The Cure: Classic or Dud?

it sounds like the whole band submitting demos & then individually rating them all in order to decide which ones to record has been fairly standard practice for them from kiss me kiss me kiss me onwards, there's an interview from 1987 where robert said he insisted on that process because the rest of the band hadn't contributed many ideas to the head on the door and he wanted them to be more involved.

no idea how often that process has been anonymous or not though

Yeah, I seem to remember KMx3 being the apex of the democratic songwriting process. U think it's in 10 Imaginary Years that they attribute some of the songs, eg the eastern-ish sounding tracks being Porl/Boris submissions (Snakepit, If Only Tonight, Cockatoos). In general, Simon's contributions seem to be on the poppier side: High, Perfect Girl, Mint Car, Lovesong.

yeah i found another interview where robert praises simon's talent for pop melodies and says that a lot of the head on the door's poppiness was his work - but it's also been well-established in a lot of other interviews that head on the door was still all robert's songwriting so to fit those together i'm assuming simon just made some key contributions to some of the arrangements. "high" was also again mentioned as another simon track, and "friday i'm in love" was mentioned as starting off as a slow demo by robert that simon helped rearrange to be an upbeat pop song.

still casually digging through interviews and perry was apparently regularly contributing to songwriting too during his tenure in the band too - "trust" was specifically mentioned as his composition

Was The Cure up until The Top a virtual autocracy then?

Unlike any other Cure album to that point (or the next couple) all the songs on The Head on the Door are sole credit to Smith.

xp no all the previous albums were credited to all members (altho I think Smith brought all the ideas until Head)

are there any other cure tracks that it's established that anyone other than robert wrote most of?

I think he said "Fight" was a Porl song.

THOTD is the first and last time Robert Smith claims the entirety of the songwriting credit.

oh ooops matttkkk made that point lol

general impression i get is that before kiss me kiss me kiss me, robert wrote all the songs but the others still contributed to arrangements to varying degrees, and then things opened up to others contributing whole instrumental from kmkmkm onwards because robert got tired of that arrangement.

the most autocratic albums seem to be the top (obviously) and the head on the door, which was the one time robert took all the songwriting credits and was pretty vocal about how little everyone else contributed ideas-wise. the only time anyone else's contributions to it seem to have really been mentioned at all is the one wish-era interview where he praises simon's pop melodies on it. there's even a kmkmkm-era interview where boris says he enjoyed working on that album much more because he got to be much more creative with his drum parts, while on the head on the door robert already had the general ideas for most of the parts figured out.

*whole instrumental demos

here's lost wishes if anyone's never heard it. it's very lovely. they repurposed the first track for "underneath the stars" many years later.

Did they? Never made that connection!

Flashes of brilliance, but ultimately not as interesting as their contemporaries (Joy Division/New Order, Depeche Mode, the Smiths). Saw them in 85 on the Head on the Door tour and they were dull as dishwater (compared to New Order the same year, who were brilliant). On balance, neither classic nor dud, just . . . an enduring part of the landscape.

a bit like ILM

i don't think they were really as consistently good at making albums as many of their contemporaries - after pornography their strength was clearly as a singles act - but their highs were still pretty high. even disintegration drags a little in places though

What are you heathens posting here, out, out!

Flashes of brilliance, but ultimately not as interesting as their contemporaries (Joy Division/New Order, Depeche Mode, the Smiths)

they have the most amazing bank of b-sides of any of these assholes

really wish they'd saved "2 late" for wish

i don't think they were really as consistently good at making albums as many of their contemporaries - after pornography their strength was clearly as a singles act - but their highs were still pretty high.

― ufo,

They even have a song about it!

I was wondering: is there a really solid, scholarly, serious biography or history of The Cure?

I know that there are popular books - I still have TEN IMAGINARY YEARS on a shelf - I'm thinking more of the kind of biography that a major author gets, where really thorough work has been done on archives, correspondence etc.

The Smiths have attracted such attention, as with Tony Fletched's massive LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT.

If we had a book like that - not just a brash cash-in book - for each major band then they would add up to a huge cultural history.

Most of the members of JD/NO have written their own books. I haven't read any of them yet. The podcast "Transmissions" is pretty fantastic, as are the short interviews they gave several years ago around the reissue of Movement, all of which are on YouTube.

I'd probably read a Robert Smith book, if nothing else because he's been around for so long and has doubtless seen so much.

Robert plays his cards close to the chest. The closest thing we're getting yet is Tim Pope's documentary, but when I talked with him a couple of years back it's clear that it all depends on what Robert lets out from the archives and when, he operates on his own random timetable.

I've written the first couple of chapters for what *might* be something of a book on the Cure, maybe, via Patreon, and even then it's more an initial draft from a strictly personal perspective.

I had bought "Never Enough" and I've sadly never opened it, don't know if it's any good.

Based on a quick search, it looks like it isn't so sad after all

Never Enough by Jeff Apter? I bought it as an ebook. Only made it a couple pages in and stopped with this sentence:

But even before then, when the then Easy Cure was signed by German label Ariola/Hnasa in 1977 (when the trio were still teenagers), they'd been instructed to record an assortment of rock chestnuts and greatest hits, rather than their own material, which led to one of the quickest terminations of contact this side of a Britney Spears marriage vow.

"Simon Gallup wore the worst denim ensemble since Justin Timberlake at the '01 VMAs."

they have the most amazing bank of b-sides of any of these assholes

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, January 18, 2022 8:49 PM

yep. and it took depeche mode five years to catch up with something like "lament."

in retrospect, with regards to that crop of bands mentioned, it really does feel like the others were so one-dimensional. i'll never understand how someone can just make the same album over and over again and get accolades for it (probably why i don't really like nu-cure and also why my perennial favorite smiths album is ~easily~ strangeways).

The Cure and Pet Shop Boys, maybe the Smiths, are the only acts from this era from which I can construct an alternative (nyuk nyuk) career out of their B-sides.

join the dots is a pretty good retort to the idea that they "weren't interesting."

I didn't say they weren't interesting, just that they weren't as interesting as the best of their contemporaries.

I'm not sure I can think of any 80s band who had better b-sides than the Cure though... Kate Bush maybe? Saint Etienne? They're 90s though.

Kate Bush was 80s also.

The Smiths had some amazing b-sides. I can't say whether they were better than the Cure's, as I am not as familiar with theirs. But, I mean, here's someone's top 10 list:

Back to the Old House
Jeane
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
Handsome Devil
London
I Keep Mine Hidden
Asleep
Oscillate Wildly
Sweet and Tender Hooligan
Stretch Out and Wait

yeah i agree the Smiths had excellent b-sides. I don't know if I have heard any Depeche Mode b sides because I don't really like their a-sides that much either. Of the bands being discussed they are by far my least favorite of the canonical 80s group.

It's too bad Moz has turned into such a troll, although honestly we could all see it coming.

Smiths fans who don't like The Cure: "The Cure are one-dimensional and repetitive".

Cure fans who don't like The Smiths: "The Cure are one-dimensional and repetitive".

People (like me) who love both: "Both bands were consistent yet also diverse; eclectic yet always recognisable".

The daft thing is that all this was true in 1985 or 1986; surprised to be typing it in 2022.

Sorry: 2nd line should have said "The Smiths are one-dimensional and repetitive", though I suppose the erroneous version has more comedy value.

I love the Smiths but I really can't agree that they were equally diverse in terms of output with respect to the Cure. The Cure just covered a lot more musical ground (helps to have existed for 3-4 times as long as the Smiths but still).

I think if you rate The Smiths *at all*, then it's uncontroversial to say that they are one of the great B-sides bands of their era, or ever -- because there is virtually no distinction between their B-sides and their A-side or LP-track output: as concretely demonstrated by the fact that HATFUL OF HOLLOW contains 45s and B-sides and is many people's 'favourite Smiths LP', and THE WORLD WON'T LISTEN is arguably in the same class (and ditto, to an extent, by default, LOUDER THAN BOMBS).

In other words, for most of their career the Smiths didn't write and record B-sides as a separate, inferior category of songs.

Having said that: there are a few live track B-sides (eg on the 'that joke' 12-inch) which are a different kind of item, and then there is the late period when they start recording things like 'work is a four-letter word' which does seem a step down in quality. Having said that, maybe that track and 'golden lights' (which was recorded when still at their peak, really) are actually unusual - it's not as if there is a blitz of tacky covers in 1987.

The Cure: I love many of the B-sides but they were clearly recorded as a separate category, and released in the separate form of the compilation on the back of the STANDING ON A BEACH tape ('another journey by train' etc etc_), which many of us love, and then JOIN THE DOTS.

I was going to say I was unsure whether the *later* Cure B-sides held up, but then remembered the 'letter to Elise' CD single and how good it all was.

I have concluded from this thread that I need to dive back into the Cure, whom I've largely ignored since the early 90s.

y'know, as cynical as i am about nucure, i will definitely defend their b-sides from any era (wish possibly my favorite of them all). even the ones from 4.13 dream were at least pleasant throwbacks to a classic period:

"ny trip" (2008)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPJ0EiGFCPM

also not sure if this counts, as it was a us-only b-side, but i thought "fake" (2004) was a legitimately great throwback and one of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeHEllIB03Y

I loved all of the extra songs from 2004 (Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, Fake, This Morning, Going Nowhere) and I don’t think the self-titled album is complete without them

oh that's a good one for the "bonus tracks make the album better" thread

I thought ‘Going Nowhere’ definitely made that album better

oh that's a good one for the "bonus tracks make the album better" thread

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, January 19, 2022 1:38 PM

otm

"going nowhere" also quite good.

there was also the two very late-released b-sides from the self-titled album, "why can't i be me?" and "your god is fear" which were much gloomier than they had sounded in years. i was on a (now defunct) fan forum around the time and the generally accepted theory there was that both tracks feature the uncredited return of pearl (f/k/a porl) thompson.

"why can't i be me?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3yxllOaOqo

"your god is fear"
youtube.com/watch?v=7tJHHQWqAXo

(vocals still *way* too loud for me on this more recent stuff; at least the tunes are decent)

sorry, goofed the url there—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tJHHQWqAXo

seems like 'join the dots' isn't on spotify? at least in my territory.

i feel a really well-chosen 2lp compilation of Cure b-sides would be quite revelatory to many - the head on the door-era b-sides are a real peak of weirdo pop (and also went a long way to inventing ariel pink?)

it is a pretty orthodox opinion but you could make an incredible LP out of Disintegration & Wish b-sides (esp if including Never Enough & Lost Wishes material)

re lack of detailed study on the Cure - this is a huge absence for sure - for a massive & influential band they are incredibly under-examined IMO - in terms of serious critical engagement i can think of a couple of pages in Michael Bracewell's England is Mine (which is quite sniffy and dismissive if i remember right) - what else is there? there's plenty to talk about!