In the age of Wikipedia, it seems almost impossible to publish outstanding encyclopedias whose content cannot be fished from the Internet for free, fished from ten hyperlinks. With “Curepedia: An immersive and beautifully designed AZ biography of The Cure”, Simon Price achieves the very rare feat of mixing facts with analysis and humorous interpretation – he is a fan and really tries hard to convey what he believes to be the singular meaning of “Faith” and “Pornography” at least to justify it. He could have beaten the Cure single “Just Say Yes” even more, but on “Freakshow” he holds back surprisingly. Luckily, the same goes for the highly underestimated “The 13th”. The fan fiction idea that the “Disintegration” opening track “Plainsong” would have had a greater impact as an instrumental overture than with vocals is hard to get out of your head. Brilliant.
Price discusses the biographies of individual members and companions, side projects, life events and scandals, not only the albums and singles, but also selected songs that have a special significance. The importance of “One Hundred Years” cannot be argued, but that of “All Cats Are Grey”, which The Cure have rarely performed live for many years, can. Price’s admiration for the Manic Street Preachers, about whom he published his first book in 1999, also takes up large and probably inappropriate space; he repeatedly uses the band for comparisons; Cure are better off in the orbit of Siouxisie and the Banshees, Joy Division and even the Thompson Twins.
His lexicon is so opulent (almost DIN A4, with four columns per double page) and yet so good that the few content-related (the greatest hits collection from 1998 seems to do without “Wish” singles) or typographical information (“The Twilight Garden”) mistakes are all the more regrettable. Also missing – if the author of these lines hasn’t already forgotten half of it due to the almost drunken amount of detail in this book – is a reference to the debatable new recordings of the title songs from “Three Imaginary Boys”, “Seventeen Seconds”, “Faith” and ” Pornography” on the dramatically chosen studio date of May 5th, 2005. Perhaps Price is already looking at the “updated and supplemented” edition of his lexicon when The Cure eventually release their 14th studio album.
Price’s sarcastic remarks about Bono’s “Three Chords and the Truth,” which may have started the “MTV Unplugged” boom, are terrific, as are his observations on the renaissance of the double album in 1987. “1983, Robert’s craziest year” (at “N” for “Nineteen”) is a fantastic idea for a section, even if the thesis that Robert Smith worked harder that year than Prince did in 1987 is pretty steep.
Robert Smith loves Star Wars, this may be trivia. The “Shoes” chapter offers a little more than just trivia: Smith, atypical for goth rockers, loves sneakers. But he can’t be bought – Price has observed that the Cure singer has removed the brand logos from all of his sneakers. Well observed details and only supposedly a small thing.
The fact that Smith fought with Skins at the age of 18 and that he and his band organized a solidarity concert for his gay teacher who had been fired from school for “lewd behavior” makes Robert Smith an idol. And don’t forget: When he attacks Ticketmaster on Twitter for its rip-off, he always writes in capitals. But so do all other messages.