Olivia Rodrigo just fulfilled the ultimate teenage fantasy: first you sing a song to Robert Smith about how unhappy you are – then you get a hug from him. The pop queen and the Cure legend teamed up for a surprise duet at their unannounced weekend set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, playing their co-op from their new album – with the quintessentially Robert Smith-esque title “What’s Wrong With Me?”
What a beautiful moment of cross-generational Goth connection. The eighties gloom god beamed with pride and joy as he stood next to her and sang this great new song he helped inspire. Who hasn’t dreamed of writing a list of all their problems so they could ask Robert Smith what’s wrong with them? And who hasn’t dreamed of Robert singing your own words back and reassuring you that everything will be okay? Hats off to Olivia for making this fantasy come true. You seem pretty sad for a goth so in love.
Olivia clearly wasn’t exaggerating when she repeatedly emphasized how deeply her new material is influenced by the Cure. At Primavera Sound she sang her amazing number one hit “Drop Dead” with the line “You know all the words to ‘Just Like Heaven,’ and I know why he wrote them” – and then sang a duet with the man who wrote it. And in between she also played a song that is literally called “The Cure.” What a great rockstar friendship. The most beautiful thing in the world, a perfect dream.
Glastonbury as a start
The Robertrigo duet was a continuation of their moment together last summer at the Glastonbury Festival in England, almost a year earlier to the day. “He’s probably the best songwriter to ever come out of England!” Liv announced as Smith took the stage – a surprise no one saw coming. After their appearance together, she called him “the coolest, nicest, most wonderful man ever.” They played “Just Like Heaven” and “Friday I’m in Love” while she wore a T-shirt that said, “You know all the words to ‘Just Like Heaven’…or do you”? It would take almost a year for everyone to understand where that line was going – when she released “Drop Dead.”
Anyone who has only recently become acquainted with the Cure should realize that Robert Smith does something like this pretty well never. Not in the eighties, not in the nineties, not today. That just doesn’t happen. He has always been generous and kind to younger artists, but he avoids public displays of solidarity of this kind. Seeing him perform at a festival and sing someone else’s song? A real shock. But at the same time a measure of his respect and admiration for Rodrigo as an artist.
“What’s Wrong With Me?” sounded just right for these two melancholic voices. “I went to the doctor and she said I was fine,” they sang. “Tried meditation with a bottle of wine / It’s like someone put a weight on my chest / I should talk to a friend, but I can’t get out of bed / My head is spinning and my stomach is sick.” Yes, this girl definitely heard the Cure. The whole vibe of the song is basically: “You know all the words to ‘Disintegration,’ and I know why he wrote them.”
The details are correct
As always, Rodrigo nails the little details. It’s nice how she sings about not being able to get out of bed – a thoroughly Robert Smith dilemma, after all, he was always so fond of lines like “I wish I’d slept asleep today” or “must have been asleep for days.” In fact, her symptoms are so similar to those in “Close to Me” that this duet is akin to a consultation with a specialist.
Over the years, Smith has only done a hand-picked selection of collaborations with his adepts – including Chvrches, The Twilight Sad, Crystal Castles, Gorillaz and Tweaker. He sang a bizarre Bee Gees cover on a Billy Corgan solo album; He also had a guest appearance on Blink-182, which shows his sense of humor. And Mick Jagger just announced that Smith will be contributing backing vocals on the new Rolling Stones album Foreign Tongues – probably the only thing the Stones album will have in common with Olivia’s.
But these Robertrigo duets are a rare and moving sight. She’s a lifelong Cure obsessive – who’s forgotten the footage of her rocking out to “Boys Don’t Cry” in the car? She’s an awestruck fangirl who always looked up to Robert Smith, watching him on stage in wonder. But when they appeared together at Glastonbury, the strangest thing for long-time Cure fans was how happy he looked – grinning from ear to ear, something you really don’t see every day. It was so touching to see him having so much fun. After Glastonbury, she posted a photo of them backstage… drinking booze. The last thing you would have ever expected – and that’s exactly why it was so great.
Her first feature song
A year later they came back to your to sing song. “It’s my first collaboration!” she told the Primavera audience on Saturday, building excitement before revealing her guest. “I’m so incredibly proud of this – I can’t believe this song exists, with the person it exists with. I’m just so fucking overwhelmed!”
Nobody knew it was Robert until he came on stage for the second verse – although we all could have guessed from the inside joke when she sings “I’m staring at the ceeei-ling.” (The Cure greatest hits CD was called “Staring at the Sea.”) It’s the fourth new song she’s previewed from her highly anticipated album, out this week: “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So In Love.” It’s a first feature appearance for her, but it’s equally unusual for him. Smith was at Primavera Sound anyway – The Cure headlined the festival on Friday, their first appearance since their 2024 magnum opus “Songs of a Lost World”, one of their best albums ever. Their Primavera set was full of rarities like the amazing 1996 single “Mint Car,” which they hadn’t played in a decade, as well as hits like “Pictures of You,” “Fascination Street,” “The Lovecats” — and yes, of course, “Just Like Heaven.”
One of the many Robert Smith paradoxes is that he was always the ultimate depressed, sniveling Brit-Goth fuzzyhead – and yet found his most loyal fans among the new wave girls of Southern California in the ’80s. His ballads about rainy English world-weariness hit home in, of all places, the land of sun and surf. “I remember the ‘Kiss Me’ tour when we were in Los Angeles,” Smith told Rolling Stone in 2004. “Girls were taking their clothes off and lying in front of the bus so we couldn’t drive away. And I thought, ‘This is really not what I imagined doing with this band.'”
Robert and his fangirls
But Robert always had the deepest respect for this audience, even when it would have been far more chic to smile at these fangirls. The Kids in America discovered the Cure with the 1982 synthpop banger “Let’s Go To Bed” – about a couple who argue half the night when all they really need is chamomile tea and a few hours of sleep. Smith recalled: “Suddenly ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ became a big hit, especially on the West Coast, and we had a young, mostly female, teenage audience. It went from intense, menacing, psychotic goths to people with perfectly white teeth. It was a very strange transition, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was really weird.”
So it makes sense to see him pass the torch to Olivia, who embodies the quintessential SoCal new wave fangirl. She has always had a passion for this music, as you can hear in eighties bangers like “So American”, “Deja Vu” and “Love Is Embarrassing”. Or “Drop Dead” – the song would fit on “Blue Sunshine,” the pitch-perfect goth makeout album from Smith’s side project The Glove. (Bet “Punish Me With Kisses” was playing on the jukebox in that bar.) With “What’s Wrong With Me?” Olivia has crossed the line from fan to collaborator. That’s a massive vote of confidence from the teen angst poet who gave us “Seventeen Seconds” and “The Head On The Door.” But he takes Rodrigo and her music seriously – just as he has always taken his female audience seriously. He really showed her how this trick works.
He also knows the humor behind the pain of melancholic mourning songs. One of my favorite Cure live moments ever was at Madison Square Garden a few years ago when they played “Lovesong” and the entire room sang along to the chorus: “I will ALWAYS love youuuu!As soon as the song was over, he announced: “The next piece is called ‘And Nothing Is Forever’.” Oh, Robert. Never stop.
Robertrigo forever
Some of us were hoping he would stay with Olivia on Saturday and sing “Happier” or “Favorite Crime” – but unfortunately it was not to be. (So… the “Sour” cover project? Is that still happening or what? It started so promisingly with David Byrne covering “Drivers License” and then… pfffft.) The more Olivia songs he sings, the better. These two should just keep going – just imagine how great a mashup of “Drop Dead” and “The Hanging Garden” would be. (“Pressed up in the bathroom line / Cover my face like the animals cryyyy“?) Olivia’s connection to Robert may have already reached “Why Can’t I Be You?” dimensions – but more power to her. For most of us who love the Cure, Robert Smith is someone we come to with our adolescent desperation, a confidant and mentor, and somehow, deep down, we believe he understands us. We bring him our saddest secrets. Seeing him standing side by side with Olivia while he her Sings secrets into the world? This is Goth intuition. Robertrigo forever.