BOB POPPINS: Robert Smith's guest vocals, 2003-2021

Listening playlist here. Direct links to songs within it:

Perfect Blue Sky (2003)
All Of This (2003)
Believe (2003)
Da Hype (2004)
Truth Is (2004)
To Love Somebody (2005, Bee Gees cover)
Please (2006)
Not In Love (2010, Platinum Blonde cover)
Take Forever (2011)
Come To Me (2011)
There's A Girl In The Corner (2015 Smith version of a 2013 song, released as a TS b-side))
In All Worlds (2015)
Strange Times (2020 - this one's a video clip)
How Not To Drown (2021 - also a video)

minor quibble:

The Twilight Sad: There's a Girl in the Corner

i think this one is actually a cover version rather than a guest vocal? smith plays all the instruments on it afaict. it's good though!

further listening, additional versions and autocovers for write-in consideration:

Robert Smith, Earl Slick and Mark Plati: A Forest (2003)
- released on The Cure's Join The Dots box set as a remix, this was actually another collaboration between the three I've named

Blank & Jones: A Forest (2003)
- that's right, Bob re-recorded vocals for two covers of his own classic in the same year.

paulmac: Pictures Of You (2004)
- and another one the next year, released as ostensibly a remix of a Robert Smith solo version

Faithless: Spiders, Crocodiles & Kryptonite (2004)
- wait, two more the next year: here Robbo recorded a new Lullaby vocal track so Rollo could sample it cleanly

Anik Jean: J'aurai tout essayé (2010)
- Earl Slick not only brought fellow Bowie band members Gail Ann Dorsey and Sterling Campbell to this Canadian singer's album, he brought the vocal track from Believe to duet with her French translation

8:58: Please (2006/2015)
- when the then-former Orbital bloke released Please as a single from his strings-heavy solo album, he included a ravelike mix titled "Please (Remember 1992?)". Next time Orbital split, he did an electronic-based album including a longer version of that same mix

8:58 featuring The Unthanks: A Forest
- bonus fun from the same album. no Bob

also in the playlist:

65dos: Come To Me (Wordless Version) - Japanese-only bonus track from a 2011 EP
The Twilight Sad - There's a Girl in the Corner (Live on KEXP)
Crystal Castles - Not In Love (live at Lollapalooza)
Gorillaz - Strange Timez (Song Machine Live from Kong Studio)
- audio only - video here, from a pandemic-streamed live show, and another performance of the same show, with Robert vibing a little more

The Cure & Placebo in a blind test supergrouping If Only Tonight We Could Sleep in 2004, plus two Robert + Placebo audience recordings from a few months later
Korn & The Cure with an acoustic medley of Make Me Bad and In Between Days in 2006
Bob 182 with two audience recordings from 2004
and a 1990s bonus track for NickB

i kept forgetting to suggest his remix of deftones’ “teenager,” which he does not sing on, but it’s really great

minor quibble:

counter-quibble: this was already annotated in the previous post :)

in the other thread, Ned noted

What's kinda remarkable about all these heard in a heap is that -- and sequencing and more would allow for even more fun possibilities -- is that it becomes an absolutely amazing genre-hopping solo album. Reminds me of nothing so much as Sinead O'Connor's collaborations compilation, which is a deeply underrated collection.

Across the last 30 years, he's released enough solo-recorded covers to make a bonus disc for this compilation (Robert Smith: Together & Alone?) - I'd definitely put Girl On The Corner on the second disc if that happened, but since this one was recorded for a Twilight Sad release, I reckon it qualifies for poll purposes.

added Brad's asterisk to the playlist

fair enough! i only heard his version of john martyn's 'small hours' recently, that one's been growing on me too

also added bcz I forgot: Robert's own remix of the Japanese Popstars track

which can also be found in DJP's Spotify playlist for the poll

yeh his version of ‘small hours’ is great, impossible song to cover and he pulls it off - very fond of ‘pirate ships’ as well, both feel like they point towards a RS solo LP that could be really beautiful - sparse but warm and late night intimate

there is a RS solo album on the way but it's "an hour of noise" so probably the opposite of that

there is a RS solo album on the way but it's "an hour of noise"

― ufo, Friday, June 4, 2021 7:08 PM

the cure came out in 2004 though.

“Da Hype” is amazing.

I like the way Snrub thinks.

there is a RS solo album on the way but it's "an hour of noise" so probably the opposite of that

yeah sure there is, I'll file that next to all my other RS solo albums

Some of these sound like Patrick Wolf songs in the end. Unfamiliar with most before this poll, and I liked Perfect Blue Sky the most.

I love this new one with CHVRCHES so much, possibly because it reminds me of a particular late-90s sound crossing between alt-rock, electro-pop and big beat (Smashing Pumpkins' 'Adore' and 'Ultra' by Depeche Mode especially). I started making a playlist to complement it https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4K8WgL7iYM8OAKZMgpfdIq?si=52d605d9bd354821

I guess I should have been paying a lot more attention to The Twilight Sad and 65daysofsummer over the years, huh

65dos rule

I haven't followed the Twilight Sad too closely because at some point it began to feel like diminishing returns, but No One Can Ever Know is glorious the whole way through. I guess they specialise in a kind of oddly stirring dourness, but that one seemed to have a bit more hot blood pumping round its veins than some of the other stuff I've heard

i think this one is actually a cover version rather than a guest vocal? smith plays all the instruments on it afaict. it's good though!

Yeah, I had to look this up because I've listened to that Twilight Sad album a hundred times and never heard Bob on it. Turns out he covered "There's a Girl in the Corner" and Twilight Sad released it as a B-side to one of their other singles from the record.

I wish I’d said that

These posts are actually covers of your post

you did not guest type them i think?

sorry sic, I did not see your note in the playlist post, scanned right past it!

:)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i was able to listen to Dan's playlist, voting Crystal Castles.

Chvrches one sounds like a direct followup to Crystal Castles, which does not feel like it was eleven years ago

This thread is closing today.

Sicstem

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

markers has two socks?

the initial results were a bit different: BOB POPPINS: Robert Smith's guest vocals, 2003-2021

Spoiled ballots, changed via satellite rays from Italy.

Might have to redo the poll again because he's also done a remix of "How Not to Drown" and uh AWESOME

https://chvrches.lnk.to/HNTDRSRemixPR

i think, even by next year, "How Not To Drown" will be the most ranked song for Bob Poppins, this poll was just a bit too early

Gorillaz lockdown concert (feat. Bob’s poppin) in US cinemas this Wednesday night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfwwBGYWr7U

This is where I got it from and a good summary with other stuff:
https://mixdownmag.com.au/features/exploring-robert-smith-of-the-cures-musical-collaborations/

well you missed your chance to vote for it!!