The Cure: Classic or Dud?

I don't think I listened to the last three albums more than once, and doubt I will again.

cool story

glad they played Push /danbait

I'm spinning 4:13 Dream for the first time in ages and... christ, this would totally be one of the very best of their late-period records if they'd taken the time to get it to sound decent. I honestly don't think there's a bad song on here!

I can't go that far (hi dere "The Reasons Why" and "This. Here and Now. With You") but I do agree that 4:13 Dream has very, very strong material on it that is sometimes undermined by how it was mixed, although I don't know if I really want "The Scream" or "It's Over" to be mixed any other way.

Oh, I like those two... but 'The Scream' is definitely one of my highlights, I just love the build on that.

I don't dislike them but they are, to my ears, the most ungainly songs on the album.

What about 'Switch'? I can't help but feel that one's a touch underrated!

I agree with you. I think the entire album is underrated aside from the two songs I called out.

I recall "Hungry Ghost" being the highlight.

Question for Cure nerds: Robert Smith is obviously the iconic face of the band, but the Cure has always seemed more collaborative than it gets credit for. By Kiss Me and Disintegration lots of musical ideas/demos were coming from the other guys, right? And I assume on Wish, too? So do you think the dissolution of that awesome five piece line-up (and especially the departure of Boris) sort of screw with the group's mojo enough that Smith has been having trouble coming up with the goods? Or all of them have been struggling? I imagine it's hard to keep the winning streak going as you get older, but the band's always been more or less unstable (except for that - coincidence? - super run of Head through Wish, with all its attendant, prolific b-side goodness). What's different now? Has Robert talked about writer's block?

I remember Smith saying after the last album that he was often trying to write new songs and kept scrapping them, saying "I've done this before and it was much better the first time" and that he didn't care that much if there wasn't another album.

i've always really enjoyed 4:13 Dream. What's wrong with the sound of it? The guitars sound good to me. Maybe the vocals are a little too upfront? I dunno. Please tell me!

Listen to, I dunno, 'High' from Wish back to back with, say, 'The Only One' and it should all become clear.

Apparently, after doing this, it all becomes very muddy. Except for 'High', that thing sounds great.

Yup. It all sounds a bit flat, particularly the rhythm section.

I have to say though, "This. Here and Now. With You" is kinda great.

the last two albums just don't sound good, bad mixing decisions, roger's keys all but absent. don't know what they were thinking. also, both albums entirely too long. great albums inside them though.

Roger wasn't on 4:13 Dream at all! That was when he and Perry Bamonte were "let go" from the band and Porl Thompson was back in. Now Roger's back and Porl is out, and Perry will probably never come back. A shame, as that was a decent line-up. Not exceptional, like the classic 1985-1992 line up, but still decent.

oh right. perry bamonte never felt like a real member of the band to me even though he was there for like 25 years. with porl was still around though.

And of course even that classic lineup is three different lineups.

ned, you going to the shoreline show?

I have a soft spot for the s/t album. The band sounds amazingly young on that record. "Lost" feels like the work of a 19 year old

^^^ same, loved that record, felt like they regained a sense of dynamics after bloodflowers

In general, Simon writes a lot more than most people realize.

Hehehe... yeah, even the classic line-up was three different line-ups, although to be fair the "core" of the band remained the same: Smith, Thompson, Gallup and Williams... with Lol contributing very little, Roger in and out of the band after one LP, and Perry joining at the last minute before both Williams and Thompson left.

a transition from the likes of boris to jason cooper is just devastating imo

ned, you going to the shoreline show?

Sure was -- and frankly, was pondering the best ride down and back, but of course you're on the other side of the Bay!

In fact, thinking about it, the most underrated Cure line-up was probably the Smith/Tolhurst/Thompson/Thornalley/Anderson line-up circa '84.

a transition from the likes of boris to jason cooper is just devastating imo

It's a little weird to realize that Jason's the third-longest serving member of the band now!

As can be seen here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cure_personnel#Timeline

Yeah, I was just about to mention that... but at the same time, he's played on about as many Cure studio records as Boris or Lol did!

(Sticking strictly to drums contributions and excepting Lol's keyboard contributions, if any)

if you asked me the name of the cure's drummer I'm quite sure 'jason cooper' isn't a name I would remember, not would I ever associate that name with someone in the Cure. Poor guy.

Yeah, Boris is undoubtedly the first person I'd think of if someone asked me to name one of the Cure drummers. In a way, I kinda feel sorry for Jason in the sense that he joined the band at a time when gaps between albums were starting to get longer and longer, and he's spent quite a lot of his time in The Cure replicating Boris' and Lol's parts live. They haven't really created a sizeable body of work during his lengthy time in the band, and weirdly, I don't think a lot of Cure fans have taken to his drumming even after all this time. On the other hand, he's in The Cure, playing gigs to large crowds and probably earning a truckload of money.

I don't think Jason's ever really looked the part either... I remember seeing one press photo circa 4:13 Dream where the whole band were clad in their regulation Curewear, with the make-up and all that. Of course, Robert, Simon and Porl pulled it off as well as they ever did, but Jason just looked daft and uncomfortable.

Played "Disintegration" for the first time in ... probably a decade, the other day, and loved it.

And it did prompt me to ponder that I don't think I've ever seen "Robert Smith not being Robert Smith" ... by which I mean I have a sense of who he is and he's always been that.

Watch the videos to 'A Forest' or 'Play For Today', and marvel at the way Smith looks like an ordinary bloke in a post-punk band, as opposed to the more familiar birds nest hair and make-up that's become his trademark look.

Jason Thudfist is actually the second-longest running member of The Cure ever - Simon has left at least twice during Jason's tenure (there was a proper break around the Cogasm / Wrong Number period, and iirc an invisible-at-the-time dummy spit over Ross Robinson's involvement in The Cure).

my ticket:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aVVIi1wa0l6LgVm4ZZ1x1PXOFQNR_oIP0g1o7VsEpy6N8rCOD__TGriCNyMBTu-fSemPHJWsvTqLTRObvM-sNKKn9HvcjdNP8QBM4dCitsRyqH_Gg5RdeFmi3HUWi_BloYj8LYAVzTonupr6nrY4p6JLFV6UZY8GU7C9z-mUA5UhZYECyt_DxkMzLxtKVPhNsWcl2bzPgHpsyKH2Aqcdp_yG9uU5RKDl_pdk0JG5z46tXo0axT7FJ-IlT4JTL0PIQRbGhzNJWDw_NhV8mp9bHWtaf4GKrS1HuXoQ_6PgEirJMKhMGut9iCCiZQHwQh7nIhkg8m6Pu-LNc6dhNcpjnGvFc9NPCeiKlgQPyLQWBeKF8_S6qYia7aG3RmwWTuGkglBAUi3LoU-ZkFDVchHmcTCW8LdK6dflPc3UZxX7DHb55JYbW1Yq2jcX1LnT4mOGnlJrNF66VuRlZDmEj0L7fnyDEB23mIPGOWZ9VNohRa4MeBijHev2epWur6j-4nmdxotyc38Jm5aXgamh1XPUlkIrgNsr56Mka46eV_CFpZg=w835-h470-no

Robert says they've decided to do different songs both nights, although we don't know that yet. :) So all of the usual suspects that were skipped last night, probably expect them tonight?

oh wow, i will have no idea what they are going to play by the time my show comes around. so excited, this is right around my birthday. so im being pampered, which mainly means i don't have to drive. win-win.

I try hard not to think about Tony Soprano when I see pics of Robert these days. I was going to post a photo but I decided it was a cheap shot (as if the comment's not a cheap shot already). And to clarify, I say this as an obsessive Cure fan up to (but definitely not including) Wish, though I also love the Trilogy DVD.

So, this is basically going to be the greatest tour, ever...

The Cure start with "Plainsong" tonight. They also played "A Night Like This" and "This Twilight Garden."

if they play those songs at my show. i could die a happy man. i also have no idea what songs they are going to play in their encoreS.

how can someone not love Wish

What a crazy goddamn setlist:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2016/kiefer-uno-lakefront-arena-new-orleans-la-5bf16b14.html

wow. looking forward to the shoreline show a lot. haven't seen them in ... 12 years? whenever that tour with Mogwai and some crappy bands was.

Curiosa. Which I avoided because why do I want to see a Cure festival set when I could have the real thing. As it were. (Mind you, that tour is where Ben and Aly met that eventually led to School of Seven Bells, so it was all worth it for that.)