The Cure

The Cure is a British rock band formed in 1976 in Crawley, England. one of its three founders and future leader, Robert Smith, appeared in its ranks as lead guitarist. The group reached the highest point of its commercial success between the end of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s.

During their long career, The Cure have undergone multiple line-up changes, their most popular lineup being that of vocalist Robert Smith, bassist Simon Gallup, guitarist Porl Thompson, drummer Boris Williams, and drummer Boris Williams from 1986 to 1989. keyboardists Roger O'Donnell and Laurence Tolhurst, of which Smith, Gallup and O'Donnell currently remain, along with Jason Cooper on drums and Reeves Gabrels on lead guitar. Smith's distinctive appearance, frequently dressed in black and makeup with a smeared effect of lipstick, coupled with introspective and existential lyrics, have made the band generally associated with gothic rock.

The band has dabbled in different genres and styles, such as post-punk, in some of their first songs like «10:15 Saturday Night» or «In your house»; gothic rock, in songs like "One hundred years" and "A forest"; British new wave music, cheerful and optimistic, in songs like "Close to me" or "Just like heaven", and even for various moments of electronic music, such as "The walk" or "Let& #39;s go to bed". Considered one of the leading groups of alternative rock. In 1989 Disintegration was published, the band's album considered their masterpiece, an album with which the The band reached their highest position on the UK charts with their hit singles "Lovesong", "Fascination Street", "Pictures of You" and "Lullaby", the latter reaching fifth place for six consecutive weeks.

In 1994 and 2001 the band was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Alternative Music Album. Between 1987 and 2004, The Cure sold over 30 million records worldwide. March 2019, The Cure was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

History

Early years: from The Obelisk to Easy Cure (1973-1978)

Central Square of the city Crawley, Sussex, England where Easy Cure gave his first concerts.

The Obelisk was formed in 1973 by Robert Smith (vocals, piano), Michael Dempsey (guitar), Lol Tolhurst (drums), Marc Ceccagno (lead guitar) and Alan Hill (bass) while studying at Notre Dame Middle School, in Crawley, Sussex. They had their first public performance as part of an end-of-term performance in April of that year. Three years later, in January 1976, Smith formed a new band called Malice, this time on second guitar, along with two of his friends: Graham on drums and his brother on vocals, with Dempsey replacing Hil on bass and keeping Ceccagno on lead guitar. Established as a quintet, they began rehearsing and playing covers of David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and Alex Harvey in a local church hall. In April of that same year, Graham and his brother left the band, as did Cececcagno for to form a jazz rock fusion band called Amulet. s Catholic Comprehensive School, as lead guitarist. With this formation the band played during three live shows, in December of that same year. In January 1977, after Creasy's departure, and the growing influence of the ubiquitous punk-rock beginning to be evident in the group's musical style, the four remaining members changed their name Easy Cure, thus configuring the first campus of what would be The Cure.

In March of that same year, Gary X joined the band as vocalist, although he would barely last a month and would be quickly replaced by Peter O'Toole. In May, Easy Cure won a talent competition organized by the German label Hansa Records and received a recording contract as a prize, which was signed on the 17th of that same month. In September, O'Toole decided to leave the band. to go live in Israel on a kibbutz. Due to this, the band was left without a vocalist again, so Smith took over that position. The quartet, again made up of Smith, Dempsey, Thompson and Tolhurst, recorded their first demos for Hansa at SAV studios. > in London between October and November, though none of that material was released. The band continued to play regularly around Crawley (particularly at The Rocket, St Edward's and Queen's Square) between the end of that year and early 1978. On February 19 they opened for the first time at The Rocket, along with a band from Horley called Lockjaw, in which bassist Simon Gallup played. Hansa was dissatisfied with the band's demos and was reluctant to release what would be an early version of their classic "Killing an Arab". Instead, she suggested recording covers by other artists, to which the band refused and decided to break their contract with the record company. According to Smith, Hansa wanted to turn them into "a teen band that covers other bands", which went against the spirit of the band.

From Easy Cure to The Cure and debut album: Three Imaginary Boys (1978-1979)

The band played their last show as Easy Cure on April 22 in the main hall of Montefiore High School in Crawley, before Thompson left the band due to his stylistic conflicts with Smith, as his style did not mesh with the Smith's increasingly minimalist songwriting style. In May of that year, Smith renamed the remaining trio, consisting of himself, Dempsey, and Tolhurst, what would become their final name: The Cure. Later that month, the band held their first sessions at Sussex's Chestnut Studios. The resulting mockup was sent to a dozen major labels. Chris Parry, then a talent scout for the Polydor label, contacted the band after hearing it. He said goodbye to Polydor, formed the Fiction Records label, and signed The Cure in September 1978.

Between September and December of that same year, Parry negotiated a distribution deal for Fiction with Polydor, an agreement that materialized on December 22 with the release of the band's debut single, "Killing an Arab", inspired by in the novel The Stranger, by Albert Camus. After the accusations of racism received by the single and motivated by its title, the band decided to place a sticker on its reissue denying the racist interpretations.

Logo of the Polydor label with which The Cure fixed through Fiction Records in 1979.

On May 8, 1979, The Cure released their first studio album, Three Imaginary Boys. The collection of songs was clearly post-punk leaning and tinged with bleakness as well as existential concerns. The album's early reviews by NME were enthusiastic.

On December 16, 1978, months before the album was released, Adrian Thrills wrote: "The Cure is like a breath of fresh suburban air on the capital's polluted circuit of bars and clubs. [...] With a John Peel session and the continuation of their London tour on their most immediate schedule, it remains to be seen if The Cure can maintain their refreshing joie de vivre"., days after its publication, Paul Morley made an unkind criticism in the same magazine: «They [The Cure] make things much worse than they could be by packaging empty trivia as if it had social validity. As if our conceptions of what is real and what is unreal are going to change. They embellish their twelve little ditties with dodgy tricks. [...] They are trying to tell us something; they try to tell us that they do not exist; They try to tell us that everything is empty. They are making a fool of themselves." Curiously, Robert Smith thought the same as the critic in question about the way in which Chris Parry tried to promote the group; furthermore during a session with John Peel, the Cure later covered their song "Grinding halt" in which the singer sarcastically recited part of Morley's criticism. Smith's dislike of Parry's work was from the recording sessions: " Chris, Smith said, "made us sound in the studio during five nights of jam sessions in a very different way than how we sounded live" until the choice of the cover without prior consultation with the group.

Steven Severin, Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie with which Robert Smith played at Siouxsie And The Banshees in 1979 and from 1982 to 1984

The Cure embarked as support band for Siouxsie And The Banshees and the Join Hands tour of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales between August and October. This tour saw Smith work double. Each night he was to double perform with The Cure and as guitarist for the Banshees while John McKay left the group in Aberdeen. That musical experience had a strong impact on him: «On stage the first night with the Banshees, I was blown away by how powerful it felt to play that kind of music. It was so different from what we were doing with The Cure. I wanted us to be like the Buzzcocks or Elvis Costello, the Beatles of punk. Being a Banshee really changed my attitude towards what I was doing". In October 1979, Michael Dempsey left the band due to creative differences with Robert Smith. According to Dempsey: "Robert (Smith) wanted to take the sound of the band down a path that was too dark and uncompromising, and Simon (Gallup) was perfect for that." Indeed, Simon Gallup, bassist for English bands on the scene afterpunk like Lockjaw or The Magazine Spies, he officially replaced Dempsey on bass.

Gothic Trilogy: Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography (1980-1982)

In February 1980, The Cure's record company released Three imaginary boys on the American continent under the name Boys don't cry with more songs, such as the first single from The Cure. Cure, "Killing an Arab", or the homonymous "Boys don't cry" and suppressing others such as "It's not you" or "Meathook". The album achieved notable success in America and, also, was positioned at number 44 in the charts in England.

In their first musical stage, The Cure developed their own style within the current of post-punk. They were considered a cult group within the current of gothic rock -in English called dark wave- during the first half of the eighties. They reached high levels of popularity in England thanks to their single "A forest", belonging to his second album Seventeen seconds from 1980, which reached number 31 on the hit lists.

In 1981, the band met again with Mike Hedges, producer of Seventeen seconds, to record their next album, Faith, which relapsed into introspection and the atmosphere contained in his previous album. The main theme of the album was the increasing agnosticism that Robert Smith felt - his childhood was strongly marked by Catholic indoctrination - and his progressive lack of faith. Another of the secondary themes of the album Faith It was the longing for a lost childhood, with clear references in the lyrics of "The Holy Hour" or "Primary", and in quotes from Robert Smith himself belonging to that time: "I was 21 years old, but I felt really old. I felt that life had lost meaning. I had no faith in anything. I didn't see much point in continuing my life". The album reached number 14 in the UK charts in 1981. Later that year, The Cure released the single "Charlotte Sometimes", based on Penelope Farmer's novel of the same name., not included on any studio album by the band.

At this point, The Cure's music and attitude became extremely introspective. During performances, requests for older, happier tunes were not accommodated, and Robert Smith would sometimes leave concerts in tears, absorbed by the character he had to project during the performance.

The Cure reached its peak in 1982, with the release of Pornography, considered an essential record in the band's career, as well as one of the best records of the gothic movement. After the release of this album and the subsequent Fourteen Explicit Moments promotional tour, the group was inactive for a period. Simon Gallup's departure from the line-up after a fight he was in with Smith during the Pornography tour, left the group as a duo, made up of Smith himself and Lol Tolhurst.

Pop transition: Japanese Whispers, The Top and The Head on the Door (1983-1985)

The Roman Theater of Orange (France) was the stage of one of the most famous concerts in The Cure during its transition stage officially published with the title The Cure in Orange.

At the end of 1982 the group published «Let's go to bed», a song with a jovial character and a certain electronic aroma, which broke with the musical character of the band in their first works. In Smith's words, "I wanted to kill the gloomy character of the first The Cure records". "Let's go to bed" was followed by two singles of an even more pronounced electronic pop character than the previous one, "The walk and "The Lovecats", both released in 1983. The latter was a jazzy tune based on the film The Aristocats. Both became The Cure's first major commercial hits (numbers 12 and 7 in the UK, respectively). Due to the success of these songs, Smith thought of relaunching the group's career. These songs were compiled with their respective B-sides on the compilation album titled Japanese whispers.

During the same 1983, Smith formed the supergroup The Glove with Banshees bassist Steven Severin and they released a single psychedelic pop album titled Blue Sunshine, where Smith sang on some of the tracks. despite the fact that Fiction did not leave him by contract. The Glove would not release anything else and dissolved shortly thereafter.

After several concerts with the new formation made up of the producer of their previous album Pornography, Phil Thornalley on bass, drummer Andy Anderson, guitarist and saxophonist Porl Thompson, former member of the band pre -Cure Malice, and Smith himself on guitar, The Cure returned to record new studio material.

This album was The Top, an album in which Smith assumed the duties of composer —together with Tolhurst on some tracks—, musician and producer. In addition, Smith shared his time with the group Siouxsie and the Banshees collaborating on the recording of the live album and video Nocturne and the studio album Hyæna. During the world tour of The Top, the group again underwent changes in its formation: Andy Anderson left the group due to his problems with alcohol and Boris Williams, formerly part of the Thompson Twins, entered. At the end of the tour, bassist Phil Thornalley also left the group and Simon Gallup returned, after reconciling with Smith. Recognition by critics and the general public came with the publication in 1985 of the album The head on the door due to the success of the singles that were extracted from it such as "In between days" and "Close to me".

The bass player Simon Gallup (in the picture, playing in a group performance in 2008), is the longest member of The Cure along with Robert Smith. Gallup rejoined the band in 1985 with the release of the album The head on the door.

In 1986, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the formation of the band, Standing on a beach was released, also titled Staring at the sea in its vinyl version. This compilation album collected all the band's singles published between 1978 and 1986.

International success: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Disintegration and Wish (1987-1993)

A year later, in 1987, The Cure released the double album Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me. Thanks to the growing popularity of the group at the time, the work reached number 6 on the UK charts, and entered the top five in many other European countries. The album peaked at number 35 in the United States., where it received a platinum record. The first single extracted was "Why can't I be you" followed by "Catch". The third single, "Just like heaven" became their biggest hit to that point; In addition, it was the first to enter the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. became a resounding success with the public. However, during that time, Lol Tolhurst had problems playing due to his excessive addictions.To solve the problem, the band frequently called on Roger O'Donnell, keyboardist of The Psychedelic Furs to replace him.

After the tour ended in 1988, the group took a year off. The following year, The Cure released Disintegration, which returned to the dark aesthetic of previous works such as Faith or Pornography. It became an immediate hit in the UK and debuted at number three on the album charts. Three of the album's singles, "Lullaby", "Lovesong" and "Pictures of You" were top thirty sellers in the UK. several countries and the album was positioned at number 12 on the Billboard 200. "Fascination street", the first single to be released in this country, reached first place on the American Modern Rock Chart. For its part, the third, "Lovesong"; it reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Three years after its release, Disintegration had already sold more than three million copies worldwide.

During the recording sessions for Disintegration, the band clashed openly with Lol Tolhurst. These events led to Tolhurst's departure in February 1989. As a result, Roger O'Donnell he became the group's sole keyboardist. Smith remained in this way as the only original member who continued in the group. Despite his departure, Tolhurst was listed in the album credits as the "other instruments" performer. However, some close to the band, such as producer Dave Allen, opined that Tolhurst contributed more to the recordings of Disintegration than to the two previous albums. The tour that followed was called the Prayer Tour. Their popularity in the United States was already of such caliber by this time that the group stopped playing concert halls to play stadiums in many cities there.

In May 1990, Roger O'Donnell left the band due to problems with some of his bandmates, being replaced by the band's guitar technician Perry Bamonte, who would also assume the position of rhythm guitar in 1992 after the release of Wish. music video was the first to feature Bamonte. This compilation was positioned at number 14 on the Billboard 200.

In January 1991 the group performed as part of the MTV Unplugged concert series. In that same year The Cure received the Brit Award for Best British Band of the Year. Also in 1991, Lol Tolhurst sued Robert Smith and Fiction for payment of their royalties. Also included in the complaint was Tolhurst's aspiration to share ownership of the name "The Cure" along with Smith. The trial was resolved in 1994 in favor of the vocalist.

Two years after releasing Mixed up, in 1992, the band released Wish, one of their best-selling albums. Wish was number 1 in the UK and number 2 in the US. The singles "High" and "Friday I'm in love" became international hits. said disc, the name of the band was transformed from The Cure to simply Cure. However, this name did not last, since the traditional The Cure was taken up again in his next studio work, Wild mood swings.

From the tour that accompanied the album, Wish tour, the band extracted two live works; Show and Paris published in September and October 1993, respectively. Also in 1993, The Cure was nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album for Wish.

Transition and new line-up: Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers (1994-2000)

Several line-up changes occurred between the end of the Wish Tour and the production of their next album. In mid-1993, Thompson left the band to join Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Page and Plant, so the lineup was established as a four-piece. In November 1994, after ten years of work, Williams left the band, creating the drum pattern for the song "Jupiter Crash" his last contribution to the band. In December 1994, O'Donnell returned to keyboards, Bamonte taking over as lead guitarist, while Gallup had to take leave due to physical health problems. Due to these changes, the sessions for The Cure's tenth album began with only Smith and Bamonte present in the studio. Williams was replaced on drums by Jason Cooper, after casually buying a number of the NME and reading an anonymous advertisement. Cooper's father, who worked for Virgin Records, was a fan of The Cure and told him gave his son a copy of Seventeen Seconds which, according to Cooper's own words in Jeff Apter's biography of The Cure, he listened to "extensively" and ended up becoming as fond of Robert Smith's band as than his father.

In 1996, with this new line-up, the band released Wild mood swings, an album of heterogeneous content in which a loss of musical sense was noticed in the band. Wild mood swings was received coldly by critics, but especially by the traditional followers of the group.

In 1997, the band released a compilation of singles titled Galore, in some ways a continuation of the album Standing on a beach, released eleven years before it, and in which the singles published between 1987 and 1997 were collected, from "Why can't I be you" to the singles taken from Wild mood swings such as "The 13th" or "Gone!". The collection contained a new song: "Wrong number", the first on which Reeves Gabrels appeared as a guitarist with Smith.

The limited artistic and commercial success of Wild mood swings, coupled with the fact that there was only one more album left before the expiration of its contract with Fiction Records and the bad reviews that the album garnered in music magazines specialized as Rolling Stone or Melody Maker, made Smith consider, once again, ending the band. In 1998, in this context, the group decided to postpone the release of an album scheduled for that same year, in order to compose an album that, as a farewell, would include the more serious face of The Cure. The result of this effort was the album Bloodflowers, released two years later, in 2000, with which the group recovered their dark essences from the eighties and for which they obtained worldwide fame. For his composition, Smith once again drew inspiration from his own career and his experiences, just as he had done years before with Pornography or Disintegration, to compose clearly autobiographical lyrics. In the words of the vocalist himself, Bloodflowers closes the group's dark trilogy, which began with the two aforementioned albums. The release of Bloodflowers was accompanied by an extensive world tour under the title Dream tour. This tour obtained great recognition, both from the media and from the public, with more than a million attendees. The success of the album, nominated for a Grammy in 2001 for best alternative music album, and its subsequent tour, motivated Smith to reconsider his decision to end the band that, at that time, was clear about its final dissolution.

In 2001, The Cure, after their contract ended, left their traditional record label Fiction Records to sign with Geffen Records. As a farewell to Fiction, Smith agreed to the publication of a greatest hits compilation, on the condition that the repertoire of songs be chosen by himself. The result of this agreement was the album Greatest Hits , which included singles and other songs from his entire career from 1978 to 2000. As with Galore, the compilation contained new material; in this case the songs "Cut here" and "Just say yes", the latter sung as a duet with the singer Saffron from the group Republica.

In 2003, Fiction released the DVD Trilogy, which included two concerts in Berlin where The Cure performed live all the songs from the Pornography albums in chronological order. >, Disintegration and Bloodflowers, the only trilogy of the band officially considered by Robert Smith.

Latest hard rock albums: The Cure and 4:13 Dream (2004-2008)

The Cure acts live in Singapore in 2007.

The Cure Official Logo since 2008

In 2004, already with Geffen, after several parallel projects, Robert Smith's group released their homonymous work: The Cure. As varied in character as Wild mood swings, it was well received by specialized critics, although not so much by the general public. However, Smith argued that the decision to title it with the same name was because Once again, he believed that this could have been his definitive album, encouraged by producer Ross Robinson's idea of "recording the definitive Cure album". That same year, Fiction released a new compilation called Join the dots, which featured all the B-sides released by The Cure, from their first single "Killing an Arab" released in 1978, whose B-side was "10:15 saturday night", to "Signal to noise », B-side of the single «Cut here». In addition, in this compilation it was also possible to find a lot of unpublished material that the band's historic record company still had in its archives and that Smith decided to publish as a farewell with Fiction.

Following a world tour focused on festival performances, in mid-2005 guitarist Perry Bamonte and keyboardist Roger O'Donnell left the band due to disagreements with Smith shortly before the start of the extensive European tour. That same year, the group recruited Porl Thompson again after twelve years of absence, with which the formation was once again established as a quartet, a fact that had not happened since 1994, and without the presence of a keyboardist.

During the 2008 European tour, the band began to publicly showcase songs from their latest studio album to date, 4:13 dream. The album was initially planned for November 2006, but it was finally released on October 28, 2008. It received very weak reviews in the specialized press, but unlike his previous self-titled album, this work had a better acceptance among his followers. and the general public; songs like "The hungry ghost" or "This. Here and now. With you" received critical acclaim. The release of the album was preceded by the release of the singles "The only one" released in May, "Freakshow" released in June, "Sleep when I'm dead", in July and, finally, "The perfect boy", in August, every thirteenth day of the month of its publication.

Smith claimed that 4:13 dream would be a double album, although it eventually appeared in a single disc format, to which the vocalist argued: "I agreed to sell the double version for the price." price of a single album, because I feel like this is what it should have been but it's almost impossible to release a double album these days... I naively thought that my position as an artist was to put all objections aside, but the world becomes more and more commercial".

Failed album and forty-year career (2013-present)

Lol Tolhurst met with The Cure to play the album songs Faith as a tribute and a reconciliation with Smith.

Between June and November 2011, The Cure gave a series of ten retrospective concerts of their early post-punk era entitled Reflections at the Sydney Opera House (Australia), the Royal Albert Hall (London), the Pantages Theater (Los Angeles) and the Beacon Theater (New York) chained by a kind of time line. At the beginning of the concerts, Robert Smith said: «Welcome to 1979» and then the band performed their entire albums Three imaginary boys, Seventeen seconds —with Roger O' Donnell on keyboards—and Faith—with Lol Tolhurst on keyboards and percussion. This is how the gap opened between the co-founders (Tolhurst and Smith) was closed in 1989, during the recording sessions for the album Disintegration. The group ended this series of retrospective concerts with some songs from that time such as "Charlotte sometimes", released as a single in 1981, not included in Faith. At that time it was also known that Roger O'Donnell was officially returning as keyboardist.

The Cure played several times during 2012 in Spain: at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, whose stage was the Forum of Cultures (high image), as well as at the BBK in Bilbao.

In September 2011, The Cure were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were ultimately inducted. On December 5, 2011, a concert recorded on September 11, right in the middle of the Reflections tour, entitled Bestival live 2011, went on sale in double format., where The Cure performed a benefit concert for needy youth on the Isle of Wight (England). The group took advantage of this event to publish their fifth live album, the benefits of which went entirely to this altruistic cause.

During the summer of 2012, the group headlined major European festivals such as Primavera Sound in Barcelona, BBK in Bilbao (Spain) or Reading & Leeds (England).

During April 2013, The Cure toured Latin America again after a twenty-six-year absence. This tour marked their first performances in Paraguay, Chile, Peru and Colombia, for the second time in Argentina (1987 and 2013) and for the third time Brazil (1987, 1996 and 2013).

Since 2013, a new album by The Cure has been pending, called 4:14 Scream as a continuation of 4:13 Dream. However, it has been continually postponed and has no possible publication date, 13 years after the last album.

On March 29, 2019, The Cure was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is the highest institution dedicated to preserving the most famous and influential artists in the music industry through the genre of rock. During the act, which brought together the current and some of the former members of the band, Robert Smith accepted the award on behalf of the group and in his speech he remembered all the components that passed through the forty-year history of The Cure.

“I have fought more by finishing the lyrics to these new recordings for The Cure than at any other time. We've recorded 20 rare songs and written nothing. I mean, I write a lot, but then I look at it and I think, 'This is bullshit.' The difficulty is that I have become very self-critical. [...] The new material is very emotional; it is ten years of life distilled in a couple of hours of intense things.”
-Robert Smith for The Times (2021).

On March 2, 2022, Robert Smith attended the 2022 NME Awards, where he was interviewed and talked about the band working on two albums of ten songs respectively, as well as revealing that the title of the first of these two albums is called Songs of a Lost World. On the project, Smith comments: "We've been working on two Cure albums and one of them is done, but unfortunately it's the second one, so the first one is still in the works."

On February 3 they had announced their European tour Cure Tour Euro '22 which began on October 6 in Arena Riga, Latvia, where they played two songs from this new album on the way: «Alone» and «End Song”, names leaked through the concert setlist via Twitter.

Style

The singer and composer Robert Smith has marked the musical style of The Cure since its inception in 1978, always guiding the band towards an alternative rock sound.

The band emerged at the forefront of the British post-punk scene alongside groups like Siouxsie And The Banshees, and Joy Division. This quartet of bands inherited the punk style of previous English formations such as the Sex Pistols or The Clash, and took that rebellious sound a step further, each one in their manière de faire i>, within the gothic subgenre.

Smith has always been reluctant to categorize The Cure's style into a single musical current, although the truth is that they were, along with other groups such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus or Joy Division, one of the bands that set the seeds of gothic rock and dark wave in the late 1970s with their "gothic trilogy" of concept albums Seventeen seconds, Faith and Pornography. These groups, heirs to punk rock, developed what was called post-punk —in English this movement was called afterpunk— and showed clear countercultural tendencies. Thus, the first works of The Cure were gestated within that post-punk rebellion: from Three imaginary boys , passing through the aforementioned trilogy, until 1983 with the publication of the compilation album Japanese whispers , which collected some of the last dark songs from his early days such as «Lament» or «Just one kiss». Japanese whispers marked a radical reorientation from the dark sound that popularized The Cure, in the early 1980s, with upbeat and upbeat singles like "Let's go to bed" or " The lovecats". These songs redirected the group's career towards danceable melodies and clear pop tendencies, with an electronic air similar to those that popularized the group Depeche Mode, with which they have been related ever since.

The First Era of Porl Thompson

In this environment of changes, Robert Smith composed The Top, an irregular album and with clear signs of disorientation in the compositional approach, with songs marked by the psychedelia that Smith dragged after the production of Blue sunshine, the only musical work of the group that he formed in 1983 together with the bassist of the Banshees, Steve Severin called The Glove. But the most important thing about The top was that it officially incorporated the multi-instrumentalist, Porl Thompson into the band's live performances, and that he marked a notable influence on the group's sound until his departure in 1993 after the publication of Show. The top, likewise, still collected post-punk songs like "Shake dog shake" or "Give me it".

Following the release of The Top and the return of Simon Gallup as bassist, The Cure produced two of their most commercially successful albums: The Head on the Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, albums that brought the group to world stardom with songs like "Close to Me" or "Just Like Heaven." These songs made The Cure one of the mainstream bands of the 1980s, along with bands like the Irish U2 or Depeche Mode. Both albums, related by their happy melodies, the use of sections of wind and danceable rhythms close to ska jazz collected other hit singles such as "In Between Days", "Why Can't I Be You?" or "Hot Hot Hot!!!".

After those albums, Smith decided to return to the darkest origins of The Cure to compose in 1989 what is considered his masterpiece, Disintegration, whose decision was harshly criticized by his record company at the time., Fiction Records, which described it as "musical suicide".. Disintegration was a skilful combination of pop melodies such as "Pictures of you" or "Lovesong" with more somber and dense rhythms such as "Lullaby" or "The same deep water as you". With this album, The Cure reached a high dose of lyricism in both their musical and textual compositions, where Smith rescued the idea of his first conceptual albums in the style of Pornography, encouraged to compose his true masterpiece before to turn thirty.

Following the success of Disintegration (number 3 in the UK and 12 in the US), The Cure released on April 21, 1992, the day of Smith's thirty-third birthday, their album most successful to date, Wish. More accessible than its predecessor, Wish continued down the atmospheric and dark musical path but with songs with a clear shoegaze tendency, an alternative musical style that emerged in the early 1990s in England. Smith, after discovering the album Loveless, stated: "My Bloody Valentine was the first band I ever heard who clearly shit on us, and their album Loveless is among my favorites." three all-time favourites. It's the sound of someone being so impulsive they're insane. And the fact that they spent so much time and money on this is excellent." Again, the interpreter reoriented the band's sound towards more alternative than commercial tendencies, just as they were in their beginnings. Despite this, the album contained commercial pop hits like "Friday I'm in love" or "A letter to Elise" that he knew how to alternate with more atmospheric and gothic songs like "To wish impossible things" or "Apart". On the other hand, the quartet of songs clearly with a shoegaze trend: «Open», «From the edge of the deep green sea», «Cut» and the clausural «End» once again positioned The Cure as a benchmark band on the British alternative scene.

The Perry Bamonte era

In 1993, after the release of two live albums derived from the Wish era, Show and Paris, Porl Thompson left the band to join Robert Plant's. Perry Bamonte, who officially joined the group in 1990 with the single "Never enough", became the second guitarist. Bamonte printed an elegant, simple style without too many artifices to the six strings. The next album, Wild mood swings, was a fiasco at the public level and was poorly received by specialized critics. Anthony Decurtis of Rolling Stone, wryly paraphrasing the album's title, said that "There's nothing 'wild' about Wild mood swings". Steve Lyon, who commissioned of the production of the album together with Smith, he candidly told the singer how little enthusiasm he felt about recording with the band, although it was precisely that that ended up motivating the vocalist: "I wanted someone who wouldn't feel intimidated by my past." Critics criticized the heterogeneity of the album and its lack of coherence, defining songs like "Jupiter crash" or "The 13th" as "boring" and "horrendous", respectively. Despite the bad reviews received, Wild mood swings includes some remarkable moments from the English discography such as "Want" or "This is a lie".

Bloodflowers was billed as the last studio album the Cure would record on Fiction Records. Likewise, there was speculation that it was the band's last album. According to Smith's own statements to the press at the time: "Whether or not it is our last album, it is a good time to stop." Initially planned to be published during the spring of 1998, its publication was delayed until February 2000 by various The main reasons were that Smith wanted a dignified send-off after the bad reviews of Wild mood swings. of reflection and existential melancholy, combining emotionality and wisdom in the construction of suggestive atmospheres". In addition, this album was the return to its dark lines consciously continued since Disintegration . Although no teaser single was officially released, "Out of this world" and "Maybe someday" were the promo songs that pulled to commercial radio. The album was more widely accepted than its predecessor, and critics applauded Smith's decision to return to the band's dark origins. In the songs you can feel the effort of the singer and lyricist to make a classic album by The Cure.

Four years later, the band released new material together with producer Ross Robinson, specialized above all in the production of nu metal groups such as KoЯn, Slipknot or Deftones. Although Smith was not particularly attracted to that musical style, Robinson confessed to him in an interview that one of the things he would like to do before he dies is to record an album with The Cure. Robinson's fascination with them encouraged the interpreter to record their self-titled album, The Cure, an album that resonated with the heaviest side of the group. Recorded in almost one take and with hardly any post-production, the album was generally received positively by the majority of the public and critics, although there was a certain part of the specialized press that accused Robinson of leading the group towards unsafe territory. —the nu metal— to which it had never belonged. The songs that most distilled this new heavy orientation of the band were "Us or them", "Before three" or "The promise", while "Lost" or "Anniversary" returned The Cure to its darkest and most atmospheric roots.

The Second Era of Porl Thompson

Porl Thompson in Sweden in 2007. His return to The Cure in 2005 hardened the sound of the band until his final departure in 2011.

In their latest studio effort, 4:13 dream, produced by Robert Smith with Keith Uddin, The Cure consciously continued to explore that line of hard rock started in his previous job. The departure of Roger O'Donnell and Perry Bamonte, and the return of Porl Thompson as guitarist strengthened, with his virtuosity, this new orientation in the band's sound on songs like "Switch" or "It' s over». Critics said of 4:13 dream that "it was an album that was surrounded by too many half-baked songs without a definite shape, colorless sounds and lacking in spirit".

The stage of Reeves Gabrels

Reeves Gabrels was the last guitarist with which the band officially counted. Gabrels in 2012 (in the picture) during a concert by The Cure at the Frequency Festival (Austria).

The future of the band is uncertain. The dark version of the 4:13 dream, known as the dark album, has not yet been released. The album was tentatively titled 4:14 scream, but Smith has remained reluctant to release old material recorded with Thompson as he stated in an official statement, saying: "In 2009, Porl Thompson left the band and that version of The Cure ended forever". In 2012, Reeves Gabrels, accompaniment guitarist for David Bowie and with whom Robert Smith collaborated in the past on the recording of the single "Wrong number" as well as the group COGASM, joined the band as second guitarist after replacing them on live shows. to Thompson. Gabrels added a more rocky character to the songs played live.

In 2016 The Cure goes on a world tour again (after 2008) in the United States and Europe, with a new set of songs, rarities, B-sides ("Too Late" and "This Twilight Garden") and new songs ("Step into the Light" and "It can never be the same"), with 35 confirmed dates in the United States (with 3 sold-out shows in Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl and 3 Madison Square Garden in NY), and 34 other dates in Europe.

Influence

Albert Camus was one of the writers whose works inspired some songs to Robert Smith. His novel Foreign inspired the song "Killing an Arab".

Robert Smith, the son of a happy family although his imagination was invaded by deeper and darker things, was from his musical beginnings a restless intellectual. "I read books," Smith said, "about despair and disintegration that perhaps I should not have read." A great admirer of writers such as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre or Franz Kafka, this current of existentialist literature definitely influenced the first records of The cure; from Three imaginary boys to their “gothic trilogy” (Seventeen seconds, Faith, Pornography), are albums where the existentialist restlessness developed musically by Smith is best noted.

Among the musicians of the 70s who influenced the group, Jimi Hendrix, Álex Harvey and the Irish band Thin Lizzy stand out, whom they covered in their beginnings. Smith also acknowledged having received a great influence from the Beatles, one of the favorite bands of her sister Margaret, who listened through her bedroom door. In Smith's own words: "I was listening to 'Help!' and I thought the world could be a better place." On the other hand, the vocalist, a faithful admirer of David Bowie, was inspired by the tone and style of "Warszawa", the theme of the 1977 album Low, to compose the first chords of "A reflection", included in Seventeen seconds. After his first studio album, Robert Smith changed musical direction and quoted early Siouxsie And The Banshees as a "massive influence". & # 34;They were the group that led me to make Pornography Smith also cited Wire as a band he admired.

Legacy

Among the formations that emerged influenced by the legacy of The Cure, one can make a long list of alternative rock and indie groups headed by the New York-based Interpol, a post- -punk revival whose ex-bassist, Carlos Dengler, is an outspoken fan of Simon Gallup's bass playing. In addition, Paul Banks, leader and composer, has stated that he has been influenced by The Cure and by the figure of Smith from an early age.

The former Alaskan and Pegamoids and Permanent Paralysis, Ana Curra (in the image during The Act, 2012), reference of the Madrid move of the 1980s, was to the keyboards in both formations, influenced by the sinister era of The Cure.

The Essence, a Dutch gothic rock group that emerged in the mid-1980s, enjoyed relative fame for having been described as a "clone band of The Cure".

Other indie rock bands that were influenced by The Cure have been (or have not) been closely related to Smith's band, such as Mogwai, The Rapture, Slowdive,Ride, The Cranes, 65daysofstatic, or Crystal Castles, all of them touched in some way by Smith's hand.

There are also numerous Spanish-speaking groups that have been influenced by The Cure's music and aesthetics. Among them would be artists like Alaska y los Pegamoides, Paralisis Permanente or groups like Héroes del Silencio. Among the Latin Americans, for their part, we can mention the Argentines Soda Stereo, the Mexicans Caifanes and the Chilean groups Upa! or Lucybell in her early days.

Discography

• Three Imaginary Boys. Study album, 1979.
• Seventeen Seconds. Study album, 1980.
• Faith. Study album, 1981.
• Pornography. Study album, 1982.
• Japanese Whispers. Collection album, 1983.
• The Top. Study album, 1984.
• Concert: The Cure Live. Album live, 1984.
• The Head on the Door. Study album, 1985.
• Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Study album, 1987.
• Disintegration. Study album, 1989.
• Mixed Up. Album de remixes, 1990.
• Wish. Album of study, 1992.
• Paris. Album live, 1993.
• Show. Album live, 1993.
• Wild Mood Swings. Study album, 1996.
• Bloodflowers. Study album, 2000.
• The Cure. Study album, 2004.
• Join the Dots. Collection album, 2004.
• 4:13 Dream. Study album, 2008.
• Hypnagogic States. EP de remixes, 2008.
• Bestival Live 2011. Album live, 2011.
• Curaetion-25: From There to Here, From Here to There. Album live, 2019.
• Songs of a Lost World. Study album, 2023?

Tours

Members

Current members

• 

  Robert Smith
  Voice, guitar
  1976-current
• 

  Simon Gallup
  Low
  1979-1982
  1985-current
• 

  Roger O'Donnell
  Keyboards, piano
  1987-1990, 1994-2005, 2011-current
• 

  Jason Cooper.
  Battery
  1995-current
• 

  Reeves Gabrels
  Guitar
  2012-current

Timeline

Acknowledgments

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

In 2019, The Cure made their entry into the 'perfomer' to ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME. The ceremony was attended, taking the stage, by the current line-up (Smith, Gallup, O`Donnell, Cooper and Gabrels), as well as former members such as: Lol Tolhurst, Pearl Thompson, Boris Williams, Michael Dempsey and Perry Bamonte. During the thanks, Smith also alluded to Andy Anderson, who had passed away a short time before, and Tim Pope, among others. The recognition introduction during the ceremony was given by Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails. In the words of the latter: 'It wasn't just the sound or the words or the presentation, in which everything was linked to the most exquisite instruments, no. It was the voice of Robert Smith. That voice, capable of creating a wide range of emotions ranging from an expression of anger, sadness and helplessness to one of beauty, fragility and happiness. It may sound naïve, but it wasn't until I heard "The Head And The Door" that I realized that it was possible to write about such profound ideas, but always doing it from a context made up of songs that worked and even sounded in the mainstream. radio, changing the rules from within"

As part of the show, the current band performed with the following list: 'Shake Dog Shake,' 'A Forest,' 'Love Song,' 'Just Like Heaven,' and 'Boys Don't Cry.'

Awards

The Cure won the Brit Award twice in the categories of Best British Video Clip and Best British Band in 1990 and 1991 respectively. In addition, he was nominated twice for the Grammy Award and for different awards offered by the MTV network. He was also nominated in 2011 for the Q award, offered by the rock magazine Q in the category of best performance of the last 25 years. Likewise, in 2009 he received the Godlike Genius award for his influence on numerous rock bands over time, awarded by the NME publication.

Brit Awards

Grammy Awards

MTV Video Music Awards

MTV Europe Music Awards

MTV Latin Awards

Shockwaves NME Awards

Q Awards