The Cure: Classic or Dud?

haha I had forgotten I was typing out the set list as I was listening to this:

Plainsong
Pictures of You
Lullaby
High
The End of the World
Lovesong
Inbetween Days
Just Like Heaven
FROM THE EDGE OF THE DEEP GREEN SEA
The Walk
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Friday I'm In Love
Doing the Unstuck
Trust
Want
Fascination Street
The Hungry Ghost
One Hundred Years
Disintegration
The Lovecats
The Caterpillar
Close To Me
Let's Go To Bed
Why Can't I Be You?
Boys Don't Cry

Yay! They played 'Mint Car'! :D

Was To The Sky released on a single?

Nope. It was a leftover song from the KM^3 sessions that ended up on the Stranger Than Fiction compilation.

fucking reissue Wish already!

Thanks. I love that one and the Resurrection Mix is great as well. Sounds more like Disintigration than KM^3 to me.

I really hope that second half of 4:13 Dream comes out. I hope they don't just give up on it and all is left is unfinished songs for bootlegs years later.

I remember Robert Smith saying he recorded solo albums for his own amusement, I wonder if they will ever come out.

I don't believe a word of that

I remember Robert Smith saying he recorded solo albums for his own amusement, I wonder if they will ever come out.

one of'em is called The Top iirc

I also felt he might be lying. He talked about it in the early 90s if I recall correctly. When I first read about this I imagined he was keeping a masterpiece from us but now I think maybe he didn't want to release it because it wasn't anything special, possibly just quickies he fired off without much care.

For a long time he was talking about going solo but I think breaking up doesn't seem like an issue anymore because they don't feel obliged to do anything now unless they feel like it.

yeah, basically. Even the existence of the infamous 4:13 dark companion seems pretty far fetched to me

Well, there are several songs that have never made it to an album yet, some that were from the time of their eponymous album that Smith felt were important and he wanted to get them out eventually. I'm sure there were demos floating around the internet.

"A Boy I Never Knew", "Please Come Home" and "Strum" were some of them. Some have been played live. I'll need to check youtube.

And of course the elusive and mythical "Ariel"

I believe the latest update on the 4:13 Dream companion disc is that the songs were supposedly recorded when Porl was still with the band. Now that there's a new line-up, it doesn't feel appropriate to release it as a stand alone album lest people consider it "the new Cure record." Maybe it will be released a bonus disc somewhere down the line after the new line-up records new songs. So yeah, we're never going to see it... if ever existed in the first place.

should've read "released as a bonus disc" and "if it ever existed in the first place"

And of course the elusive and mythical "Ariel"

Never knew about this film!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYs8-XKjso

at this point does anyone really hold out hope that the Cure will again release a great new album? I don't.

I ain't holding my breath. I've heard that Robert pretty much manages the band directly at this point and they just go about their business doing tours as they choose. Nice work if you can get it.

I've seen clips from that film on Youtube over the years, but never the whole thing. I always enjoy watching footage from the Andy Anderson years.

Great album, no, but if they released one or two more as good at the s/t or 4:13 Dream I wouldn't complain. Those are nice albums.

Apparently The Cure have never played "Burn" in concert before last night in New Orleans? Sounds good.

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

Great album, no, but if they released one or two more as good at the s/t or 4:13 Dream I wouldn't complain. Those are nice albums.

Honestly, I'd rather they didn't. This is a band that, when it finally decides to go, really should go the hushed, spare final album with no final tour route. Not sure what to make of its current Morrissey-emulating model - no new album, occasional random show/tour, occasional slight shift in line-up ...

Man, it's so hard to point out just what's off about Jason's playing - I was going to say "too precise," but Boris was famous for being able to play the same part over and over, perfectly - but it's amazing how all these years later I still don't hear him as an adequate substitute. He just doesn't ... swing on those primal bits. Was "Burn" the last released Boris track?

Burn is from that intermezzo phase in the history of the band, where youw onder who played on what.

I thought 4:13 Dream was a major improvement and very surprising in some ways (it seemed to me their most accessible thing since Boys Don't Cry). I liked a lot of their s/t but it sounded a bit tired in a lot of ways, whereas 4:13 Dream sounded comparatively refreshed and energised, had some of their earlier gorgeous sound that hadn't been around for a while (Porl?). I recall Smith at the time saying how he was becoming very conscious of repeating himself with diminishing returns and while it hardly reinvents them, it seems plenty fresh to me. It wasn't a masterpiece but I don't have any complaints about it either, but I think Wish, Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers and s/t all were incredibly uneven.

Yeah I mostly agree with this - I think 4:13 mainly suffered from bad and overstuffed production and just a general sense of tiredness from fans. I think the songs are quite good but I listened to it for maybe a week or two and have never gone back to it.
When RS sacked half of the band in 2004 I was hoping he would go for a raw and kinda lo-fi sound which would rejunevate the band but that hasn't really bene the case and he still insists for squeezing tons of sound and vocal effects which just hurt the songs.

I just want him to indulge is weirdo angry side and do an entire album of repetitive shouty/screamy songs like "Lost", "The Scream" and "It's Over"

Like Wish and Bloodflowers a lot. Don't dig Wild Mood Swings, s/t or 4:13 at all, really.

very conscious of repeating himself

I know what he's talking about, but the first thing that popped to mind was the xgau riff:

Samey samey samey is the strategy--repeat repeat repeat repeat the same four-bar theme for sixteen, twenty-four, forty-eight, sixty-four bars before Robert Smith starts to whine, wail, warble, work. Because Smith hasn't veered this far pop since he was a boy, most of the themes stick with you, and in a few cases--my pick is "Just Like Heaven," which gets off to a relatively quick start--his romantic vagaries have universal potential. But especially over a double album, the strategy gets pretty tedious unless Smith happens to be whining, wailing, warbling, or working to you. B

pfff I'd forgotten what a monster of a song 'Burn' was

I'd kind of like a return to weirder stuff too, but not necessarily more agressive or raw. I'd like to think he has more of The Top and The Glove spirit still in him.
I remember when I got the internet nearly a decade ago I was a little shocked how different the internet review sites and fan communities treated some albums compared with the british music press; I think The Top embodies that for me. Every time I saw The Top mentioned in NME, Uncut or Mojo it was always treated as a horrible embarrassment, even an Uncut interviewer acted that way with Smith; but most fans seem to love it. I love it.

WISH has incredible tracks like "Open", "High", "Friday I'm In Love" and "To Wish Impossible Things" but those highlights feel all too brief to me. I easily find it their most tedious album despite the highlights and a general nice sound.
BLOODFLOWERS should get credit that it seems like the were really trying for something different. The songs are denser, louder and longer than usual but not much of it really worked for me.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/im_alive._im_dead_the_cure_in_concert_1984

Two 1984 gigs, one from Glasgow and one from Munich. The Glasgow set list is similar to the Concert set.

I was at that Glasgow show, I think. (Well, I was at a Glasgow show in 84, and I doubt there was more than one.)

Certainly Concert features one of the best set lists—probably the very best—of any Cure tour before or since.

lol, how many Cure tours since have featured a consistent set list at all?

Concert is great, but it was before Kiss Me, Disintegration and Wish so I think many tours had amazing setlists after too.

lol, how many Cure tours since have featured a consistent set list at all?

There was a time when you knew they were just about done when you heard the opening keyboards for 'A Forest.' This was from about 1990-2004.

Just sayin'.

ok now tell us the order of all the other songs they played

Well, if you heard 'The Walk' you could bet that 'Let's Go to Bed' was next. Same with 'Inbetween Days' and 'Just Like Heaven.'

Shake Dog Shake to open, Piggy in the Mirror or Six Different Ways somewhere early, couple from Pornography, then Primary / Charlotte / The Walk somewhere, A Forest, 10:15, Killing an Arab, done.
I think I'm showing my age.

The Wish tour setlists were the most rigid ones they've had - otherwise, yeah you can always expect a couple of curveballs per show

Behold! 4:14 Scream

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/03/the-cure-new-album-live-dvd-trilogy-shows-2014

I hope they don't keep that title

also WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I wonder if there's any allusion there to Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis? Exciting news, anyway.

Huh, is this featuring the keyboard-free four-piece version of the band? I didn't like that line-up live much.

yeah I dunno any news from The Cure is exciting, esp when it comes to recording - but I'm a bit disappointed these will just be eftovers from 4:13 released 5 years later. C'mon how about getting back in the studio?
Live DVDs OTOH...

Well I'd been wanting to hear that other set of songs since they announced it, they kept talking about a second album. They definitely have had a weird/relaxed rest on their laurels career for the last few years, though -- though they pulled it off really well, based on all the various live shows and broadcasts and etc.

Any updates on the reissue series?

They definitely have had a weird/relaxed rest on their laurels career for the last few years

Indeed. I'm a bit surprised RS has seemingly accepted for teh Cure to become solely a nostalgia act. A bit disheartening considering how well Depeche Mode - their most obvious peers - have managed their twilight years.

Well, what's interesting to me is that Smith hasn't NOT been doing stuff -- he's on a seemingly endless round of one-offs, collaborations, remakes, etc. Maybe he just wants to do that.

I'm a bit surprised RS has seemingly accepted for teh Cure to become solely a nostalgia act. A bit disheartening considering how well Depeche Mode - their most obvious peers - have managed their twilight years.

― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Monday, 3 February 2014 17:44 (1 hour ago) Permalink

Yeah, Depeche Mode have managed their twilight years quite well, but at the same time it's arguable that Depeche's situation has a lot to do with the fact that they never fail to do a mammoth tour every time they release an album. If one was to judge Depeche's last 7 years or so based on recorded output alone, the opinion of whether they've managed their twilight years or not would depend upon how much of an obsessive hardcore fan you are. It goes without saying that I love Depeche Mode, and at their very best they're incredible. They're still able to go around the world touring (as are The Cure) and pack the venues, but their recorded output isn't what it once was, I'll admit. In spite of that, I'll still follow them regardless, and I am exactly the same with The Cure.