Cult Of Personality – Living Colour | Top 40 Chart Performance, Story and Song Meaning
Chart Performance: Pop (#13) & Rock (#9); 1989
Story Behind The Song By Ed Osborne
Another exception to the “white male/big hair band” tradition of heavy metal was Living Colour, an all-black rock band performing songs about the black experience.
Founding member Vernon Reid considered calling the group Point Of View or Dangerous Vision before settling on Living Colour, from the NBC spoken intro the Walt Disney television show: “The following program is brought to you in living color.”
After Mick Jagger caught a gig at New York’s legendary CBGB’s and used Vernon’s guitar skills on Primitive Cool, produced demos of LC’s songs, and paved the way for a record deal. Their debut album, Vivid, appeared in 1988, and the first single exploded onto radio and MTV.
Featuring a sample from a John F. Kennedy speech, Cult Of Personality name-checked famous world leaders in a scathing attack on the exploitation of people’s dreams and won a Grammy as Best Hard Rock Performance.
Catch LC singer Corey Glover’s appearance as “Francis” in Oliver Stone’s Oscar winning film, Platoon.
This content and all Song Meaning articles were created and written by Top 40 Contributing Editor Ed Osborne. © 2024 Ed Osborne. All Rights Reserved. In addition to these song meaning articles, Ed has written our “Year in Music 1960s-1990s” articles.
Produced by:
- Ed Stasium
Lyrics Written by:
- Corey Glover
- Vernon Reid
- Muzz Skillings
- Will Calhoun
Ed Osborne
Hi. I got my first record at age two and never looked back, spending a decades-long career in radio and the music business. Even after years of reading about and listening to all types of music, I am still fascinated by it. Apart from that, I’m endlessly intrigued by art, nature, and the inner lives of people (and dogs).