The Cure: Classic or Dud?

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Hopefully it'll have the stuff off "curiosity", too. And that soundtrack they did.

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.

― Jim Eaton-Terry (Jim E-T), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 13:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hopefully it'll have the stuff off "curiosity", too. And that soundtrack they did.

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.

― Thy Lethal Zen Ned (Ned), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 13:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

This news makes me very, very happy.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 13:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

won't come out on Oct. 21st though. That info was wrong

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 13:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

When is it out then?

― flowersdie (flowersdie), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 13:56 (9 years ago) Permalink

No official release date..

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 14:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

I kind of like the guitars in "Pictures of You".

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 14:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

Recently listened to Dark Side of the Moon and then Disintegration back to back. Confirmed what I already knew.
Fuck the Canon and the Keepers it rode in on. The Cure > Pink Floyd.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 14:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

Just adding to the calls of "Classic" (up to, and including, Wish, that is).

― David A. (Davant), Wednesday, 20 August 2003 19:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

6 months pass...

Shall I expound at great length here about The Cure's gig at the Barfly last night? Or does it warrant its own thread?

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Saturday, 6 March 2004 12:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

either way, spill!

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:25 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yes. Now please. Or else.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

Giz it.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

You don't want to make The Raggett angry.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

I'm trying to envision whether turning into a green Lou Ferrigno is merely a lateral move.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

Pretty much.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ah well, the downsides.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 March 2004 16:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sorry, too busy right now, but will gush like a geyser tomorrow. In the meantime, drooooool over the setlist...

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.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Sunday, 7 March 2004 19:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

WAH! *whimpers and hopes for bootleg...somewhere...ANYWHERE*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:03 (9 years ago) Permalink

THEY DID CULT HERO MATERIAL???????

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 7 March 2004 23:05 (9 years ago) Permalink

With Porl and Frank no less. And was not Charlie saying some months back about how the band has fallen off recently? UNDESERVING INFIDEL! But I will not bear a grudge. Yet.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 March 2004 23:07 (9 years ago) Permalink

Fire In Cairo (as a 3 piece)
Grinding Halt (as a 3 piece)

Genius.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Sunday, 7 March 2004 23:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

porl!

!!!!!!

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 7 March 2004 23:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

Porl, remarkably, is now jobbing as the band's guitar tech!

And yes, Frank the postman showed up in all his voluminous glory, the first time they've done any Cult Hero material in (10 years according to Robert).

And was not Charlie saying some months back about how the band has fallen off recently? UNDESERVING INFIDEL! But I will not bear a grudge. Yet.

And I maintain my viewpoint, no doubt. Friday's only iffy moment came 11 songs in, when some (relatively) unfamiliar chords struck up - "What is this," I thought to myself with a grimace, "Joan Osborne's 'One Of Us'?" But no, it was in fact "Maybe Someday".

The Cure should've stopped recording new music after Wish (or more specifically, if you like, after "Fear Of Ghosts"). I love them still, but I shall not be moved on this matter.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

I forgive you. Since you're going to help me find someone who recorded the show OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE...

Porl, remarkably, is now jobbing as the band's guitar tech!

Wait, what? So essentially he and Perry B. have completed the circle.

Anyway. First batch of reissues in a month. EXCITED!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

Oh, and Perry's brother is their manager.

I am naturally using all my spider-senses to procure a mixing desk feed of the show. I'll be absolutely amazed if nobody recorded it, but nothing yet. Ned, you will be the f...oooh, among the first to know when I find it!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:09 (9 years ago) Permalink

Oh, and Perry's brother is their manager.

That I had heard, seems to make sense! They and Depeche should just finally tour together. ;-)

In all seriousness, thanks for any leads you might have!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

Where's a good place to go to get the skinny on the order and track listing of the reissues? I just got Join the Dots and I'm liking it a lot. It's time.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

I've been searching around but as yet no specs seem to be public.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 02:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

That was badly worded... is the order the albums are going to be re-released in public knowledge?

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

Chronologically. First batch will be the first four albums, through Pornography.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:09 (9 years ago) Permalink

very good, i'll start with seventeen seconds and pornography!

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

I just listened to Seventeen Seconds front to back. I think the South Park kid was wrong and that SS is the best record ever.

― Aaron A., Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

The Cure were really good for someone born in 1974. You're 17, and you like 'em just fine, cos they're weird, but they're pop (for those born 4 years later, insert pixies) into this equation...They haven't lost it, cos you're into them during their Disintegration - Wish phase. And most important: they help you to get girls. Well, one maybe. Their lyrics don't mean much, but the guitar remains sorta post-punk...it's enough compared to your U2 loving colleagues.
But then! At the same time, Stone Roses, 808 state, Guy Called Gerald comes along, prettier rave girls arrive, the drugs are better , and you don't give a fuck about the Cure anymore. Until you're 30, and buy a greatest hits Cd, cos that's what 30 year olds do.
Dud, then.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

how cynical! are you a record store employee?

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

I was born in 1971 ergo they're better for me! Whee!

Actually I think Dan was born in 1974 and he went through all that shift you did except he kept loving the Cure as well. Rah!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

I was born in '74 and at age 17 ('92) I played Wish for a friend, Jill, on the plane to Athens (school trip to Italy/Greece). We got it on a few days later.

― Aaron A., Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

My.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

ok, was just describing how it was for me. (for me) the cure were a band that you listened to, liked for 3 years, spent some precious time with a girl, then discovered that there was more exciting music/girls/drugs. And if anyone else got all that from the cure, repeatedly, for 25 years...erm, grebt.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

and that was about it for the next 3 years so thanks, Cure! xpost

― Aaron A., Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

― Slim Pickens (Slim Pickens), Monday, 23 August 2004 23:47 (8 years ago) Permalink

i think it is time for me to listen to the cure again

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 23 August 2004 23:53 (8 years ago) Permalink

It's pretty autumnal music.

― Slim Pickens (Slim Pickens), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 00:40 (8 years ago) Permalink

I've been listening to the Cure all summer. Hmmm, that says something.

― Star Cauliflower (Star Cauliflower), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 01:57 (8 years ago) Permalink

Splintered in Her Head, for one, is brilliant. It's got more menace and dizzy recklessness than almost anyone else, before or since, has managed to get away with on the back of a pop release.

But for many of us born in or around 1974, this issue is fairly cut and dried. For a decade, The Cure made (mostly) great, emotive music to match the self-indulgent drama of teen angst. I too, found romance with a girl because of it. She was into Sylvia Plath 'n shit and thought Robert Smith was really good at painting with words in his lyrics. I felt the same. Even his terrible voice was welcomed as a strike for the blemished and the meek (read 'indie') against mainstream, hard-rock masculinity (what we call 'bogans' in Australia).

Then, as Paul and others have pointed out, we came of legal age in the early 90's and were lucky enough to be doing so right when music got a huge shot in the arm - with much better drugs and, yes, prettier girls. How convenient it was to feel disillusioned with "Wish" and all Cure work since. But my best efforts at objectivity still tell me, as they do to so many others, that The Cure are 80's classics and 90's duds. You can neatly bookend the best of this band up to and including "Disintegration".

― Stephen Stockwell (Stephen Stockwell), Friday, 27 August 2004 03:48 (8 years ago) Permalink

And I used to have a crush on Porl.

― Stephen Stockwell (Stephen Stockwell), Friday, 27 August 2004 03:50 (8 years ago) Permalink

That's well-written, Stephen, but I completely disagree; dismissing _Wish_ dismisses some extraordinarily strong songs ("Open", "High", "End", "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea", "Apart", "Trust", "To Wish Impossible Things", "Friday I'm In Love", "This Twilight Garden", "Play", "The Big Hand", "Halo") and The _Wild Mood Swings_ b-sides match up with anything else they've (particularly "Ocean", "Home", "A Pink Dream" and "It Used To Be Me").

I was born in 1973 and I approve this post.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 27 August 2004 03:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

I was born in 1971 and second it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 August 2004 04:29 (8 years ago) Permalink

If you feel I assumed to speak on behalf of y(our) generation, my apologies. I was only thinking in terms of my own social sphere of that era.

― Stephen Stockwell (Stephen Stockwell), Friday, 27 August 2004 05:07 (8 years ago) Permalink

(Also, "Spilt Milk" and "Cut Here"!)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 27 August 2004 17:38 (8 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 107 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

"This Twilight Garden" and "Play" and "The Big Hand" and "Halo" are so so so good

(you can totally see the massive cliff that is WMS coming in "A Foolish Arrangement" though)

― Call me at **BITCOIN (DJP), Monday, 22 April 2013 14:17 (1 month ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

Dad joke of the gods:

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 15 May 2013 14:57 (1 week ago) Permalink

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