarner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
to mostly positive press reactions.
Patricia Morrison's name was nowhere to be found on the record although she was pictured on the sleeve. Morrison downplayed this fact in interviews: "If you look at Sisters' records, the names for what people play usually aren't there. Andrew writes the songs so there's no reason for anyone else to be featured. I was well aware of that when the album came out but what I didn't realise was that it would confuse other people. If people haven't seen the press we've done, they don't know I'm in the band."
In the UK Floodland reached number 7 in the album charts. Preorders alone assured the album silver status on the day of its release, on 11 March 1988 it went gold with 100,000 sold units. According to Eldritch the album had recouped the high production costs in 1989.
In Germany, according to Eldritch The Sisters' second large market behind the UK, Floodland entered the top 100 albums chart
Media Control Charts
The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...
on 14 December 1987, staying there for twenty weeks and reaching number 32. In 1993 it went gold, with 250,000 sold units.
In the USA Floodland was released on 11 January 1988 by Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
. It reached number 101 in the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
on 12 March 1988, but had not the impact on the mainstream as in other parts of the world.
"Dominion" single (February 1988)
As a second single, a remix of "Dominion" was released in the last week of February 1988.The single had already been announced back in December 1987, but its release was delayed because Eldritch recorded a version of the Hot Chocolate hit "Emma
Emma (song)
Emma, also known as Emma, Emmaline or Emmeline, is a song by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson released as a single by Hot Chocolate in 1974. It reached No.3 in the UK charts and No.8 in the US charts. Brown explained to The Mail on Sunday in 2009: "The story is tied to the death of my mother, aged 38...
" as a 12 inch single B-side in January 1988.
Producer Hugh Jones: "Most of the music for 'Emma' was recorded at The Church Studios in Crouch End, North London, with final overdubs and mixing done at Master Rock (horrible name!!) Studios in Kilburn. Patricia did technically play bass on the track, although there was a lot of sampling individual phrases, moving them around and inserting them where we wanted. Yes indeed, we did record the vocals at a live venue. Andrew had attempted to record 'Emma' several times before but had never considered the result to be as good as when they played the song live. So we hired the Kilburn National Theatre and the Rolling Stones Mobile
Rolling Stones Mobile Studio
The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio is a mobile recording studio owned by the musical group the Rolling Stones. Numerous bands and artists have recorded music using it, including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Lou Reed, Bob Marley, Horslips, Fleetwood Mac, Bad Company, Status Quo, Iron Maiden, Mola Mola...
recording truck, played the track to Andrew through the stage monitors, and recorded a number of performances with him singing on the stage. There were lights, dry ice, everything to invoke the atmosphere of a live experience (other than an audience!) The final result is a compilation of a number of those vocal 'takes'. Very indulgent, very eighties, particularly for a B-side!!"
The other B-side tracks of the single, made from various segments out of "Dominion", were apparently prepared shortly before the "Dominion" video shot. "Sandstorm" consists of various sampled saxofone and keyboard parts from "Dominion", mixed to a moody short instrumental track which was used in the opening section of the video. "Untitled" is a slowed-down instrumental excerpt from "Dominion". The CD single contained "Ozymandias" which is "Dominion" played backwards.
The video for "Dominion" was filmed in February 1988 in the Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian city of Petra
Petra
Petra is a historical and archaeological city in the Jordanian governorate of Ma'an that is famous for its rock cut architecture and water conduits system. Established sometime around the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan as well as its most visited...
. After the commercial success of "This Corrosion" WEA
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
had again conceded a budget of £50,000 and enlisted director David Hogan, who shot the video in two days after four-and-a-half months of preparation. Eldritch called the video "Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
part two."
In the UK the single reached number 13 in the charts. Eldritch and Morrison, backed by members of James Ray and the Performance
James Ray (rock musician)
James Ray is a rock singer and band-leader, best known as a member of Andrew Eldritch's side-project The Sisterhood and for his own band James Rays Gangwar....
, appeared on the TV shows Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
and The Roxy
The Roxy (TV series)
The Roxy was a British television music programme that was broadcast on ITV in the late 1980s. It was produced by Tyne Tees Television following the demise a few months earlier of its more successful music show The Tube....
.
In the USA the single was only released as a promotional 12 inch. Nevertheless it reached number 30 in the Billboard Club Play chart on 18 June 1988.
In Germany, the single did not chart.
"Lucretia My Reflection" single (May 1988)
As the third and last Sisters single for the next two-and-a-half years, a remix of "Lucretia My Reflection" was released on 27 May 1988.As Eldritch spent a month at Slaughterhouse Recording Studios in Driffield
Driffield
Driffield, also known as Great Driffield, is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield....
in the spring of 1988, the 7 inch mix and the extended 12 inch mix were probably made during these sessions. Studio owner Russell Webster: "Andrew Eldritch spent a whole month on his own at the studio. We had a lot of fun together and I loved his dynamic music so much that I thought I should do something similar myself." Patricia Morrison: "The remix is really over the top. I liked it when I first heard it and I still do."
The song's lyrics mentioned the words "long train", so the eponymous Sisters track was selected as a B-side. "Long Train" was originally released as a flexi disc in 1984 and had already become a collector's item.
The video was filmed in India with director Peter Sinclair, at a "Bombay cotton factory" and other places. Additionally a video to "1959" was filmed in India. For a while Eldritch had toyed with the idea of releasing "1959" as a single. It was hovewer released as a promo for the radios.
In the last week of May 1988 The Sisters of Mercy appeared at Montreux
Montreux
Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...
Rock Festival in Switzerland, which was organised by BBC, MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
and TSR
Télévision Suisse Romande
Télévision Suisse Romande is a TV network with 2 channels: TSR 1 and TSR 2. They are the main French language channels in Switzerland, part of SRG SSR idée suisse...
and broadcasted worldwide on television. During this mimed appearance, the only one in front of a large audience during the Floodland era, they were again backed by members of James Ray and the Performance
James Ray (rock musician)
James Ray is a rock singer and band-leader, best known as a member of Andrew Eldritch's side-project The Sisterhood and for his own band James Rays Gangwar....
. Andrew Eldritch: "This was never designed to go out live. [Floodland] was incarnated that way because playing live was never an issue." Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson: "It was an absolute nightmare. He put out the 'Floodland' record, [...] and Andrew refused to tour."
In the UK the single reached number 20 in the charts. A mimed performance on Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
on 16 June 1988 was the last public appearance of The Sisters for the next two years.
In the USA the single did not enter the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, but on 20 August 1988 reached number 30 in the Billboard Club Play chart.
In Germany the single did not chart.
"Shot" video (October 1989)
Andrew Eldritch: "For me personally I think '88 was probably the best because 'Floodland' had come out and everybody had written us off for dead before that and suddenly we had three singles out and we were on Top of the Pops three times which is like outrageous for us and I just went home for a year and just sat in Hamburg thinking 'Yeah, all right, okay—thank you!'"Patricia Morrison: "We want to get out with the next record, and the way we want to present ourselves live is going to take quite a lot of effort and time. And we'd rather get another record under our belts before we attempt that."
In April 1989 work on the next album Vision Thing began with new guitarist Andreas Bruhn. On 17 July 1989 Eldritch Eldritch registered a new publishing company Eldritch Boulevard Limited for the new material.
In October 1989 WEA
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
released the VHS video Shot containing all four Floodland promotion videos.
In the same month Eldritch split up with Patricia Morrison. Andrew Eldritch in June 1990: "Patricia has left the band for good in October last year. Patricia was an asset in every respect, she can play bass, she had input, she was a great moral support for many years."
Instrumentation
In contrast to the previous album First and Last and AlwaysFirst and Last and Always
First and Last and Always is the debut album by the British gothic rock band The Sisters of Mercy, which was released in 1985 and proved to be style-shaping in the musical category of gothic rock.- Background :...
, which had been recorded in a conventional way, Floodland was pieced together on the computer with the help of sequencers
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
.
Eldritch: "I learned how cool it is to work with computers in 1987 during the recording of the Sisters album 'Floodland'."
Eldritch worked on the recorded parts with a Voyetra Sequencer Plus
Turtle Beach Systems
Turtle Beach Systems is a sound card and headphone manufacturer and direct competitor with Creative Labs-branded Sound Blaster. In 1995, the company merged with Voyetra, a company that made custom software for sound cards, to form Voyetra Turtle Beach Inc which is headquartered in Elmsford, New...
, as effects unit
Effects unit
Effects units are electronic devices that alter how a musical instrument or other audio source sounds. Some effects subtly "color" a sound, while others transform it dramatically. Effects are used during live performances or in the studio, typically with electric guitar, keyboard and bass...
a Yamaha SPX-90
Yamaha Pro Audio
Yamaha Pro Audio, Inc. is a company that offers a complete line of professional audio products for the live sound and sound reinforcement markets...
was used, the parts were saved on a Compaq Portable 286
Compaq Portable series
Compaq's first computers were portable 'lunchbox' or 'luggable' computers, and as such belong to the Compaq Portable series. These computers measured approximately 1×1 foot on the side, and were approx. 2½ ft wide...
.
The guitars were played by Eldritch himself, "apart from the solo on 'This Corrosion' which was played by a friend of Steinman's. [...] I use electric guitars when I want to be ironic." The solo was done by session guitarist Eddie Martinez, who in the previous year had played the famous guitar solo on Robert Palmer's number one hit "Addicted to Love
Addicted to Love (song)
Tina Turner has made "Addicted to Love" a regular feature of her live shows since 1986, although her version did not make it onto the market until two years later....
".
Most of the bass on the album was not played on a bass guitar but by Eldritch himself using synth bass. Patricia Morrison was only featured in some places (most notably on "Driven like the Snow"), Eldritch later suggested that she did not appear at all on the album. In an interview he commented on the issue of Morrison playing on Floodland: "That's an assumption which a lot of people make, [...] but obviously I question that assumption." Morrison later stated: "Yes I did play on 'Floodland', though Andrew did record over some of my parts."
The piano track "1959" was pieced together with a sequencer by Eldritch: "This one was programmed on the computer note by note without even touching a piano key."
The drum sounds were sampled together from various drum machines with an Akai S900. The tom sound was from an Oberheim DMX
Oberheim DMX
The DMX is a programmable digital drum machine introduced in 1981 by Oberheim Electronics.The Oberheim DMX was the second digital drum computer ever to be sold to the public as a product, following the Linn LM-1 in 1980...
which had been used on First and Last and Always
First and Last and Always
First and Last and Always is the debut album by the British gothic rock band The Sisters of Mercy, which was released in 1985 and proved to be style-shaping in the musical category of gothic rock.- Background :...
. The remaining drum sounds were from a Yamaha RX-5
Yamaha Pro Audio
Yamaha Pro Audio, Inc. is a company that offers a complete line of professional audio products for the live sound and sound reinforcement markets...
.
Lyrical content
On the album title Eldritch commented: "I just wrote the songs and it's only afterwards that you think 'My God, there's water all the way through this.' It's obviously got a lot to do with living here, because Hamburg's full of water."The centre piece of the album, "This Corrosion", goes back to the conflict between Eldritch and his former band mates who were now in The Mission
The Mission (band)
The Mission are a gothic rock band formed in 1986 from the splinters of the freshly dissolved rock band The Sisters of Mercy.The band was started by frontman Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams , soon adding...
. The lyrics are a parody of clichéd meaningless rock lyrics as especially Wayne Hussey
Wayne Hussey
Wayne Hussey is a British musician, best known as lead singer of The Mission and guitarist with The Sisters of Mercy....
wrote them:
"It is, of course, directed at somebody and it doesn't take a genius to work out who, although it'll probably take the person concerned some considerable time. [...] Nearly all of [the lyrics] should be thought of in quotation marks. It would be too confusing to print them all." "The words THIS CORROSION are printed in capitals because it's the title of somebody else's song. I invented this fictitious band and made them sing all these stupidities. [...] Wayne used to withdraw himself with a book of song titles, select those which sounded best and piece together a song lyric from it. It didn't have to have any meaning, it just had to sound good."
"Dominion/Mother Russia" was inspired by the well-known poem Ozymandias
Ozymandias
"Ozymandias" is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818 in the January 11 issue of The Examiner in London. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem...
from which one line is lifted (Eldritch: "The song is about erecting monuments in outrageous places to one's own personal power and then crumbling away."), while the second part of the song is about the nuclear accident in Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
when "Mother Russia" rained down on the Northern hemisphere in the form of nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout
Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...
.
"Lucretia My Reflection" Eldritch called "my 'Welcome on board Patricia' song. [...] Patricia always strikes me as a Lucretia
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
-type person."
"Flood I" and "Flood II" uses the word flood as a metaphor: "It's sex—at least in this context. Most people, if you think about it, only get wet under certain circumstances. [...] Water is something so mammoth, so a flood is emotionally very stimulating."
"Driven like the Snow", like "Nine While Nine" on the previous album
First and Last and Always
First and Last and Always is the debut album by the British gothic rock band The Sisters of Mercy, which was released in 1985 and proved to be style-shaping in the musical category of gothic rock.- Background :...
, is about Eldritch's former girlfriend Claire Shearsby: "There's not a decent vocal on this because I could never get to the end without having to stop. It's like the song on the first album, 'Nine While Nine', this is really 'Nine While Nine' part two. Too close for comfort. [...] I didn't really want to write or sing it, but I think the song helped to explain very logically why we had to fall apart." "I often wish that the songs were much less based on personal experience."
On "Never Land" Eldritch commented that it imagines "the entire population of the earth starting to travel from some indefinable point in space toward the earth at increasing speed. It would take an eternity to reach the earth—by which time you'd be reasonably spiritualised—and even when you reached the destination, you wouldn't actually hit the ground. You'd be going so fast you'd just go through and out the other side, where there is another eternity of nothingness. I just tried to write a song about these impressions." The lyrics Eldritch referred would finally be found on the 12 minute long version of the song which was released in 2006.
Different versions of the album
- The original vinyl edition of the album was divided symmetrically into four songs on each LP side. The LP version of "This Corrosion" is the same as the 12 inch single version.
- The CD edition of the album contains the longer CD single version of "This Corrosion" which fades out a little earlier. "Flood II" has a slightly longer intro, "Driven like the Snow" is an extended remix. The CD edition of the album added the two B-sides of the "This Corrosion" single ("Torch" and "Colours") as extra tracks, much to Andrew Eldritch's annoyance as he saw the originally intended symmetry of the album destroyed. His request to omit the extra tracks on subsequent re-pressings were ignored by the record company.
- In October 2006 a remastered CD edition of the album was released which added two further extra tracks: "Emma" and a previously unreleased 12 minute version of "Never Land".
Track listing
Produced by Eldritch with Larry Alexander except "This Corrosion" produced by Jim SteinmanJim Steinman
James Richard "Jim" Steinman is an American composer, lyricist, and Grammy Award-winning record producer responsible for several hit songs. He has also worked as an arranger, pianist, and singer...
; "Dominion/Mother Russia" produced by Steinman/Alexander/Eldritch; "Torch" produced by Eldritch ; "Emma" produced by Hugh Jones.
2006 re-issue
Along with the group's previous two releases, Floodland was re-issued in November 2006 with bonus tracks, which, listed as follows:The original CD included the bonus tracks "Torch" and "Colours". In the original cassette version the bonus track "Torch" followed "1959" at the end of side one.
Cover versions
Cover versions of "Lucretia My ReflectionLucretia My Reflection
"Lucretia My Reflection" is a song from the album Floodland by The Sisters of Mercy. It was released as the third single from the album in 1988.-Overview:...
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- Black Kites - Paper Heart (2007)
- Maryslim feat. Jyrki 69 of The 69 Eyes - This Corrosion (2007)
- Project 86Project 86Project 86 is an American Christian rock band from Orange County, California, formed in 1996. The line-up consists of bassist Steven Dail, vocalist and songwriter Andrew Schwab, and guitarist Randy Torres. The band has released seven studio albums, which have collectively sold over 500,000 units...
- The Kane Mutiny EPThe Kane Mutiny EPThe Kane Mutiny EP is an iTunes-exclusive digital EP that was released on November 27, 2007 by the post-hardcore band Project 86. Announced on August 23, 2007, the EP is composed of five tracks: two Rival Factions B-sides, a cover of The Sisters of Mercy's "Lucretia, My Reflection," and remixes of...
(2007) - Vampire Lust - Music Inspired by Sisters Of Mercy (2008)
- Tangerine - Lucretia My Reflection - Single (2008)
- Warrel DaneWarrel DaneWarrel Dane is the lead singer of the progressive metal band Nevermore. He is also the singer of the metal band Sanctuary, who have recently reformed...
- Praises to the War MachinePraises to the War MachinePraises to the War Machine is a heavy metal album by Nevermore vocalist Warrel Dane, released on April 25, 2008. The album was produced by Peter Wichers, who was tapped by Dane to work on the album while Wichers was still a member of Soilwork. After leaving that band in 2007, Wichers co-wrote the...
(2008) - Black Light BurnsBlack Light BurnsBlack Light Burns are a rock band fronted by Wes Borland, of Limp Bizkit. The band's original studio lineup consisted of Borland, Danny Lohner, Josh Eustis and Josh Freese. Their debut album Cruel Melody, was released on June 5, 2007. The band released a covers and b-sides CD/DVD combo package in...
- Cover Your Heart and the Anvil Pants OdysseyCover Your Heart and the Anvil Pants OdysseyCover Your Heart and the Anvil Pants Odyssey is a CD/DVD collection from the industrial rock band Black Light Burns. The CD component features cover songs chosen by the band as being influential in their own music, as well as several instrumental b-sides from the band's debut album Cruel Melody....
(2008) - The Pinion - Deus Ex Machina (2009)