The Cure: Classic or Dud?

I had a girlfriend once who was into these boys hard and she used to play is it 'Pictures of You' (?) over and over and over (a sort of pining for a lost love I think; not me, incidentally). Anyway, it used to bore the hell out of me, not to mention what felt like a large hole in my brain.

The thing is, with the Cure, it's like the Manic Street FUCKING Preachers syndrome - people who like 'em don't just like 'em, they fucking LOVE 'em, and think they're prophets or something. No, they are miserable, half-goths with absolutely nothing to say and even less charisma.

That said, I am admit that I am hardly familiar know their canon, since I can't bear exposure to it for protracated periods.

Still; DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUD

Hmm, having said that, I do get riled when someone fails to 'get' my favourite bands and indulges in the kind of mindless attack I have already posted against The Cure. Yet, I feel that certain bands are wont to attract a more dependent following, who hang the band's music like metaphorical rosaries. And I'm not sure that even among my most beloved artists, there are those which I could hold in such equally mindless esteem.

What say you?

DUD

Yet I do wonder how much my own nosatlgia plays a role. I still think Wish is great, despite every. review. ever. written. Maybe if I hadn't listened to it for the 1st time as a teenager travelling thru Europe with schoomates I'd think differently.

Also, I really really like the Wolfgang Press song on _Lonely is an Eyesore_, but I've heard their recordings are pretty patchy. Any recommendations there?

the "cure=suburbia" part of Michael Bracewell's England Is Mine is one of the best things ever!

Classic, BTW. Again, my mid-teens coincided with Disintegration and I was full-on obsessed for a couple of years. I bought a shedload of albums at Oxfam last year, and a friend and I drove our GF/wives insane by listening, back to back, to 17 Seconds, Faith, Pornography and the Top. Divorce was on the horizon by the end of that evening.

Thing is, there are SO many B-sides and rarities which have officially surfaced that they'd have to put out a box set. As it is, if the remasters that are surfacing next year are going to include bonus discs for each with room for other oddities, then that will partially settle the problem.

Shake Dog Shake
Fascination Street
A Strange Day
A Night Like This
Lovesong
Push
Sinking
Pictures Of You
Lullaby
Lovecats
Maybe Someday
In Your House
From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
M
Charlotte Sometimes
Inbetween Days
Just Like Heaven
Hey You!!!
Play For Today
A Forest

Fire In Cairo (as a 3 piece)
Grinding Halt (as a 3 piece)
10.15 Saturday Night
Boys Don't Cry
I Dig You (with Porl Thompson and Frank The Postman)
I'm A Cult Hero (with Porl Thompson and Frank The Postman),
Close To Me
Let's Go To Bed
Why Can't I Be You
Friday I'm In Love

Fucking hell, just reading that through sends me into space. I'm still shellshocked.

Genius.

d'oh!

Is Boris even (doing the programming) on Purple Haze? I want to say yes but I can't remember. Obv he's right there on the Virgin Radio version.

Burn is indeed the last recording. Just him and RS at that point if memory serves.

Really great piece by Jude Rogers on Charlotte Sometimes, book and song but primarily the book, I think rightly.

https://steadyhq.com/thequietus/posts/21b14186-0eb3-436a-bb5c-3f7e27c29a0c

Tonight I was out to dinner with an old friend of the opposite sex. She brought up the song "The Last Day of Summer" and I so casually said that song is on Bloodflowers. Now thinking back, how in the hell do I know that? But it's the Cure and they're my all-time favourite band and its not even close, so I did know that piece of trivia.

Ironically, she also talked about the Smiths "Asleep" and I had no clue where that song came from other than I didn't think it was an album track.

do you dislike bloodflowers? I wasn't hot on it for many years but I've come around, maybe in part because the albums after were fairly disappointing by comparison. The Last Day of Summer is probably my favorite song on that album.

It's a beaut, and it was nice to see it back in the mix on last year's tour.

Yeah that album’s saving grace

I’m also very fond of The Loudest Sound

I think Bloodflowers is great, especially "The Last Day Of Summer".
I just wish "Watching Me Fall" was a bit faster, like "Disintegration" or "One Hundred Years" to give the album more dynamic. It's a good song, but it really weighs the album down.

Could also just be shorter! For me it doesn’t have enough going on musically or lyrically to justify the epic length - was an absolute slog when they played it second in the set on the tour. Those shows were pretty great though.

(Re Watching Me Fall specifically - although the overlong/under-interesting criticism does somewhat apply to the album overall)

My point was it being an obscure song and not exactly "Just Like Heaven." She could have said "Throw Your Foot" or "A Chain of Flowers" for example and I would have known it was a B-side and from which album.

Bloodflowers is good but hardly ever play it. I think I like 4:13 Dream more, is this a poll idea?

The last time I played "Bloodflowers," maybe last year, I liked it. I hadn't heard it for years, but had remembered it pretty well (maybe because I had gotten to see them play a small club here behind it). Iirc I only listened to "4:13 Dream" a couple of times, when it was released, and I don't recognize any song titles now, so at the very least I'm sure it would be surprising if I ever put it on again.

Will nobody dare mention the poor unloved self-titled LP

I have to say I find The End of the World and Alt End pretty charming Cure singles - their late(r) attempts at giddy pop have often felt forced to me but those two are better than they have a right to be.

(I also felt like The Promise had… promise but kind of needed to go full Mogwai or something - it just stays on the one intensity setting for 7 minutes or whatever)

Lost > The Promise because of the escalating intensity

I really love the s/t, particularly the Japanese import that adds “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty”, “Fake”, and “Going Nowhere” to the tracklist, but I don’t think I will ever be able to get past “The doleful cant of a bigot/Blinded by fear and hate”

aka Donald Trump's Cure covers EP

ILM is one of the only places where you'll find ardent admirers of the s/t album (and WMS). s/t has some good songs utterly ruined by shitty production and roger being mixed out. 4:13 Dream has a good opening track and no other memorable songs.

The Real Snow White, The Scream, and It’s Over are all fantastic

I do like the flow of 4:13 Dream and like the songs on the album. "Underneath the Stars" is amazing, might be the best late period song by the Cure. Bloodflowers could be better, I suppose, but it has been awhile since I heard it. The s/t I just can't listen to as it hurts my ears. Tho probably a decent album if you play with the alternate tracks and B-sides.

The biggest problem with the last 2 albums is how loud and up front in the mix Robert’s voice is. Makes them barely listenable unfortunately. I’m surprised he doesn’t hear it.

I went and watched a live version of The Promise and it probably delivered more on the assaultative guitar burnout front - without quite getting there - could even faintly hear Roger's keys

Would be a pretty interested to read a candid oral history of those Ross Robinson sessions - sounds like the goth Some Kind of Monster - band identity crisis, tantrums, walkouts, Robert berating the band for not being worthy of being the Cure, people throwing music stands across the room (audible on Lost IIRC) etc

If Wiki can be trusted it looks like Ross has produced over 30 albums since that one, most of which I've never heard or even heard of, so I'd like to think it tanked his career.

Wish they'd finish up Songs of a Lost World and release it

Me too

I have been BURNed before but I still hold out hope that they have a mature-age masterpiece in em

They really should, all the things that RS sang about at 25 are actually happening now

https://youtube.com/XmoFgi2EB9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmoFgi2EB9c
sorry

sky arts showed both Nocturne and the Cure's 2018 gig from hyde park on friday night. the years have not really been kind to R Smith but his voice has held up remarkably well, i thought.

(there are like a million people in hyde park by the looks. played for two hours. things like A Forest and Just Like Heaven sounded note-perfect. it's all very impressive)

Yeah their live show at this point is full-on stunning