Cure for Sanity

Recording

Following the August 1989 release of the EP Very Metal Noise Pollution, the band made no serious attempts at further recordings until after they returned from a tour of Australia in December of that year. Sessions in January 1990 produced the single "Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina", the subject of which was porn-actress-turned-politician Cicciolina. The publicity campaign for the single included a video and a photo shoot in which Cicciolina participated.

At this point, in the words of band member Adam Mole, "we were struggling for new songs". There was a period of approximately two months after recording "Cicciolina" during which the band made several further attempts at recording, but none of those attempts produced usable results. The band went on tour in the United States in April 1990 and did not return to a recording studio until May.

The sessions that began in May 1990 were productive. There were two groups of sessions, each lasting about three weeks. Both were produced by Flood and were held at the Black Barn recording studio in Surrey, England. The album was released in August.

Music

Cure for Sanity is less light-hearted than prior albums, "mixing a couple of more serious efforts with a new slew of catchy, immediate singles and not-bad album cuts." The album features the beginnings of a dancier sound than on previous albums.

Singles

"Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina" was released in May 1990, about two months earlier than the release of the album itself. It appeared on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks, peaking at No. 28. Note that the album version of the song is subtitled "(edited highlights"), despite the fact that the single is some three minutes shorter than the album version. The single was issued in various formats (7-inch vinyl, cassette, 12-inch vinyl, and compact disc). Regardless of format, the various versions contained no songs other than "Cicciolina", with that song being presented in either two or three different mix versions.

The second single, released in September 1990, was a shortened version of the album track "Dance of the Mad Bastards", variously titled "Dance of the Mad", "Dance of the Mad ..." or "Dance of the Mad (Seven)". It was backed with a shorter, re-mixed version of "Preaching to the Perverted" (the original having appeared on the Very Metal Noise Pollution EP). The single was released in various formats, some of which included a second version of "Dance", subtitled the "Feet in Heat" mix. One version (the second 12-inch vinyl single) also included a third song, "Rockahula Baby", which had appeared earlier in 1990 on the New Musical Express cover album The Last Temptation of Elvis. "Dance of the Mad" appeared on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks, peaking at No. 32.

In 1991, two more singles were released, both of them re-mixes of songs that appeared on the album. The first was "X Y & Zee (Electric Sunshine Style)", backed with "Axe of Men" (and, on the 12-inch vinyl version, also with "Psychosexual"). Issued in January 1991, it peaked on the U.K. Singles chart at No. 15, making it the highest-charting single from the album. It also was the most successful single in the United States, appearing for 16 weeks on the Billboard Top Alternative Songs chart (peaking at No. 11) and for nine weeks on its Top Dance Club Songs chart (peaking at No. 17). The second 1991 single was a remixed version of "92° F", backed with "The Incredible P.W.E.I. vs Dirty Harry" (which is not the same song as the similarly-titled album track). The remix was done by Boilerhouse and was called "The Birth" mix. Both the compact-disc and the 12-inch vinyl versions of the single contained additional Boilerhouse remixes. The 10-inch vinyl version included yet another Boilerhouse remix, plus "Another Man's Rhubarb (Good Vibes Mix)". Released in April 1991, it appeared on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks, peaking at No. 23.

"Another Man's Rhubarb", backed with "92°F", was released in the United States (only) as a promotional "not-for-sale" single in 1991. It was released in two formats: 12-inch vinyl and compact disc. Both formats contained the same four tracks—two mixes of "Rhubarb" and two mixes (both by Boilerhouse) of "92°F". "Rhubarb" appeared on Billboard's Top Dance Club Songs chart for five weeks, peaking at No. 37.

Critical reception

In a contemporaneous review for Keyboard magazine, Jim Aikin found the album to be "solidly mixed, with plenty of processed samples colliding over aggressive hip-hop grooves". He concluded his review by describing the album as "intensely modern".

In his retrospective review for AllMusic, Ned Raggett opined that the album was not as good as the previous This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This!, but "not all that far off". He described it as "mixing a couple of more serious efforts with a slew of catchy, immediate singles and not-bad album cuts". Raggett gave specific praise to the opening segue of "Moral Majority" into "Dance", as well as "X Y & Zee" (calling it "warm and wistful") and "Nightmare at 20,000 ft.". Regarding Sylvia Tella's appearance on "92°F", he found it to be "all right, if nothing to write home about".

Trouser Press expressed a less positive opinion of Cure for Sanity, describing it as the "beginning of the artistic end" for the band and noting that "the absurd sloganeering is tiresome". Nonetheless, there was specific praise for "Dance" and "Lived in Splendor" as examples of beats that "still pack a wallop". The reviewers also found the "Sensory Amplification" remix of "X Y & Zee" to be "beatific".

Track listing

On the 1990 and 1991 releases, all tracks were credited to Vestan Pance, the collective pseudonym of the band. On the 2011 release, the tracks are credited as noted.

1. "The Incredible P.W.E.I. vs The Moral Majority" (Crabb) – 1:34
2. "Dance of the Mad Bastards" (Crabb) – 5:31
3. "88 Seconds... & Still Counting" (Graham Crabb, Clint Mansell, Richard March, Adam Mole) – 3:53
4. "X Y & Zee" (Mansell) – 4:35
5. "City Zen Radio 1990/2000 FM" (Crabb) – 0:49
6. "Dr. Nightmare's Medication Time" (Mansell) – 3:10
7. "Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina (edited highlights)" (Crabb, Mansell, March, Mole) – 7:40
8. "1000x NO!" (Crabb) – 2:38
9. "Psychosexual" (Crabb, Mole) – 2:10
10. "Axe of Men" (Crabb, Mansell, March, Mole) – 4:21
11. "Another Man's Rhubarb" (Crabb) – 4:11
12. "Medicine Man Speak with Forked Tongue" (Mansell) – 0:31
13. "Nightmare at 20,000 ft" (Mansell) – 4:12
14. "Very Metal Noise Pollution" (Crabb, March) – 1:27
15. "92°F (The 3rd Degree)" (Crabb) – 5:38 (a different version had already been released on the Very Metal Noise Pollution EP)
16. "Lived in Splendour: Died in Chaos" (Crabb) – 5:06
17. "The Beat That Refused To Die" (Crabb) – 1:40

The track timings are taken from the 1990 British release (RCA PL 74828). When released in the United States and Canada, the track timings were slightly different. These latter releases also contained an 18th song, "X Y & Zee (Sensory Amplification)".

The 1991 re-release differed from the original (British) release by including the single versions of "Cicciolina", "X Y & Zee", and "92°F". The single version of "Cicciolina" replaced the original album version; the other two singles were included in addition to their original album versions. Thus, the re-released version had 19 tracks as compared to the original album's 17 tracks.

Personnel

Adapted from the liner notes