The Cure: Classic or Dud?

R.I.P. Arab

It might be called "I'm a stranger" now

L'Arab

The single "Killing an Arab" is on Deezer.

l'et's cut the conversation, and g'et out for a bit

Finished Lol's book - as a Cure fan, I didn't lean anything revelatory but as someone affected by alcoholism in the family, Lol's story was both insightful and heartwarming. And as others have said, he sounds like a genuine good guy. Well done

Indeed so.

I still haven't read it yet, but based on the incredible feedback it's been getting I'll be picking up a copy ASAP.

I just finished it as well and also really enjoyed it. I thought it was interesting how he refrained from writing anything which could paint others associated with the band in a bad light and instead glossed over some of those incidents with little detail.

surprised to see Roger O'Donell slagging Lol's book off. Then again, I always found something a bit smug about Roger

Maybe he's grouchy because for all those years he had to play Lol's single finger keyboard parts?

What did he actually say?

He had a Facebook post about a new book of Cure photos which was recently published and said something along the lines of "if you're looking for a non-fiction book about the Cure" and then "pictures don't lie."

Meh. Lol had been in the band for years before Roger was on the scene, and they were only in The Cure at the same time for a couple of years. Roger's recollections of the making of Disintegration were great, but I'm far more interested in Lol's side. He was there from the beginning up through the golden period. Roger wasn't.

yeah - i guess Roger post implied that the rest of the band thought the material was made up

Well I mentioned this earlier in my posts about Lol's book -- he doesn't mention Roger at ALL except towards the end, and thus leaves out why/how he was recruited in the first place and his participation in the Disintegration sessions. You can take this as either a sign of Lol's utterly self-obsessed disconnection with the real world at the height of his abuse or as a totally conscious erasure from the record. It is the one serious problem with the book as it stands.

I mean, I'm kinda surprised anyone's surprised Roger's nonplussed here! What was expected?

Well, Lol's book is a memoir of his time in the band (rather than a history of The Cure) and I think it says a lot how little he seems to remember about the latter years, so no surprise that he wouldn't have much to say about Roger. How is that an issue and how does that taint the book? It's pretty obvious from the book that after the 82-83 reboot of the band, Lol had very little involvement in the creative side of things, hence the focus on addiction in that section. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if the lawsuit and eventual redemption were a bit embellished in the story.

Well, Lol's book is a memoir of his time in the band (rather than a history of The Cure) and I think it says a lot how little he seems to remember about the latter years, so no surprise that he wouldn't have much to say about Roger. How is that an issue and how does that taint the book?

Hey, I'm not disagreeing -- my interpretation of choice is the first of the two, that he was that far gone and barely remembers 87 to 89. Again, I say as much well earlier in this thread; this is not a new point I'm trying to make:

But it's very telling to realize that Roger O'Donnell wasn't mentioned *once* during the Kiss Me/Disintegration stretch, and only is mentioned a bit casually near the end. Given he was drafted during the KM release/tour phase to back up Tolhurst and was part of the Disintegration sessions and all that, I can't tell if it's an intentional downplaying by silence on Tolhurst's part or, as I kinda feel is more the case, a kind of admission he was so incredibly out of it that he almost didn't even notice. (O'Donnell for his part kinda confirmed this a few years back via his own memories of the sessions; look for the paragraph that starts: "I think it's pretty much common knowledge how Lol was treated in those days...")

Where it becomes an issue -- and why I'm not surprised Roger's annoyed -- is that the book can be read as Lol saying Roger was not involved at all during those years. Which...is not true, especially when Roger was specifically added precisely so they could have a functional keyboard player. Honestly even a short paragraph in the relevant section saying "To give you an idea about how bad things were..." with the basic details would have been enough.

Listening to Wish for the first time in ages and 'From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea' is completely bowling me over all over again. Surely one of their best ever tracks.

Absolutely.

Yep.

It makes me wanna scream along to every lyric.

not only are the Cure my all-time favorite band, i also voted "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" as my number one song in our Cure poll: POLLography: The Cure poll results, ILM artist poll #23

i see it didn't do to well overall:

#67 - From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, 165 points, 8 votes, 1 #1 votes

Song's great, but especially those live versions from the era, wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et2D_SUbCAg

All of their finest songs are over 6 minutes long

Nope. Entirety of "Standing on a Beach" / "Staring at the Sea" and the highlights of the first six albums utterly refute that. In fact they were pretty much done once they were releasing six minute epics.

Well, actually they were pretty great at both... for every 'Play For Today', there was an equally excellent 'One Hundred Years' or 'Disintegration' ... they could also be not so great at both on occasion, like on 'Bananafishbones' and 'The Same Deep Water As You', to keep it in the limits of pre-1995 Cure.

xxpost Last Cure song I truly loved.

I think the last one I loved was 'The Scream' ...

Classic.

I feel like the last great Cure songs are all the b-sides from 'Wish'. All good shit: "Halo", "The Big Hand", "This Twilight Garden" and "Play".

I was really excited back in the day by the "Never Enough / Harold and Joe" 12". THAT record showed the Cure ready to take off to totally unexplored territory that would have made Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me look like a conservative dry run. I mean, go back and listen to those two - WTF is that?!?! "Never Enough" just has guitar solo wankery that actually kinda works that they never tried before or ever again.

Instead they were like hey, not hungry anymore, let's keep chasing 'Disintegration'. Boo.

I notice that "Scared of You" and "A Foolish Arrangement" are conspicuously absent from your Wish b-sides list.

Agree RE: 'Never Enough.' For a long time I had a sort of irrational resistance towards it, but the melting pot nature of the tune is really something to behold. And, obviously, it's one of Simon's shining moments.

I think in retrospect the Cure, like REM, were one of those bands not necessarily greater than the sum of its parts but, at least during the Boris years, exactly the sum of its parts.

TBH I attribute the post-Wish decline mainly to worse production, worse lyrics and worse vocals - ie all on Robert

When they put out Wild Mood Swings, their popularity was easily at its lowest here in the UK. I remember them being on all of the "right" TV shows, but there seemed to be this sense that the game was up.

They just seemed to be another in a line of bands that were popular in the '80s that seemed to be on their way out: U2 (with Pop), Pet Shop Boys (with Bilingual), OMD (with Universal) ... this didn't affect Depeche Mode so much because Gahan had had his smack overdose and the British music press at that point loved to write about "rock'n'roll" things like that.

What's really kind of funny about that (in a dark way) is that Wish contains a rather large number of references to heroin use.

I never saw PSB as part of that collection of 80's bands. Nor did they, really - if you read their book 'Literally' you'll discover that they were really surprised to be lumped in with "rad" bands like OMD and U2 when they came to States and instead considered themselves more in the lineage of club music and Madonna. Perhaps they faded out of the alternative music view over time but for the global gay community they remained urgent and they still managed to craft a great contemporary dance pop track ever few years or so.

In comparison, U2 and the Cure have basically been inert since the mid 90s, totally comfortable being touring businesses.

The era surrounding Bilingual was probably the first time I can really remember reading anything negative about the Pet Shop Boys. Of course, it wasn't the end: they've given us Fundamental and Electric and Bilingual itself is actually a great record. At the time, though, they'd been releasing records for over 10 years, so did feel like a veteran band.

The Cure's new single is called Lady Gaga? Wossthatallabout?

Haha!

http://thequietus.com/articles/22262-the-cure-kiss-me-kiss-me-kiss-me-review-anniversary

"Ned Raggett slips back 30 years in time to reassess the double album The Cure released when they were first making footholds in America."

Ah, I enjoyed reading that. Although, if I had to rank The Cure's '80s releases, I'd probably put Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me at the bottom, although I'd have to point out that their '80s run is ludicrously strong from top to bottom.

My favorite. It has everything I love about them. The long slow burning songs, the aggressive dark ones, the quirky pop hits, and the experimental weird stuff. Best b-sides era too.

I love that bright orange KIss Me b-sides 12" so much, more than the album really

Well I mean I forgot the album has Just Like Heaven, which is probably one of the ten best pop songs ever written by anyone

My favorite. It has everything I love about them. The long slow burning songs, the aggressive dark ones, the quirky pop hits, and the experimental weird stuff. Best b-sides era too.

My feelings exactly.