essential
Three Imaginary Boys 1979
The record cover with the household appliances was lowbrow, almost nihilistic, which does the Talking Heads credit. But the themes were more urbane than one would have given ex-punk Smith credit for: a Hendrix cover (“Foxy Lady”), Camus (“Killing An Arab”), the fascination of the British for this region in general (“Fire In Cairo “). “10:15 Saturday Night,” a song about jealousy, set the tone for the future. The American album version was expanded to include what is now her favorite track: “Boys Don’t Cry”. Of course, Smith should break the bid demanded in the title, again and again.
Seventeen Seconds 1980
After the New Wave of their debut, the decisive development: the style was called Gothic Rock, the sound Gloomscape – as if The Cure were anesthetized trudging through a foggy, damp field. Disorientation (“A -Forest”) and the evocation of nature’s acoustics: “Listen to the silence at night/ Someone has to be there.” Smith was concerned with nothing less than the displacement of space, light and time, “In Your House” has the perfect Cure lines “Pretending to swim in your house/ I change the time/ The hours I take/ Go so slow”. The new bassist Simon Gallup constructed one of those many parallel melodies that accompany Smith’s guitar ingeniously.
🛒 Order The Cure’s “Trilogy” here
kiss me kiss me kiss me 1987
“I’ll kiss you from your feet to where your head begins,” Smith exults, hitting a Motown beat, dressing up as a teddy bear in the “Why Can’t I Be You?” video. Even the working title of his double album reveals drive: “1,000,000 Virgins”. would he “Kiss Me” perform it in its entirety, he later judged, Barcelona would be the place to do it in summer: red, loud, fiery. But even great pop doesn’t hide the tension. Smith fell out with alcoholic colleague Lol Tolhurst, singing lines like “You’re useless and ugly” face to face, which also makes the seventh Cure record a breakup album. “The Snakepit” takes the stretches of “Disintegrate” and the hard rock of “wish” in advance.
Disintegration – 1989
Leads ‘Autumn Blues’ rankings, but was released in Spring. In addition, the recordings were unusually happy. But already the irritating “Fly Me To The Moon” quote in “Lovesong” announced broken dreams. The rest is death – and life after death. Drowning (“The Same Deep Water As You”), sinking in the entertainment miles of America (“Fascination Street”). We hear some of the shortest lyrics, but expansive instrumental passages and echoes – as if Smith were just looking past music that can’t be pinned down. One song is consequently called “Untitled”.
Rewarding
faith- 1981
How “Seventeen Seconds” a successful experiment in distortion. Inspired by Mervyn Peake’s fantasy series “Gormenghast” about a lord who holds magical masses in a castle labyrinth, Smith composed attritions like “The Funeral Party”, whose title alone illustrates the principle of The Cure. “Other Voices” is a neurotic attack on the privacy of other families and their rituals: “Come round at Christmas/ I really -have to see you/ Smile at me slyly/ Another festive compromise.” In “Primary” Smith, 22, sings about the torment of aging and how wonderful it is for children to be carefree. It was clear to him that he didn’t want any.
Pornography – 1982
Ironically, this claustrophobic private album about depression contains Robert Smith’s only comment on war politics in a song: “Just a piece of new meat in a clean room/ Soldiers close in under a yellow moon”, Smith associates more than a hundred years of genocide in “One Hundred Years”. and terror. Guitar, bass, keyboard and drum machine have never sounded more equal, but the song also contains solo tracks with military-precise beats. The lyric “In the hanging garden wearing furs and masks” sounds poetic, like an Edgar Allan Poe story, and “A Strange Day” clearly reflects Smith’s fear of catching the Branded: “Give me your eyes/ That I might see the blind man kissing my hands.”
the top 1984
“The first album I actually sing on!” exclaimed Smith. In any case, the first one with charm (“Dressing Up”), plus a hippie-esque “The Caterpillar”: symbol of the wish that inspiration should stay, not fly away and that the eponymous caterpillar should not become a butterfly.
the head On The Door 1985
In “In Between Days” Smith is abandoned and unlike in “Boys Don’t Cry” he fights for the woman. The horns in “Close To Me” horn like a bird, he breathes the rhythm without an instrument. A hit despite eschewing the bombast of contemporary productions, The Cure found themselves in chart company with Whitney and a‑ha.
supplementary
Japanese whispers 1983
A collection of singles and b-sides: orienting yourself with homages to the Stray Cats (“The Love Cats”) and New Order (“The Walk”) and the alarmingly simple pop song “Let’s Go To Bed,” Smith’s first composition he wrote after the LSD intoxication of “pornography” wrote with a clear head.
Wish-1992
Number 1 on the US album charts, developed with average classic rock. “Friday I’m In Love” became the “flash dance” of the nineties – lines like “It’s such a gorgeous sight/ To see you eat in the middle of the night” appealed to students with too much free time as well as the working class.
Wild Mood Swings – 1996
Smith responded to the Cool Britannia year, that of guitar Britpop, with samba and bells on the keyboard. “It’s got to be jazz, that’s what she wants,” he quotes himself in “Gone!” (Original: “Mr. Pink Eyes”, 1983). A bold change of style after the success of “wish”. The swinging “The 13th” describes a murder to fanfare. For the first time, The Cure lost part of their audience. With the exception of “Want” and “Jupiter Crash”, this repertoire is no longer performed today.
Bloodflowers-2000
Impressed by the failure of “Wild Mood Swings”, Smith looks to the past for the first time. Perhaps to be on the safe side, he classifies “Bloodflowers” as the final point in a trilogy – previously not necessarily recognized by us fans – which should have included “Pornography” and “Disintegration” for a long time. Smiths is getting serious and for the first time is not releasing any singles. With unusual clarity, i.e. less abstract than ever, he sings about ruin: “The world is neither fair nor unfair / So one survives / The others die / And you always want a reason why”. The clearest connection to “Disintegration”, which he once recorded when he was 29, is the desperation at having to start another decade: “The Fire is almost out” (“39”). With the more than eleven-minute “Watching Me Fall” there is also a song for the first time that has “Disintegration” lengths, but ripples along surprisingly lazily.
failed
The Cure-2004
Contrary to what the title suggests, not a back-to-basics album, not a return to one’s own strengths – but a pandering to “Nu Metal”, produced by Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot). Music for the tattooed on the Sunset Strip, Smith sings like his own double at a Halloween party.
4:13 Dream-2008
How long we have been waiting for new material since then is made clear by the promotion initiated for this work: it was advertised on Myspace in 2008. The album had something of a leftover ramp: “Sleep When I’m Dead” was a sketch dating back to 1985, and “Freakshow” Smith would like to line up in a row with pearls, as the installation of the song in the “party block” at the concerts showed of recklessness like “Close To Me” and “Why Can’t I Be You?” – but it’s exactly what it’s not supposed to be, namely annoying.
gems
Rare & cover songs
“See The Children”
Uncle Bob and his relationship with children: His maniacal greeting “Hellooo!” gets the laughing little ones recorded for the song instantly laughing
fall silent. Back then, The Cure was still called Easy Cure.
“Another Journey By Train”
The instrumental B-side follows up on the angry single “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” in which Smith attacks free riders.
“Carnage Visor”
At 27:41 minutes, this Gloomscape piece is of course also their longest – a soundtrack to the film of the same name by bassist Simon Gallup’s brother. He shows puppets in contortions.
“forever”
Anyone who has ever heard this curious piece of music, which has never been released as a studio version and rises to a crescendo, count themselves lucky live – in Germany most recently in 2002 in Hamburg. A peel session can be found on YouTube.
“Do The Hansa”
In 1977 they won a competition, were allowed to record in the Berlin studios – and failed. The title announces the parody, Smith sings: “One, two, three, four – platinum all the way!”
“To The Sky”
The “Kiss Me” outtake as a counterpart to the “Just Like Heaven” released at the same time. “Sky” instead of “Heaven”: the disillusionment. Smith thinks of Sylvia Plath’s “I talk to God, but the sky is empty.”
“Harold & Joe”
Simon Gallup loved the TV soap Neighbors, the characters Harold Bishop and Joe Mangel. Smith also composed the synth-pop for this beautiful, her best B-side.
“The Big Hand”
Intended as an instrumental for a solo concept album about the sea. The single B-side vocal version describes the suffering of being a junkie forever.
“The Three Sisters”
The instrumental from the limited edition music cassette “Lost Wishes” is a holdover from the “Wish” sessions. Harder than all the material on their most successful record.
“Hello, goodbye”
The last release of The Cure. Paul McCartney’s son James plays keyboards. Anyone who thinks Smith should have covered a “more serious” Beatles song has never understood his push for pop.
reading
Lol Tolhurst: Cured – The Tale Of Two Imaginary Boys
Smith has long since reconciled with childhood friend Lol Tolhurst, who was fired in 1989 for his alcoholism and later went to court against him. In his memoirs, Tolhurst describes the struggle against addiction. The realization that he was never a great musician is touching.