The Cure: Classic or Dud?

BTW, i got sick and didn't make the show. mad about that as i watched the whole thing on YouTube and it looked and sounded fantastic.

Hope you were able to sell your tickets!

Robert announces three new vaporware albums to put on your imaginary shelf alongside 4:14 Scream, 4:26 Dream, Reflections, Live In Paris, his 1990 solo album, his 2001 solo album, the Wish deluxe reissue...

The correct approach to this news.

that link, when clicked by me at this point in time, does nothing except load endlessly into nothing.

what's the news?

Robert Smith is leading an Antarctic expedition

nice; surely on the hunt to recapture some of that chilly goth atmosphere for the forthcoming dark album.

worth clicking again to see how Jason has somehow become the oldest member of The Cure

I’m seeing them in Mexico City tonight!

The weather had been all nice and sunny for the past 4 days and today it has been cold and cloudy with a little bit of rain. Feels like it was on purpose.

ahh man! definitely looking forward to your review if you feel so compelled.

Of course! Cure has a passionate fanbase in Mexico, I’m very excited to see them here.

Enjoy Moka! If their Glasto show is anything to go by, you'll have a splendid time.

Yeah that link doesn't work for me either. What is it?

he said that they're preparing three albums. I saw the headline on the book of faces. I take it with a grain of salt.

ahh.

nme coverage.

yeah none of that sounds very promising at all, honestly.

hope i'm wrong and something new comes out and it's actually decent. but uhh. . . probably not.

Here's a Cure album that never was: my take on what sounds like a could-have-been, maybe was-going-to-be album circa 'Wild Mood Swings' but that focused in the aesthetic and mood with the through-line of string arrangements. Made from a few tracks from WMS and contemporaneous b-sides: 'This Is A Lie':

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGZch5NXkAAbgSb?format=jpg&name=large

https://www.mediafire.com/download/8f97pneclpg72ut

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie' (1996)
[The Wild Mood Swings Era Reconsidered]

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

Get rid of Dredd Song and that would be 100% fire

Ok, they are incredibly tight live. It feels like listening to the actual album, some songs even sound better than the studio version.

I might be biased because they are two of my favorite Cure songs but “A Forest” and “Close to Me” were great and the band seemed specially lively playing those. Simon even did a small cumbia bass coda at the end of the former following the claps of the audience and Robert was doing some sort of dance and smiling throughout the later. Lovesong was also great and an early highlight in the setlist, they also seemed to be having fun playing Lovecats.

The only song in the whole setlist that they seemed miserable playing was Friday I’m In Love. I thought Just Like Heaven would also sound exhausted but they sounded very at ease with that one.

The second encore was filled with early songs that hadn’t been played in the American festivals they did beforehand this year: Three Imaginary Boys, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing an Arab, Jumping Someone Else’s Train were all played at the end.

wild mood swings era without 'want' is a bold, wrong move

I was focused on the string arrangement common thread, when I culled the selections for 'This Is A Lie'. If the synth strings in "Want" were real strings, I'd probably slot it in in lieu of "Dredd Song".

I really think the band could have been thinking of an album like this collection--so many of the tracks even have segue sections that help the tracks flow pretty seamlessly. An odd thing to bother with, for a b-side...

ahh man moka, you got 'lovecats'!!! sounds like a great night. would love to see them do 'gridning halt' as well. that song is so enduring and catchy!

if i ever see them i demand an hour-long 'watching me fall' followed by 'give me it' and then the curtain falls to booing

if i ever see them i demand an hour-long 'watching me fall' followed by 'give me it' and then the curtain falls to booing

would attend this.

Aw, they didn't play Lovecats when I saw them :(

It was its tour debut last night iirc.

Here’s the full setlist they played for almost 3 hours:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2019/foro-sol-mexico-city-mexico-339c4c8d.html

wow, that's a really varied setlist. must have been a total blast.

if i ever see them i demand an hour-long 'watching me fall' followed by 'give me it' and then the curtain falls to booing

RS would never concede to a set this short, they'll only compromise to cut down to two hours for festivals

that is an insane setlist. you must have had a blast Moka!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3i4ttvHocN/?igshid=12oxiuwbhn496

guys if fucking simon gallup dies, it will seriously be terrible.

i hope i'm reading too deeply into this and he's just fine.

V good new interview tied in with the release of the Anniversary/Cureation sets; it's the second part of a longer interview Kory Grow did with him a few months back:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/cure-band-robert-smith-interview-40-live-893005/amp/

Also should you be so inclined one of my projects on my Patreon is an album by album series Robert and company -- won't be monthly, maybe every other month or so. First one went live earlier in the week:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/cure-reflections-30754630

You’ve never been very political. Roger Waters, who played the day before you in Hyde Park, had a lot of anti-Trump messaging. Do you feel artists should be more political nowadays?
I don’t think there’s a rule. Some artists are very good at it. It requires a number of different things. One is the music that you make has to reinforce where you’re going with what you’re saying. And from a young age, I’ve always held what could be considered a socialist viewpoint on the world. That’s why I wail against inequality. What’s wrong with the world is essentially inequality. But it isn’t reflected in what I want the Cure to be. I wanted the Cure to be something that I could escape into. For me, it was an escape from the world. Like when I was doing the “Love Cats” video, and I’m there caressing kittens, I can’t turn around and say, “By the way, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the world.” It’s beyond absurd. Although now cuddling kittens would probably be a political statement in the state we’re in.

But you are political.
Behind the scenes, the Cure has always been politically active but usually pretty anonymously. It suits the way the band works, and everyone is much more comfortable with that rather than me being overt. They despair sometimes when I’ve had a few beers and I’ve done shows and I start spouting off. They’re like, “Please, don’t start.” Because once I start, it’s very hard to stop. I think it’s a great thing to be able to get up in front of people and convince people of what’s right and what’s wrong, although that depends on who you think is right and who is wrong.

I legit cheered when I read this. (Also this bolsters my argument for why "Us or Them" is so terrible; Robert is not good at putting explicit political expression into songs, not in the way he is at doing relationship imagery and emotional states.)

Definitely the most clear I think I've read on him on these points. Sign of a good interviewer at work too (though for years I've always felt people could be clearer in questions about the difference between being political and being politicized, but that's another subject).

"Director's Cut" videos from the final Disintegration night at the Sydney Opera House back in May now on youtube in 4K, with a vaporwave tease from Robert:

“Our five shows at the Sydney Opera House in May 2019 - celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1989 album Disintegration - are among the most memorable we have ever played - indeed, our entire Sydney trip was like a wonderful dream... I am so happy the final night of the run was captured in such expressive style by our longtime friend and director Nick Wickham - the release of the whole concert can’t be too far away… ”

Pictures Of You

Plainsong

Disintegration

Rank it next to the new album release

Thx sic

best album ever obv

Strictly Kev of DJ Food interviewing Andy Vella, mainly about his work for Fiction's dance sub-label Desire

Lol is doing a tweet-along thing dedicated to Seventeen Seconds this evening, apparently.

Just watched Rick Beato's "what makes this song great?" analysis of Just Like Heaven on YouTube. He highlighted Robert Smith's vocal harmonies. I've been listening to this song for over 30 years and I'm ashamed to say I've never noticed them. Listening to it now, I know I'll never un-hear them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPNHwwXh3Ks

Man thanks for the reminder that we've got the Royal Albert Hall thing this weekend.

What's that? Happy to be unintentionally of service!

Thread with details:

Show me! Show me! Show me Halloween!

It is only 3 days until the exclusive one-off live stream of The Cure’s 2014 Royal Albert Hall performance for Teenage Cancer Trust. pic.twitter.com/RIKTYhmdgZ

— The Cure (@thecure) October 28, 2020

$7.15 total and that's for three chances to watch, so why not?

Yeah this is pretty great and then some. Two more chances to watch it later today!

they were the best in the 80s as they lost me after mixed up and they were good before the 80s too!

Much thanks to Ned Ragget for helping me get sorted on this awesome broadcast tonight!

Do what I can!

Is there a thread for Rick Beato? His videos have been on rotation during quarantine, love how he discusses more advanced music theory than similar channels yet makes it simple enough and explains in detail for non-musicians to understand.