The CaterPOLLar -- ILM Artist Poll #23 -- The Cure -- voting thread

Ballot sent.

also noticing on relistening how sexual a lot of these songs are, & it's making me wish I'd befriended more of the beaucoup female Cure fans at my high school; like DM they were much more popular with women than with men in those days at least.

I did that (befriend the female Cure & DM fans). Those girls almost immediately put you in the friendzone while dating older losers from other schools or dropouts. My sadness comes back just thinking about it.

Robert also plays a fair amount of bass on the records - six-string bass is his primary compositional instrument.

btw Boris is the fucking BEST, I still maintain that ppl would like the later material more had he drummed it instead of Jason Cooper

I don't think you need to actually convince anyone of this, even ppl who've not heard any of the Jason albums

Somebody, on one of the many Cure threads, gave an excellent explanation of why Boris is so much better than Jason.

BTW Jason is now the second longest-running continuous non-Robert Cure member, by far, ever :(

(given Simon's off-screen quitting periods he might even have a claim on longest but I don't want to think about that)

After re-listening through Disintegration, I've got a list of 41 songs to rank. Now I have to decide whether to press on into the later material or go with what I have. I think I have Wish on cassette somewhere in the garage. I guess the deadline extension means I have time to hear it all, though I doubt that will change my ballot much.

It's been strange to go through everything in more-or-less chronological order. The changes from album to album are startling. I never paid much attention to Three Imaginary Boys before and agree with comments upthread to the effect that it's kind of like weaker Buzzcocks, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed the guitar sound -- Smith's solos are usually the best parts of the songs. If you played some of these tracks back to back with tracks from Disintegration, most (normal, non-ILM) people probably wouldn't realize it was the same band.

This poll is harder for me than the Zep, Stones, or Bowie polls were, partly because the Cure is more closely associated with a specific period in my life. I got into them first in 1988 and 1989, listened to all the earlier albums then, and saw them on the Prayer Tour (still the best arena show I've attended). After Mixed Up I stopped paying much attention. But my reaction to the older Cure material is still a little too tied to personal memories for me to contemplate it the way I can those (other) classic rock acts.

Many x-posts but mostly an aside. Posts about Cure listening girls just reminded me of something.

I remember once making out with a guy in college who was really very cute but not my usual type at all. Mid make-out he said, "Never thought I'd wind up kissing a girl wearing a Cure shirt" to which I responded "Yeah, well, you have Phish posters in your room so I think it's fair to say we've both crossed some unexpected boundaries tonight".

lol

He was in the same deep water as you.

haaa

Somebody, on one of the many Cure threads, gave an excellent explanation of why Boris is so much better than Jason.

Your favorite Cure drummer

*preens*

Haha.

I don't think I've ever met another Cure fan, nubile or otherwise. Even the softgoths I knew were into Sisters or Mission instead.

I guess coming to musical consciousness in 1991 there could hardly have been a more irrelevant band, even though Wish did quite well. But it'd've been like getting heavily into REM for Up, or something. Rob Newman's thing on The Mary Whitehouse Experience is about the only contemporary reference I can remember.

lol I have that bit. I haven't seen it in ages! brb.

Aw, I can't find the "I'm a little teapot" one. That's the best bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2rPpjctNlk

I've liked the Cure for a long time but I've never had that period of real identification with them or their vibe. I think I'm a little too young for them to have meant as much in their prime to me as they meant to some of y'all.

I did that (befriend the female Cure & DM fans). Those girls almost immediately put you in the friendzone while dating older losers from other schools or dropouts. My sadness comes back just thinking about it.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 6:06 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM :(

Although I did date a couple of people who were big Cure fans and it was not a recipe for stability, let's put it like that.

I tended to turn my girlfriends into Cure fans, by which I mean I would incessantly play The Cure at them until they lied and told me that they liked them so I would stop, and then would realize in horror that this just meant I would start playing the super mopey sadface stuff at them

One retaliated by playing They Might Be Giants at me, which you know, fair play

(A Forest and Primary* were def. completely re-recorded in order to be remixed, bcz Polydor had lost the masters. Which raises some questions about the album remaster project.)

"The Walk" and "A Forest" for sure. "Primary" sounds like the original vocal to me, though they prolly recorded some new samples (there was no guitar on the original).

I do believe the "lost masters" issue is that the original multi-track masters were needed for remixing (so individual instruments could be isolated), but they had been ruined by being stored near a washing machine....IIRC. The actual 2-track mix-down masters were not (though I suspect "The Walk" may be gone due to the crap sound quality of ever reissue of that song post-Japanese Whispers - not sure why they don't use the Fiction or Sire CDs as a source).

"The Walk" and "A Forest" are the only tolerable tracks on Mixed Up, IMHO.

there was no guitar on the original

really?

yeah, it was two 6-string basses + drums (video makes this very clear)

lol sorry, two 4-string basses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xrZ61cuKLk

The performance from Count Down is awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZFYh6B7Fr8

Man, two six-string basses would have been SICK. (Especially if they were part of one double-neck bass.) That was a top 5 song for me!

"The Walk" and "A Forest" are the only tolerable tracks on Mixed Up, IMHO.

I should clarify: of the new versions/mixes...

Made an effort to include something after 1989 but in the end, nah.

I only had a 20-song ballot and I put at least three post-89 songs on it. Nothing post-99, though.

I paid no attention to the Cure post THOTD. SCHOOL ME, PEOPLE. (Seventeen Seconds/Faith/Pornography are as defining for me as I I have ranted about the Cocteau Twins elsewhere)

hah -- and those are the three albums I can barely finish!

you will probably still appreciate them through Wish; specific songs of note (keeping in mind I am a big mopey goth):

KMKMKM
The Kiss
Why Can't I Be You?
How Beautiful You Are...
Just Like Heaven
Like Cockatoos

Disintegration
Plainsong
Pictures of You
Lullaby
Prayers For Rain
Disintegration

Never Enough

Wish
Open
High
Apart
From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
End

Wild Mood Swings is largely a misstep, though there are some decent songs on it ("Want", "The 13th", "Trap", "Numb")

from that point on, they are basically in superfans-only status, although there are still a bunch of songs worth exploring ("The Last Day Of Summer", "The Loudest Sound", "Lost", "Labyrinth", "Before Three", "Fake", "Going Nowhere", "This Morning", "Underneath The Stars", "The Only One", "The Real Snow White", "The Holy Ghost", "The Scream", "It's Over")

their b-sides have largely remained fucking brilliant, seek specifically "A Japanese Dream", "A Chain of Flowers", "Breathe", "Babble", "Out of Mind", "2 Late", "Fear of Ghosts", "This Twilight Garden", "Play", "The Big Hand", "Ocean", "Adonis", "It Used To Be Me", "Home", "A Pink Dream", "All Kinds of Stuff"

also "The Same Deep Water As You" is one of the best things they ever recorded

Ditto. I found that a big surprise actually - indie(ish) acts *never* have their lull in that period

Ditto to Alfred that was

I submit that if you can't finish Faith or Pornography you might be totally high and/or trippin'

it's true that I'm probably listenign to "High" instead.

"High" is great, too! IT'S ALL GREAT (except WMS)

Cheers Dan, I was familiar with about 50% of that (and was voting for a couple of thewm) and obviously I am a big mopey goth too

oh well in that case, don't forget "Torture", "The Snakepit", "To The Sky", "Last Dance", "Homesick", "Untitled", "Trust", "Watching Me Fall", "Bloodflowers", "Jupiter Crash", "Bare", "The Promise", "The Perfect Boy" and "Sleep Til I'm Dead"

OH SNAP

oh shit also "Halo" and "Scared of You"

this is way too hard guys

i know no one is going to vote for it, but i love this cover of "pirate ships" so much that i feel like bringing it up just in case ppl haven't heard it
it's so pretty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BnGQ31YOYM

Ballot sent.

I'd never actually thought about what my favourite Cure song was before now and it's not what I expected. Easier to pick the whole 40 than to settle on the top one.

― Get wolves (DL)

Same for me, I got my top 40 pretty quickly but then really struggled to pick between about five songs for my number one. For most of my other favourite bands there is usually an obvious favourite. Very happy with what I decided to put at number one.

Really looking forward to the results of this one.

(Seventeen Seconds/Faith/Pornography are as defining for me as I I have ranted about the Cocteau Twins elsewhere)

hah -- and those are the three albums I can barely finish!

One thing I've really enjoyed about trawling the discography is that their arrangements and production are always subtly evolving and inventive. Which is true for most of the acts getting polled, actually, but still a pleasant surprise for a band operating in an idiom that isn't particularly imaginative.

But those three albums are the flat ones imo, and not in the uniquely flat way that makes their earliest stuff a slightly weird joy.

It struck me what an odd relationship I've had with this band. Discovered them at 14 via the Lullaby video, loved Disintegration, got all their previous albums, played them all intensively for a couple of years, then lost interest overnight as soon as the first single from Wish came out. Didn't listen to them at all for a decade, to the point where I was embarrassed about having liked them - lol moody teenager - and then came to appreciate those 80s albums again as an adult, but nothing post-Disintegration has any kind of emotional resonance for me. Considering how easy it was to choose 40 songs I loved, it's weird that my serious fandom lasted for such a short period.

This excellent K-Punk blog about Seventeen Seconds/Faith/Pornography helped reignite my passion around the time the first reissues came out.

http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/006087.html

It's so weird, that's almost exactly the same with me, except I was 14 and the video was In Between Days.

one thing about this poll that has enraged me is the unavailability of Join the Dots on US Spotify