Floodland (album)

Floodland is the second studio album by the English gothic rock band the Sisters of Mercy. It was released on 16 November 1987, through Merciful Release, a subsidiary of WEA, internationally and through Elektra Records in the United States. After the release of the band's debut studio album, First and Last and Always (1985), members Craig Adams and Wayne Hussey left to form the Mission, causing the dissolution of the Sisters of Mercy. As a result, band frontman Andrew Eldritch formed a side project known as the Sisterhood. After the first Sisterhood album was received negatively overall, Eldritch restarted the Sisters of Mercy and hired the Sisterhood member Patricia Morrison for the recording of a new album.

Eldritch wrote the songs of Floodland in Hamburg; the city's large amount of water influenced its title as well as the recurring lyrical theme of water. He then called upon Larry Alexander to produce the album with him and Jim Steinman to produce the songs "Dominion" / "Mother Russia" and "This Corrosion". Recording sessions began at Power Station Studios in New York City during January 1987 and carried on throughout the first half of the year at Strawberry Studios in Stockport and The Wool Hall in Bath. Eldritch served as the vocalist, performed all instruments, and programmed the band's drum machine, "Doktor Avalanche".

The drum machine acted as the drum player; other than backing vocals, Morrison did not contribute to the album despite being a member of the Sisters of Mercy. In contrast to the conventional group-based recording sessions for First and Last and Always, Floodland was pieced together on computers using sequencers. The music incorporates the genres of gothic rock and dark wave, while the lyrical content sees Eldritch cast as the observer of a slowly deteriorating world. Some of the events that inspired certain songs include the Chernobyl disaster, the Cold War, and the band's previous break-up.

The singles "This Corrosion", "Dominion", and "Lucretia My Reflection" were released in promotion. "This Corrosion" peaked at number 7 on the UK Singles Chart, while "Dominion" and "Lucretia My Reflection" peaked at number 13 and 20, respectively. Floodland debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number 9, later being certified gold in UK by the BPI for selling 100,000 copies. It also reached the top 40 in other European countries, including Switzerland. Despite initially receiving mixed reviews from music critics, Floodland has retrospectively received praise and been considered a seminal gothic rock album by several critics.

Background

thumb|left|200px|Band frontman [[Andrew Eldritch (pictured in 2000) had formed the Sisterhood following the break-up of the Sisters of Mercy.|alt=A color photograph of a man on stage at a concert singing in to a microphone with one arm behind his back.]]

After the release of the Sisters of Mercy debut studio album First and Last and Always in March 1985, frontman Andrew Eldritch intended for them to record an ABBA cover as a single, and tried to hire Jim Steinman as a producer. Eldritch originally contacted him when the ABBA song "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" (1979) was part of the band's setlist. Steinman was interested in producing the cover version, but was too busy at that time. Shortly afterward, the Sisters of Mercy disbanded. The break-up occurred while the band prepared their second studio album in October 1985, which was going to be titled Left on Mission and Revenge. Eldritch, who had still intended to record the album but as a solo artist, called bassist Patricia Morrison that same month, who was on a tour of the United Kingdom with her band Fur Bible in support of Siouxsie and the Banshees, asking Morrison to collaborate.

The music press reported the break-up of the band on 2 November 1985, announcing that "the Sisters of Mercy were down to singer Andrew Eldritch and his faithful drum machine <nowiki>[</nowiki>Doktor Avalanche<nowiki>]</nowiki> 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." Eldritch had no intention to carry on under the disformed band's name, as members who left to form the Mission had an agreement with him that the name the Sisters of Mercy would be used by no one after the break-up.

Eldritch released the single "Giving Ground" on 20 January 1986 as part of a project under the name the Sisterhood, which features vocals by his musician friend James Ray. At the end of February 1986, the record label Merciful Release announced that the "forthcoming Andrew Eldritch album which for some months has had the working title Left on Mission and Revenge." The album was eventually titled Gift, being released in July 1986, again by the Sisterhood. It was recorded at Fairview Studios in Willerby, Hull. Eldritch did not sing on the album for contractual reasons, though Morrison collaborated with him for the first time, contributing a spoken passage on the track "Jihad". Gift was negatively received overall and Eldritch lost his publishing deal with RCA Music Limited as a result of it. A 12-inch EP by the Sisterhood entitled This Corrosion was planned for release and set to feature an American vocalist, whose identity was meant to be kept secret until release. The EP had been recorded at Fairview Studios with Alan Vega but remained unreleased, with Eldritch instead keeping the idea for when he would reboot the Sisters of Mercy.

Recording

thumb|right|200px|Eldritch hired [[Patricia Morrison (pictured, ) with the intention of having her play bass guitar on the album.|alt=A color photograph of a seated woman facing the camera.]]

After what was dubbed the "Sisterhood fiasco" by Sounds, Eldritch decided to continue under the name the Sisters of Mercy, feeling as though doing so would improve the name's reputation after the previous fallout. The demos for the album were mainly recorded with a Casio CZ-101 synthesiser, acoustic guitars and a new drum machine. At the time, Eldritch was attempting to find a MIDI drum machine of a modest price that featured a "tighter snare drum" sound.

Despite hiring her to play bass guitar on the album, Eldritch later claimed that Morrison did not contribute to the songwriting for it, with him saying that it was practically a solo record. Eldritch insinuated that she suffered from writer's block and was unable to come up with many musical ideas, also adding that he "couldn't even get her to pick up the bass in the first place." He reaffirmed this in a 2012 interview with Classic Rock, stating that she "didn't make the cut" and therefore did not appear on Floodland. Merciful Release office manager Boyd Steemson also gave confirmation that Morrison's contributions were minimal. Eldritch denied that his approach to songwriting had changed since the band split, saying "'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." He licensed the publishing to SBK Songs Limited, which is now part of EMI Music Publishing.

thumb|left|200px|[[Jim Steinman (pictured in 2005) served as a producer for "Dominion" / "Mother Russia", and "This Corrosion".|alt=A color photograph of a seated man, with his right arm on a table, looking toward the camera.]]

The starting point for the album was the song "This Corrosion", which was set to be produced by Steinman. Eldritch had immediately thought of him when he came up with the idea for the song. According to Steemson, Max Hole, the head of WEA's A&R, managed to get the band a budget of £50,000 for "This Corrosion". On both songs, Steinman used six background singers and 40 members of the New York Choral Society. Eldritch recalled that he was unsure as to why so many vocalists sung all at once, but noted that this "seemed like a good idea at the time" and worked out well in the end. Steinman mainly focused on the production of the choral singings and did not contribute much to the actual composition and arrangements. This caused him to receive only partial production credit on "Dominion / Mother Russia". The track "1959" features only the sound of a piano, but was pieced together with a sequencer by Eldritch and played without an actual piano. He also noted that "This Corrosion" on the lyrics sheet is capitalised in the style of a song title because "it's the title of somebody else's song," recalling a list of song titles that Hussey kept to himself. Eldritch claimed that Hussey would select the titles that he thought were the best and generate lyrics out of them. Eldritch claimed: "It didn't have to have any meaning, it just had to sound good." The video was shot at a warehouse in Wapping and directed by Stuart Orme. The Sisters of Mercy wanted to film in Kazakhstan of the Soviet Union, but at the same time, Russian record label Melodiya were in negotiations with the West regarding video rights, and filming there would have botched the negotiations.

Floodland was released in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1987, later receiving a release in the United States on 11 January 1988 through Elektra Records. The album had simultaneous releases on vinyl, cassette, and CD. The cassette release included "Torch", the B-side to "This Corrosion", and the CD release included both "Torch" and "Colours", the latter being another B-side from the single releases for "This Corrosion", as bonus tracks. Morrison's name was not included in the credits for Floodland, although she was pictured on the sleeve and appeared under her real name of Anne Rainone in the "Thanks" section of the inner sleeve. She downplayed the lack of inclusion in interviews, saying: "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." feeling that it was not made to be played live. He later recalled not having a band ready to accompany him on a tour, which was the real reason why he chose not to tour and instead opted to promote Floodland through singles, music videos, and television appearances only. The single's other B-side tracks, made from various "Dominion" segments, were prepared shortly before the "Dominion" music video shoot. "Sandstorm" consists of various sampled saxophone 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 for the song contained "Ozymandias", which is "Dominion" played backwards. The video for "Dominion" was filmed during February 1988 in the Jordanian city of Petra; it was the first ever music video to have been shot in Jordan. After the commercial success of "This Corrosion", WEA had again conceded a budget of £50,000 and they 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."

The third and final single from the album, a remix of "Lucretia My Reflection", was released on 27 May 1988. The B-side of the single was "Long Train"; Eldritch had also considered releasing "1959" as a single at some point; it was later released as a promotional single that aimed for radio play. The song also received a music video that was filmed in India.

| rev2 = Classic Rock

| rev2score = 7/10

| rev3 = MusicHound

| rev3score = 4/5

| rev4 = Pitchfork

| rev4score = 9.1/10

| rev5 = Q

| rev5score =

| rev6 = Record Mirror

| rev6score = 4.5/5

| rev7 = Rolling Stone

| rev7score =

| rev8 = Sputnikmusic

| rev8score = 4/5

| rev9 = Uncut

| rev9score =

| rev10 = The Village Voice

| rev10score = C+

Floodland was met with mixed reviews from music critics. Mark Coleman of Rolling Stone felt that the album was a step down from the Sisters of Mercy's previous material. He described it as "Meat Loaf joining the Cure for a remake of [[Lou Reed|Lou <nowiki>[Reed]</nowiki>]]'s Berlin", adding that the album is "hilarious, sure, but always listenable at the very least". Coleman provided praise, however, for "This Corrosion", calling it a "bona fide toe-tapper of a single." Consequence, Spectrum Culture, LA Weekly, and Treble.

Commercial

Floodland reached number nine on the UK Albums Chart. Preorders alone assured the album silver certification on the day of its release, and on 11 March 1988 it was certified gold in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for selling 100,000 units. In Germany, which Eldritch claimed was the band's second largest market behind the UK, In 1993, Floodland was certified gold in Germany by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI) for sales of 250,000 units. It went on to peak at number 101, after spending six weeks on the chart, during the week of 12 March 1988.

Track listing

Floodland vinyl track listing

Personnel

Personnel adapted from Floodland liner notes, except where noted otherwise.

Andrew Eldritch – vocals, composing, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass guitar, drum machine programming
Patricia Morrison – backing vocals
"Doktor Avalanche" – drum machine

Technical personnel

Larry Alexander – production (tracks 1–4, 6–8)
Andrew Eldritch – engineering, production (tracks 1–4, 6–8)
Jim Steinman – production (tracks 1 and 5)

Additional musicians

Eddie Martinez – guitar (track 5)
New York Choral Society – choral vocals (tracks 1 and 5)

Charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Chart performance for Floodland

! scope="col"| Chart (1987–1988)

! scope="col"| Peak<br /> position

! scope="row"| European Albums (Music & Media)

| 33

! scope="row"| US Billboard 200

| 101

Certification

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links

Floodland (Adobe Flash) at Spotify (streamed copy where licensed)
Floodland (Remastered & Expanded; Deluxe Version) (Adobe Flash) at Spotify (streamed copy where licensed)