Alternative Weekend: Focus on ‘The Cure'
I have been posting most weekends using @detlev’s #metalweekend tag, but my main love of music is progressive and alternative music. Some of my posts have included these songs, but I feel they are not keeping with the spirit of metal.
I will continue to post article’s using #metalweekend occasionally but feel I have more to offer regarding these other genres that I am more familiar with.
Introducing #alternativeweekend. Post an article that highlights THREE great songs that are either progressive or alternative and use the tag #alternativeweekend or use the ‘Focus on’ series if you like. There are no rules, just make your own!
If you have a short story or something to offer regarding an opinion on your songs, then share it with us!
After catching a little of The Cure’s show at Glastonbury last week I felt it appropriate to do a little something on a band that I do have a likeness for, but am not particularly well acquainted with as far as their back catalogue is concerned.
They seem to be on a tour fest right now with @joythewanderer recently seeing them at Rock Werchter, posting possibly their most famous single, ‘In Between Days’
I do have vague memories of them repeatedly hitting the lower ends of the music charts in the early eighties, and one song in particular caught my ear (below).
Robert Smith was a Banshee for a while and I have read a book in the past where he states, ‘this was an important time of my life’.
Siouxsie and the Banshees are another early band that I have a fondness for though I don’t hear any Banshee style guitar work in The Cure’s music.
I have to say that at 60 years of age, I’m really not sure that his makeup is doing him any favours visually. Is it time to go with clean face look like the members of Kiss did?
The Cure - The Walk (Japanese Whispers – 1983)
The song that brought their attention to me is quite different than their usual fare. Electronic music was still going strong in '83 and this is a fine example of it.
The Walk was not on the 'Pornography' album released just a year before and so was released as a standalone single, later to be added to the compilation album, 'Japanese Whispers'.
The Cure - Siamese Twins (Pornography – 1982)
I had to include something from this patchy album that has never completely settled with me.
Talk about depressing! Most of the album is like this song, which I generally don't mind but..., well I have my limits.
Smith seems to be being tortured while preforming a masterful vocal in this live version I found from 2002.
The Cure - The Same Deep Water as You (Disintegration – 1989)
A song that starts with rain and a thunderclap is not going to be a happy one. I love the symphonies in this song with the guitar overlay.
The record marks a return to the introspective and gloomy Gothic rock style the band had established in the early 1980s.
Someone from a previous gig I worked on recommended I listen to the Disintegration album, and though patchy like 'Pornography', it has a decent string of songs though it's middle such as Fascination Street and the single, 'Lullaby'
Running at over 9 minutes, this is a long gloomy song of the finest quality.
After listening to the gloom-fest being offered to you, you may think The Cure are all about depressing music. This is not true, it's just my preference is their Gothic depressing songs.
I once had a conversation with @trolleydave about the doom and gloom material of Robert Smith, and he explained to me the he was a married man and has been since very young.
Smith is married to Mary Theresa Poole (born 3 October 1958), whom he met in drama class at St Wilfrid's when he was 14. They do not have children, as they decided early in life and in their marriage that they did not want children.
Where all this depressing stuff comes from, we can only wonder? I'm sure glad he wrote it though!
If you want to listen to some upbeat material, then I would recommend, 'Friday I'm in Love. It's just not for me, all this happy happy stuff!
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I love their music and have so many good memories with this.
Those are some nice idea for a very interesting kind of music
Don't I remember a previous 'Alternative weekend?' Maybe I'm just old... But I agree with one thing. I gave up on the makeup when I hit 60. Absolute freedom :)
I'm glad to see alternative. I've just never been able to really connect with metal.
Deffo not done The Cure before.. I'm starting to scrape the barrel here for bands!
I di not know that the Cure was still performing, and I do agree I think at 60 is a good time to drop the makeup it really doesn't work at that age
I liked a few of their songs, but some of them others were a miss for me, they just didnt seem consistent to me
For me, it is a mood thing. There are days that depressing music sounds meshes with my brain and the Cure hits a bunch of those check marks.
"In Between Days" and "Lovesong" come to mind.
"Lovesong" is on the album Disintegration, one of the ones I'm familiar with. They are as you say, a mood band.. I listen to them only sometimes.
Oh man! The CURE! I listened to heaps of their stuff at university... but I had since forgotten about them! Thanks for reminding me, I'm going to be finding them on Spotify and reliving the past!
😱
Where do I even start.....
I had a mate that was right into The Cure, and reckoned I would love them... I think I was in Year 9.... anyway, the way he introduced me was that we sat and watched the VHS of their singles.... Standing On A Beach I think was the name of the singles collection... so I think it must've been after Disintegration because I remember seeing the videos of Fascination Street and Lullaby.
Anyway. Loved it. Particularly the diversity across their discography at the time. I really got into those early albums, and yes I LOVED Pornography and Faith and 17 Seconds.... I was no goth but something about their sound was what I found enticing.
A lot of this goes to the unsung hero of that era: Simon Gallup, the Bass player. Yes, Smith's phased guitar is part of their unique sound (not to mention Tolhurst's simple, yet dramatic drums), but I reckon it was Gallup's Bass lines that gave it that moody vibe.
I went and saw them live in the early 90's for the wish tour... and I still reckon that's my favourite album. It's moody and dark, but also really quite Indie-rock. You can forgive them for Friday I'm In Love and Lovecats.... hey, everyone's gotta sell some big singles.
Favourite track..... still comes down to either A Forest (certainly best live song) or Charlotte Sometimes.
I think I saw 'A Forest' played during the Glastonbury gig, I'll look it up thanks... was going to host One Hundred Years as one of the songs.. but I find it a little industrial. A Strange Day is a favourite of mine too.
Nice read @slobberchops. I like The Cure, not my time but I consider myself a fan. There was a fairly recent band called 'the black kids' that modelled themselves on The Cure, they are also pretty decent. I once attended a fancy dress party as Robert Smith, my hair was a complete mess - The girl I met that night I've now been with for over 10 years!
Also, on another note, I FOUND WHITE SHIT. I thought about doing a shit post, but I don't want to attract the wrong attention you see. Here is the evidence:
Chalky white shite!
I haven't seen any since that day I went on the hike. There must be some bloke with 30 year old chalky food in tins who's feeding the stuff to some poor pooch!
I do like the way sometimes one mention can lead you down a rabbit hole or give you an itch that just needs to be scratched. I don't know a lot about any of the bands I like to listen to, I do love it when people can give a lot of info and such on the bands they enjoy. I'm not one of those really.
"Siouxsie and the Banshees": That small mention was what gave me the itch that needed to be scratched. I absolutely their version of "Dear Prudence". The problem with that memory, and I am not sure why, (you never are with these things), It slammed Golden Earring to the forefront of my musical I have to hear it now part of the brain. So after Dear Prudence, it was When the Lady Smiles, followed by Radar Love, and then I just had to top my brain up for the daily shop start with *Vanilla Queen.
I rarely even know how to classify music there is just to much cross over in my mind. Is it Rock, Country, jazz, fusion Jazz, metal, ballad, new age, new wave, christian rock, cowboy, or what have you, if I like it I like it. I did find some of the Cure Music satisfying and the Gothic sound is something I enjoy on occasion.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, down the rabbit hole, and giving me the itch that needed to be scratched. I enjoyed the songs that just finished playing. maybe later this evening I will sit down and listen to some Concrete Blonde since they are floating in the ether of my music brain right now after listening Vanilla Queen. I feel like Walking In London. Enjoy the remains of the weekend.
"Siouxsie and the Banshees" are a band I have not covered yet... it all seems so long ago! Yet I loved them, and always liked their singles when released, they had a certain sound that no other could reproduce.
So that's it.. next one is them...!
A band I was in covered Just Like Heaven, it was me on guitars so it was substantially heavier than the original!
I'm thinking of....
Hehe, nah, just chuggy Ness!