Standing On A Beach – The Cure (1986)

So….does it mean that Standing On A Beach coming in at #13, one place ahead of Singles Going Steady, is the more favoured record?

Absolutely not!!!

I couldn’t separate them in terms of preference, but a couple of things led to me putting The Cure just above Buzzcocks.

Firstly, the two sides of vinyl consist entirely of A-sides.  Secondly, unlike the Buzzcocks compilation, Standing On A Beach was a commercial success, reaching #4 and selling around 100,000 copies.  Part of this might have been down to a greater willingness of fans to now shell out for compilation albums, but it might also have had something to do with the fact that its contents spanned the period 1978-1985 and a number of the earliest 45s were increasingly hard to find.

There are 13 tracks all told.  Side One goes from Killing An Arab (1978) through to The Hanging Garden (1982).   For the most part, these seven songs represent The Cure at their most gothic  – well, at least to that point in time, as there was more dark material later in the career.  Only two of the tracks had actually made it into the Top 40 when originally released.

Side Two goes from Let’s Go To Bed (1982) through to Close To Me (1985) and generally represents the more commercially successful era of early Cure, with four of the six songs being top 20 hits.

I remember thinking at the time that the career-spanning compilation was perhaps a sign that Robert Smith & co were considering calling it a day.  Just as well that I never went to a bookie and asked for odds, given that there have been a further seven studio albums and two more singles compilations in the ensuing years, not to mention remix and live releases and the countless tours that have been undertaken.  Smith might now be 64 years of age, but he shows no signs of slowing up.

mp3: The Cure – Primary

Now….at this point I had intended to offer up Primary……but Dirk featured it recently as part of his wonderfully curated 111 singles series.

Primary is not one of their better known singles in that it peaked at #43 in 1981.  It’s the one more than any other which highlights how close they were, melodically speaking, to the early-mid 80s Bunnymen.  Or maybe that’s just me…….

Along with A Forest, this was regularly aired at the ‘dining room disco’ on Saturday nights at Strathclyde Students Union – that was the location where the playlist was eclectic and spanned the years whereas the upstairs Level 8, as well as being the hall in which bands played live, was also the disco where the pop hits of the day would be played.  It was where many of us lay down our raincoats and grooved……

Primary, despite not making the Top 40, was responsible for The Cure’s first ever appearance on Top of The Pops.

And, as Dirk also mentioned, the song was made with two bass guitars and drums.  No keyboards or six-string guitars…..just an innovative use of effects pedals.

So….instead of that, here’s one of the big hits.  A song that is up there with the best 45s from the 80s.

mp3: The Cure – In Between Days

JC

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#019– The Cure – ‚Primary’ (Polydor Records ’81)

Hello friends,

well, back to a band everybody knows and loves: The Cure. Obviously there are easily a dozen singles I could have chosen by The Cure, all of them are perfectly fine in many different ways. But if it comes to numbering them all down to just one, the choice has to be ‘Primary’, I would think.

Yes, at first sight, ‘Primary’ might seem rather an uncharacteristic song to go for – it is unusual in that both Simon Gallup and Robert Smith play bass, with the effects pedals on Smith’s giving the leads a unique sound. There are no guitars (other than bass) or keyboards played in the song. Still, at least to me, it is fascinating how Smith manages to mix this sparse instrumentation and the rapid tempo into something so wonderful. It is often said that his voice is easily his most incredible instrument, and ‘Primary’ shows that there is more than an element of truth in this. Combined with his songwriting ability, his lyrics and his music, his polarizing voice is what makes The Cure so special, so magical in fact.

Taken from The Cure’s third album ‘Faith’, ‘Primary’ seems to be a tale of unrepentant youth and the beauty thereof. The unknowing of just how awful the world and other people can actually be. Apparently Smith felt so strongly about this at the time, that with the lyrics he was, “toying with the idea that it may be better to die very young, innocent and dreaming …. or even to murder as a gift …”. Now, today, to me and you, this may sound complete bollocks of course: but, mind you, we’re approaching 60 very fast and used our old age to learn a little bit about life altogether – but Robert Smith was just 22 when he wrote this tune!

And because this series is also meant to have some educational aspect every once in a while, you’ll be pleased to learn that ‘Primary’ was listed on fan-recorded bootlegs as having the title ‘Cold Colours’, which was the original working title of the song’s demo. This is also known as ‘Primary (Yellow Version)’. The song’s original lyrics, as featured on John Peel’s 1981 Radio session, focus more so on the individual primary colours than in the final version. Basically the only line which survived from the demo version is the ‘Oh oh remember, please don’t change’ – refrain:

mp3:  The Cure – Primary

Of course there is the famous 12-inch single which features a slightly different version of ‘Primary’: it heavily extends the instrumental sections between the verses, which makes the tune even more enjoyable. But today it was the 7” (obviously), which, let’s face facts, wasn’t that bad either, right?

Peace,

Dirk

 

So, I went into the cupboard to pull out the 12″ single that I was going to put onto the turntable and do the whole ripping at 320kpbs for this series.

But the single was sort of sticking to the one sitting next to in the cupboard and the two of them kind of came out together, and thus I found myself in a dilemma as I now wanted to feature both of them.

Dilemma solved.  Two for the price of one today.

Some words written previously back in April 2015:-

The Cure have released 41 singles going back to Killing An Arab in 1978 right through to The Perfect Boy exactly 30 years later. But I would never have guessed that Lullaby was the one that performed the best in the UK singles chart when it crawled its way up to #5 in 1989.

I would have put a fair amount of money that The Lovecats was the holder of that title, but it only scratched its way to #7 in 1983, although I’m guessing that in terms of actual sales it in fact outsold Lullaby.

And even if you told me that the biggest success wasn’t The Lovecats, I’d have then placed whatever was left of my cash on Friday I’m In Love, but this only swooned its way to #6 in 1992.

So the best performing 45 turns out to be the one about the creepy and haunting tale of an eight-legged creature which frightened Robert Smith is in his nightmares as a youngster. Or, is in fact the song, as has been suggested in some places, really about drug addiction and dependency but written in such a way that it gets past the censors at the BBC for the all important airplay?

Either way, I think it’s one of the most inventive arrangements to feature on any record by The Cure.

mp3: The Cure – Lullaby (extended version)

And from December 2013:-

The Best New Order song that Bernard, Hooky, Stephen and Gillian never wrote??

It can’t be denied can it?

mp3 : The Cure – In Between Days

Quite possibly my favourite few minutes from The Cure.  And yes, it is because it so reminds me of Lowlife era New Order. A #15 hit in the UK back in the summer of 1985. Still sounds gorgeous after all this time.

Apologies for the use of repeat postings for the words. I’d like to think you’ll forgive me, given how good the songs are.

JC

I wasn’t sure whether or not to post anything today with the consideration being that it might be beneficial to have the thoughts from yesterday of our anonymous friend remaining to the fore.  In the end, I concluded that most folk who drop in on a regular but not daily basis are quite likely to scroll back a few days, so hopefully, everyone will get the chance to read it.

The title of today’s post is the alleged response of the folk at Fiction Records when Robert Smith presented them with an early rendition of Let’s Go To Bed, the song which really changed the direction of the band and, arguably, enabled them to get onto the path that ensured they would still be making music and selling-out arena/outdoor shows almost 40 years later.

The band’s fourth studio album, Pornography, had been released in May 1982. It was a difficult listen – my initial reaction was that it made the two Joy Division albums sound as upbeat as a Bucks Fizz record – with it later transpiring that the recording sessions had been dominated by in-fighting among the band members, heavy drug use and the frontman dealing with very serious depression that later saw him shutting himself away for an extended period of time among the splendour, beauty and fresh air of the Lake District in north-west England.

It was during this spell that Smith determined he would take the band in a slightly different direction, partly enabled by the fact that bassist Simon Gallup left the line-up, leaving things as just a duo alongside Lol Tolhurst. He set out to write a song that was far removed from the doom and gloom of goth-rock with which he was associated, but he later admitted many years later in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2004 that he was sure it was going to fail.

In the end, it proved only to be a minor hit in the UK, stalling at #44 in November 1982, but that was no bad outcome since, up to that point, none of their songs had gone Top 30 in the singles chart. It turned out, however, that the song became a decent-sized radio hit in the USA with a noticeable change in the type of audiences who were coming along to the live shows, all of which empowered Smith to decide to continue in a similar vein with the next two singles in the UK being The Walk and The Love Cats, which reached #13 and #7 respectively in the summer of 1983, a period which coincided with him moonlighting with The Banshees whose cover of Dear Prudence went to #3, all of which meant he was something of a regular on our TV screens via Top of The Pops etc.

Let’s Go To Bed is a fabulous pop single, complete with the do-do-do-do sing-along bit that must have caused the goths all sorts of nightmares at the time. It also comes with a fantastic b-side which kind of bridges the gap between the old and new of The Cure, with its introductory bass notes, tempo, and instrumentation harking back to A Forest.

And here, from an original piece of plastic dating back to 1983, are the two side of the 12″ single:-

mp3: The Cure – Let’s Go To Bed
mp3: The Cure – Just One Kiss000000000000000000

You can easily find cleaner copies of these tunes in many places but I make no apologies for the hissing and crackling all the way through…at least it doesn’t jump or skip anywhere.

Both of these take me back to the downstairs, alt-disco in the student union building at Strathclyde University – lots of hair-gel, black clothes, a raincoat and non-stop ecstatic dancing.

JC

A GUEST SERIES

4 – Pictures of You – The Cure (1990, Fiction Records)

Released as a single in March 1990, (Reached Number 27)

There was of course an eleventh commandment scrawled by God on the stone tablet at the top of Mount Arafat when Moses came looking for them that sunny Thursday a few years back. The eleventh one, only just fitted on the rock. It said ‘Thou must never, ever, not even as a joke, or to be ironic, ever, full stop, wear double denim”.

The editor of the music pages at the student rag when I started was a long-haired double denim wearing Poison fan called Jonno. He one true aim in life was to turn the music section into a soft rock mecca, a place where Guns N Roses and Pearl Jam were kings and bands like The Pastels were publicly ridiculed for being bed wetters.

Jonno was also good mates with the band we now know as Knobheads. Knobheads were due to play a gig in the Union on Wednesday night, and Jonno couldn’t go so he was sending me out to review the gig. I reluctantly agreed, I was a bit annoyed because I’d already promised a mate, that I would go for a pint with him and besides I’d listened to Knobheads self-financed CD, ‘Crapsticks’ just yesterday (it wasn’t really called Crapsticks) and it was awful. In fact it was bilge, pish, shite, septic discharge and other words usually used to describe something wet and smelly. This was something I intended to tell the student population about in print in next weeks paper. I’d given it 1 and a half out ten. The musical equivalent of being stabbed up the arse by Piers Morgan.

The night of the gig came along. The Union was sort of half full, students encouraged along by the promise of cheap spirits and half-price bottled lager, which sort of became the norm for Wednesday night in the Union, I grabbed myself a bottle of Becks and gravitated to the back of the hall already knowing that this would be awful.

It was then that I saw her. Standing next to a pillar, dressed in a Chumbawamba t-shirt and black jeans, vodka (which turned out to be Malibu) and coke in one hand, cigarette in the other, she oozed cool and she was beautiful, easily the most stunning thing I’d seen in, well, ever.

The band walked on to a ripple of applause, I barely noticed, my eyes kept wandering around the room looking for Chumbawamba girl.

Enough Is Enough – Chumbawamba (1993, One Little Indian, Number 56)

She looked bored, in fact she looked unhappy. I decided that I was going to talk to her. She was off to the bar, one of the few quiet spots in the place. I decided that it was now or never. I ambled over.

“They’re terrible aren’t they…?” I said to her, casually leaning on one elbow, skilfully avoiding the beer slops on the bar. She looked at me and nodded, “Pretty boys with guitars”. Silence. Say something, my brain told me. I garbled something out about seeing Chumbawamba a few weeks back in London. It worked, she stayed still. We talked, we exchanged names, the minutes flew by. The band finished. We barely noticed. We were talking about whether or not Jock Young was right about drugs or not (sorry that is a very niche Sociology joke).

It was close to eleven and the bar was starting to empty, I didn’t really want to go anywhere, we didn’t notice Knobheads (or two of them) ambled over. This was annoying because I was just about to ask CG if she wanted a cup of tea.

The guitarist of Knobheads came over, his dreadlocks sticking to his face, came up to Chumbawamba girl and hugged her. This was interesting. She never mentioned a boyfriend, certainly had never mentioned that she knew the band that I’d just spent half an hour slagging off in front of her. I mean, you would say – “Look, chap, I understand you don’t like them, but you see that bloke playing guitar, well me and him, we are together”. I started to rewrite that review in my mind.

I stood there, analysing the situation, they did look very close, I mean she is laughing at his jokes. Good friends perhaps, brother and sister maybe? I introduced myself. “Yeah, I know you” the guitarist said. “Jonno, tells us you don’t like our music, man”. That is what he said. He virtually spat the word ‘man’ at me. “Ah, well..” I said, “We can’t all be the Smashing Pumpkins” and immediately regretted it, although CG did smirk as I said it.

Then he pushed me and luckily I fell back against the bar. Now, I’m no fighter, anyone will tell you that, which is a shame because I’m a sarky bugger, I always have a quip for the wrong occasion, and actually knowing how to punch someone would have on occasion, been a good thing. This being one of those occasions.

Street Fighting Man – The Rolling Stones (1968, London Records, Number 21)

I decided to cut my losses and told CG that I was going, and that I really wanted a cup of tea. She nodded and said, if I hung on a minute she’d come with me. So I stood there, like a lemon for about five minutes, whilst the guitarist out of Knobheads slowly killed me with murderous looks as he got closer and closer to CG. Just before CG left he took her to one side and she slowly touched his arm and shook her head.

We left together. CG and I. We sat in the café on campus that doubled up as a computer lab and finished our chat about drugs, deviance and her liking of really cheesy dance music over several cups of weak tea and a few Jaffa Cakes. I was enthralled by the way she sat, the way she drank, the way she ate, breathed, smiled, walked, talked, listened. I still am.

Ecuador – Sash (1997, Polygram Records, Number 2)

Then on her doorstep at three am, we kissed.

SWC

 

 

It was exactly six years ago today that I had a quick look at In Between Days by The Cure, together with the exceptional b-sides made available on the 12” vinyl here in the UK:-

mp3 : The Cure – The Exploding Boy
mp3 : The Cure – A Few Hours After This

It proved to be a very popular posting with a number of folk coming in to offer their own positive thoughts and views via the comments section. I thought it would be worth marking the anniversary with a look at the follow-up single, a track that was lifted off the album The Head on The Door:-

mp3 : The Cure – Close To Me

There were very significant changes made to the version that was released as a 45 in September 1985, namely the addition of a squeaky door and brass section.

mp3 : The Cure – Close To Me (7” version)

It’s one of the catchiest and memorable releases of the band’s entire career and deserved a far better fate than stalling at #24. It also came with a top-quality b-side, offering further evidence that the band were very much in their ‘imperial phase’ (copyright, Echorich)

mp3 : The Cure – A Man Inside My Mouth

A jazzy, fun-filled extended version, coming in at over six minutes in length, was also put together, demonstrating that Robert Smith & co. were as far removed from the gloomy goths that many in the media were lazily portraying them:-

mp3 : The Cure – Close To Me (12” version)

The single was also accompanied by one of the most memorable promotional videos of all time. Here’s the description offered up by wiki:-

Written and directed by the band’s frequent music video director Tim Pope, it consists of the band all inside a wardrobe on the edge of a cliff at Beachy Head.

Following the musical scheme of the song, which builds up instrumentally, all the band members are inside the wardrobe, but not playing instruments. Boris Williams is clapping to the beat, keyboardist Lol Tolhurst is playing a very small, handheld keyboard, and Porl Thompson on the top shelf is plucking a comb to represent the short high sounds in the song. Bassist Simon Gallup does not play, and instead appears to be tied up. Tim Pope later revealed that Gallup had a light bulb in his mouth to create a “lit from within” feel, and the cloth was there to hide the wire.

Robert Smith then comes from the back of the wardrobe and sings, also playing with finger puppets, which appear to be voodoo dolls of the band members, as when he moves them, the corresponding member moves. He then becomes more violent with the dolls, shaking them around heavily, which in turn causes the band members to hit into the sides of the wardrobe, which eventually results in the wardrobe falling off the cliff and into the sea. As they go into the sea, the wardrobe fills up slowly with water, like a capsized ship, but the band members continue to play their “instruments.” The video ends with the wardrobe full of water and a band member pushing a rubber duck across the screen.

The promo continued to be aired long after the single had come and gone from the charts, leading to the situation that Close To Me, over the years, would come to be arguably the most instantly recognisable of all their songs.

Fast forward to October 1990 and the news that The Cure intend to issue an album of remixes of some of their most popular songs alongside some re-recordings of the older material, with an eye on having them fit for the floors of indie and alt-discos. A month prior to the release of the album, and a remix single was issued as a taster:-

mp3 : The Cure – Close To Me (Closest Mix)

The remix treatment came courtesy of Paul Oakenfold and was engineered by Steve Osbourne, both of whom had helped Happy Mondays into the charts earlier in the year.

A slightly longer version was issued on 12”:-

mp3 : The Cure – Close To Me (Closer Mix)

It would have been really easy just to re-heat the old promo to go with the remix, but they came up with something of a genius idea. Here’s wiki again:-

There is also a music video for the version of the song that appeared on Mixed Up. The video picked up where the original video ended, with the wardrobe crashing down the cliffside and sinking to the bottom of the sea. Robert exits first and is attacked by an octopus (seen playing the horns later in the video). After his struggle, the other band members try to flee as well, and are attacked by a starfish. The video ends without any of the band members reaching the surface, though they could see a boat overhead.

The remix version of the song, despite coming out only five years after the original, reached #13 in the UK singles chart, reflecting the fact that the late 80s/early 90s were the high-point, sales-wise for the band (the next studio album, Wish, released in 1992 would provide them with their sole #1 LP).

Close To Me, in either of its versions, still sounds fresh and exciting and the live renditions in the shows of 2019 inevitably received just about the biggest cheers of any night.

JC

A GUEST POSTING by TIM BADGER

Where do you start when writing an Imaginary Compilation Album on a band who have roughly twenty albums worth of material to choose from? There are studio albums, live albums, singles albums, B sides albums, remix albums and countless live albums worth of stuff, all of which are worthy of consideration.

For instance there is somewhere in existence a bootleg release of The Cure’s MTV Unplugged Show in which one of the band plays a toy piano throughout ‘Close To Me’ – it is far better than any version of that song that has ever been commercially released and yet can I find it on the Internet, no I can’t. I know that the Lovely Angela had a version of it because I remember listening to it in her bedroom whilst she made me a Vodka Collins.

An hour before I sat down to write this I had narrowed it down to 43 songs which is nowhere near short enough. Then my wife comes in and asks how I was getting on – me having shut myself away for a few hours to do it and so I told her.

She sighs, and tells me and I wrote this down word for word – “If you stop your silly Goth boy reminiscing over ‘the Lovely Angela’ (she included the finger quote thing) and actually thought about it you would realise that you only actually need to own six cure albums – ‘Seventeen Seconds’, ‘Japanese Whispers’, ‘The Head On The door’, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’, ‘Disintegration’ and ‘Wish’. There’s a cup of tea on the table there for you“ and with that she turns around and walks back out of the room.

Now, after a number of years of marriage I have learnt not to argue with Mrs Badger, particularly where ‘the Lovely Angela’ is concerned, so I reflect on her statement and I immediately stop the silly Goth Boy Reminiscing and then I focus and I remove all the tracks on my list that are not from one of the six albums she mentioned and unbelievably I am left with 12 tracks, and losing two is pretty easy.

So with no further ado, here at last is the compilation on The Cure.

Side One

Just Like Heaven (from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me)

Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was the sixth Cure album and is if you had to list them probably their second greatest album. This was the Cure in the pomp, comedy lipstick, massive hair and it slowly took them into a world of arenas and festival headlights. I am duty bound to include this what with it being played at my wedding, but also it has to be included because it is simply a delight and one of the greatest singles of all time.

Play For Today (From Seventeen Seconds)

In the very early eighties, The Cure went a bit weird and after drinking too much they sort of invented Gothic Rock or rather they sort of redefined Gothic Rock. They did this by recording an album in a cupboard on a shoestring budget. This result was this spooky, minimalist masterpiece and ‘Play For Today’ is epitome of that stark, elegant and probably best listened to in front of a smoke machine whilst dressed in black.

Doing The Unstuck (from ‘Wish’)

I love ‘Wish’, I think between say 1987 and 1995 the Cure did very little wrong. They sashayed between being mopey doom mongers to being gloriously playful pop superstars and ‘Wish’ gets that spot on. There is a bit on ‘Doing The Unstuck’ in which Bob sings “Its Never too late to get up and GO!” the ‘Go’ bit is almost shouted. For millions around the world, when Bob Smith was happy, pretty much all was well in the world.

Let’s Go To Bed (from ‘Japanese Whispers’)

After three gloomy goth albums, the Cure resurfaced in late 1982 with ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ a terrifically upbeat single in which they appeared to have abandoned the doom and bought a trumpet. The result was outstanding. Lovecats soon followed and The Cure cemented themselves as rocks biggest bunch of teasers.

The Same Deep Water As You (from ‘Disintegration’)

‘Disintegration’ is of course, the Cure’s best album. It is a Goth masterpiece. There is more relentess imagery of death and drama here than anywhere else. It is full of eight minute songs (or ten in this case) about drowning and at times it is unbearably sad. But push that to one side (gently, it’s fragile) and it is an album of such beauty and emotion that you really cannot ignore it. ‘The Same Deep Water As You’ is I think the stand out track hypnotic, sad, shimmering and beautiful.

Side Two

Open (from ‘Wish’)

‘Wish’ is the last truly outstanding Cure album. ‘Open’ is the first track off that and kind of sets the scene for the rest of the album. The songs here are big and designed for the arenas that they were easily filling by now. This song is a reflective look back at drinking and in it Smith’s vocals just get wilder and wilder.

Pictures of You (from ‘Disintegration’)

The story goes according to my wife that shortly before The Cure recorded ‘Disintegration’ a fire broke out at Smith’s house. In the damage he came across a collection of photos of his wife and that inspired this song.

For me I love it because of these lyrics

“Remembering you standing quiet in the rain, As I ran to your heart to be near/And we kissed as the sky fell in/Holding you close/How I always held close in your fear.”

Well it’s just beautiful isn’t it.

In Between Days (from ‘The Head On The Door’)

Another track that is truly wonderful and for years and years was the ring tone on my phone for whenever Mrs Badger phoned me. It’s just one of those songs that I will never tire of hearing.

Shiver and Shake (from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me)

Another reason why Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is so glorious is the way it fluctuates from being wonderfully happy to being dramatically sad before at the (near) end, you get this the angriest, bitterest, most shouty song that The Cure ever recorded. Also in the really angry bits Bob sounds a little bit like Kermit the Frog and that is worth hearing.

Sinking (from ‘The Head On the Door’)

Let’s end on a happy note, or rather lets end with a lush murmuring sigh. A song that lives up to its name, it kinds of descends with every note, and that break near the end, its just beautiful.

So there we have it. An ICA on The Cure, eventually and if that doesn’t win the next ICA World Cup then something is wrong with the world.

TIM

A GUEST POSTING by TIM BADGER

JC writes……..

I know that many of you who appreciate the work of Tim and his erstwhile colleagues SWC and KT get a particular enjoyment from the fact they bring their stories alive with people from their past histories.  ‘Our Price Girl’ has been a real favourite but I’ve a feeling she has a new rival given yesterday and today’s musings.

Here’s Tim….

Where do you start when writing an Imaginary Compilation Album on a band who have roughly twenty albums worth of material to choose from? There are studio albums, live albums, singles albums, B sides albums, remix albums and countless live albums worth of stuff, all of which are worthy of consideration.

For instance there is somewhere in existence a bootleg release of The Cure’s MTV Unplugged Show in which one of the band plays a toy piano throughout ‘Close To Me’ – it is far better than any version of that song that has ever been commercially released and yet can I find it on the Internet, no I can’t. I know that the Lovely Angela had a version of it because I remember listening to it in her bedroom whilst she made me a Vodka Collins.

An hour before I sat down to write this I had narrowed it down to 43 songs which is nowhere near short enough. Then my wife comes in and asks how I was getting on – me having shut myself away for a few hours to do it and so I told her.

She sighs, and tells me and I wrote this down word for word – “If you stop your silly Goth boy reminiscing over ‘the Lovely Angela’ (she included the finger quote thing) and actually thought about it you would realise that you only actually need to own six cure albums – ‘Seventeen Seconds’, ‘Japanese Whispers’, ‘The Head On The door’, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’, ‘Disintegration’ and ‘Wish’. There’s a cup of tea on the table there for you“ and with that she turns around and walks back out of the room.

Now, after a number of years of marriage I have learnt not to argue with Mrs Badger, particularly where ‘the Lovely Angela’ is concerned, so I reflect on her statement and I immediately stop the silly Goth Boy Reminiscing and then I focus and I remove all the tracks on my list that are not from one of the six albums she mentioned and unbelievably I am left with 12 tracks, and losing two is pretty easy.

So with no further ado, here at last is the compilation on The Cure.

Side One

Just Like Heaven (from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me)

Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was the sixth Cure album and is if you had to list them probably their second greatest album. This was the Cure in the pomp, comedy lipstick, massive hair and it slowly took them into a world of arenas and festival headlights. I am duty bound to include this what with it being played at my wedding, but also it has to be included because it is simply a delight and one of the greatest singles of all time.

Play For Today (From Seventeen Seconds)

In the very early eighties, The Cure went a bit weird and after drinking too much they sort of invented Gothic Rock or rather they sort of redefined Gothic Rock. They did this by recording an album in a cupboard on a shoestring budget. This result was this spooky, minimalist masterpiece and ‘Play For Today’ is epitome of that stark, elegant and probably best listened to in front of a smoke machine whilst dressed in black.

Doing The Unstuck (from ‘Wish’)

I love ‘Wish’, I think between say 1987 and 1995 the Cure did very little wrong. They sashayed between being mopey doom mongers to being gloriously playful pop superstars and ‘Wish’ gets that spot on. There is a bit on ‘Doing The Unstuck’ in which Bob sings “Its Never too late to get up and GO!” the ‘Go’ bit is almost shouted. For millions around the world, when Bob Smith was happy, pretty much all was well in the world.

Let’s Go To Bed (from ‘Japanese Whispers’)

After three gloomy goth albums, the Cure resurfaced in late 1982 with ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ a terrifically upbeat single in which they appeared to have abandoned the doom and bought a trumpet. The result was outstanding. Lovecats soon followed and The Cure cemented themselves as rocks biggest bunch of teasers.

The Same Deep Water As You (from ‘Disintegration’)

‘Disintegration’ is of course, the Cure’s best album. It is a Goth masterpiece. There is more relentess imagery of death and drama here than anywhere else. It is full of eight minute songs (or ten in this case) about drowning and at times it is unbearably sad. But push that to one side (gently, it’s fragile) and it is an album of such beauty and emotion that you really cannot ignore it. ‘The Same Deep Water As You’ is I think the stand out track hypnotic, sad, shimmering and beautiful.

Side Two

Open (from ‘Wish’)

‘Wish’ is the last truly outstanding Cure album. ‘Open’ is the first track off that and kind of sets the scene for the rest of the album. The songs here are big and designed for the arenas that they were easily filling by now. This song is a reflective look back at drinking and in it Smith’s vocals just get wilder and wilder.

Pictures of You (from ‘Disintegration’)

The story goes according to my wife that shortly before The Cure recorded ‘Disintegration’ a fire broke out at Smith’s house. In the damage he came across a collection of photos of his wife and that inspired this song.

For me I love it because of these lyrics

“Remembering you standing quiet in the rain, As I ran to your heart to be near/And we kissed as the sky fell in/Holding you close/How I always held close in your fear.”

Well it’s just beautiful isn’t it.

In Between Days (from ‘The Head On The Door’)

Another track that is truly wonderful and for years and years was the ring tone on my phone for whenever Mrs Badger phoned me. It’s just one of those songs that I will never tire of hearing.

Shiver and Shake (from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me)

Another reason why Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is so glorious is the way it fluctuates from being wonderfully happy to being dramatically sad before at the (near) end, you get this the angriest, bitterest, most shouty song that The Cure ever recorded. Also in the really angry bits Bob sounds a little bit like Kermit the Frog and that is worth hearing.

Sinking (from ‘The Head On the Door’)

Let’s end on a happy note, or rather lets end with a lush murmuring sigh. A song that lives up to its name, it kinds of descends with every note, and that break near the end, its just beautiful.

So there we have it. An ICA on The Cure, eventually and if that doesn’t win the next ICA World Cup then something is wrong with the world.

TIM

Wiki advises that the discography of The Cure consists of thirteen studio albums, five live albums, ten compilation albums, ten extended plays and thirty-seven singles, together ten video albums and forty-three music videos.

It all began in December 1978 with a release on the indie label Small Wonder that operated out of a record shop of the same name in the east end of London.

mp3 : The Cure – Killing An Arab

It’s impossible to imagine a song with such a title being given any sort of release these days; let’s just say that any singer or band would likely find themselves at the rough end of some serious protests, on-line and in person at gigs or other personal appearances. Nobody would pay any attention to the explanation behind the title and subject matter, namely that it is concerned entirely with an incident in a famous French novel dating back to the 1940s, and instead the songwriter would be accused of stirring up racial hatred. Indeed, such is the emotion around the words ‘Killing An Arab’ that this very post might attract some nutters directed here via a search engine or two. If so, please go away….this is, as you can see, a blog about music and not a place where you get dodgy advice to further destabilise the world.

Robert Smith has, on a number of instances over the years, admitted he had rather given the song an alternative title. It was one he wrote while he was still at school and hugely influenced by the issues that abound throughout L’Etranger by Albert Camus, and as such is meant to be a high-brow and clever effort rather than any racist call-to-arms. Sadly, it has been hijacked as such by far too many people and it has also, understandably, been banished from the nation’s airwaves over the years as we go from one Middle-Eastern conflict to the next…..although, sadly, for every station that has banned it there seem to be just as many who rejoice in playing it having missed the whole point completely.

There was actually very little in the way of protest back in 1978, as can be evidenced by the fact that Fiction Records, to whom the band had just signed, would re-release the single three months later. It was a single that was well received by the critics, with a number of favourable reviews in the weekly music papers, but this didn’t translate into any huge numbers of sales. It would take until April 1980, and the release of their fourth single, A Forest, before there was real commercial success, after which there was no stopping them.

Killing An Arab came with an equally enjoyable track, one whose sound was akin to the post-punk minimalist-style that was being played by bands such as Talking Heads but with a lyric that captured the misery and frustration of being a bored teenager:-

mp3 : The Cure – 10:15 Saturday Night

Indeed, it was the b-side rather than the a-side that got The Cure signed to Fiction Records.

Is the debut their best ever single? I don’t think there’s many who would make that claim. But what is? I genuinely can’t answer that as it changes on a regular basis depending on my particular mood.

JC

Here’s a band that I’ve had three or four goes at trying to do an ICA but howver much I push it around it always ends up just being full of great singles.

These tunes are lifted from a 12″ single released away back in 1990 which featured a top-notch b-side as well as a radical remix of an earlier single:-

mp3 : The Cure – Never Enough (Big Mix)
mp3 : The Cure – Harold and Joe
mp3 : The Cure – Let’s Go To Bed (Milk Mix)

And while I’m here, in celebration of the fact that The Twilight Sad have been opening for The Cure throughout the world tour of 2016….

mp3 : Robert Smith – There’s A Girl In The Corner

B-side to It Was Never The Same, the Sad’s final single of 2015.

Enjoy.

In 1986, The Cure enjoyed huge sales thanks to the release of Standing On A Beach, a 13-track compilation of all the band’s singles up to that point. Reaching #4 in the album charts, it was up until that point the biggest selling and highest placed of any of their records and there’s no doubt it increased both their profile and their fan base.

Just four years later, the band and record label tried a similar trick with the release of Mixed Up, this time an 11-track compilation comprising different mixes of 10 old singles and one brand new song. Released towards the end of November 1990, it was a great bit of marketing as it was sure to find its way onto many a Xmas list….

The album was a big success hitting #8 in the UK charts but more importantly climbing to #14 in the US album charts and thus maintaining the momentum from the success of the previous year’s Disintegration.

Mixed Up was supported by the release of two singles – the aforementioned new song which was Never Enough as well as the re-issue, re-package and remix of a single from 1985:-

mp3 : The Cure – Close To Me (Closest Mix)

The information on the CD single says

Produced by Robert Smith and David M Allen (Horns by Real Party) (1985)
Remixed by Paul Oakenfold and Engineered by Steve Osborne, June 1990

The remix proved more popular than the original reaching #13 in the charts as opposed to #24 back in 1985 – proof if any was needed that The Cure were now a band with more followers and admirers than ever before.

The two other tracks were also remixes of earlier singles, but which didn’t make the final cut for the Mixed Up album:-

mp3 : The Cure – Just Like Heaven (Dizzy Mix)

Produced by Robert Smith and David M Allen (1987)
Remixed by Bryan ‘Chuck’ New, September 1990

mp3 : The Cure – Primary (Red Mix)

Produced by Robert Smith and Mike Hedges (1981)
Remixed by Keith Le Blanc, September 1990

Personally, I’m not convinced by either remix, but then again I was, and remain, a big fan of the original versions.

Enjoy.

The Cure have released 41 singles going back to Killing An Arab in 1978 right through to The Perfect Boy exactly 30 years later. But I would never have guessed that Lullaby was the one that performed the best in the UK singles chart when it crawled its way up to #5 in 1989.

I would have put a fair amount of money that The Lovecats was the holder of that title, but it only scratched its way to #7 in 1983, although I’m guessing that in terms of actual sales it in fact outsold Lullaby.

And even if you told me that the biggest success wasn’t The Lovecats, I’d have then placed whatever was left of my cash on Friday I’m In Love, but this only swooned its way to #6 in 1992.

So the best performing 45 turns out to be the one about the creepy and haunting tale of an eight-legged creature that frightened Robert Smith is in his nightmares as a youngster. Or, is in fact the song, as has been suggested in some places, really about drug addiction and dependency but written in such a way that it gets past the censors at the BBC for the all important airplay?

Either way, I think its one of the most inventive arrangements to feature on any record by The Cure, and once more I’ve dug out the 12″ single from the cupboard for you all to enjoy once more along with two rather decent b-sides:-

mp3 : The Cure – Lullaby (extended mix)
mp3 : The Cure – Babble
mp3 : The Cure – Out Of Mind

Enjoy

 

TEARS OF A CLOWN

The Cure : Mint Car

Ok I’m going to be blunt here. Mint Car features on The Cure album Wild Mood Swings. It is the best song on that album.  I think its fair to say that Wild Mood Swings was the not The Cure’s finest moment. In fact I’d go as far as to say it’s their worst album by some way (Disintegration being their best and I’d take anyone outside who wants to argue).

mp3 : The Cure – Mint Car

I’m also not going to sit here and tell you about The Cure, where they formed, and all that – you know that, surely. They have some great records, no scratch that, they have some wonderful records, again most of which you will own, know, or played the hell out of. There are a great singles band and just for the hell of it and just in case there is someone out there who has never heard The Cure, the best three Cure singles to start your collection with are Just Like Heaven, Pictures of You and Lovesong (the first and third songs being two of the greatest love songs ever written). Mint Car is about twenty sixth on that list. Just above A Forest.

mp3 : The Cure – Just Like Heaven (acoustic)
mp3 : The Cure – Pictures Of You
mp3 : The Cure – Lovesong (acoustic)

So I’m going to talk about crying instead (in a very round about kind of way – and yes I know this is a music blog), and the reason why is this. My one year old has been poorly this week she has been a small fiery mixture of tears, snot, gunge and regurgitated carrot. She’s  fine now though, thanks for asking. A few days ago I drove her to the beach where she likes to run around a bit, well I say run, more stagger, totter and then fall over, but you get my drift. Anyway, we were driving home and I had Guess The Year on Radio Devon on the stereo, (yes Radio Devon, I happen to like Guess the Year with Shep, shut up) and it was 1979 (I got it quite early on, the DJ caters to the low common denominator…”this was the year Margaret Thatcher came to power”, was one of the clues).

Then, all of a sudden, the DJ played a blinder, as I sat in traffic waiting to head homewards, he played Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel and by the end of it I was a fiery mixture of tears, snot and gunge (no regurgitated carrot).

I have no shame in admitting this, it’s a sad song, about rabbits.  I like rabbits.But it did make me think.  It joins a short list of now four records that have made me cry (to be honest it does it most times and if you don’t find it sad, you have a waxy pea sized heart), I won’t bore you with the other three  A Natural by Whipping Boy,  Shine a Light by Spiritualized and Hurt by Johnny Cash ) but would be intrigued to know which songs make you blub, I don’t care about the reasons, unless you want to share (Group Hug, anyone?), just interested. Sniff.

(Oh and I would like to apologise for all the brackets in this piece, sorry).

S-WC

JC adds

My list extends to way beyind four, but then again lots of music can turn me into an emotional gibbering wreck – especially if I’m had too much to drink.

The most recent would have been on the occasion of the burial of my young brother a few years back.  It was the result of a car accident, it happened in the west of Ireland and the responsibility of getting the family over there from Scotland fell on my shoulders as did a few other tasks in Ireland.  I held everything together till the very last second until the first notes of the music to accompany the coffin disappearing to where the cremation would take place.  It was a piece  selected by the funeral director (the family really had no idea what would be appropriate as we had no idea what my young brother’s tastes were) and it was Time To Say Goodbye by Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli.  And ever since, I’ve never been able to hear that song without losing it…

There’s been loads of times the use of a song in a film has had me crying – most notably at the end of Control (the song being Atmosphere by Joy Division).  And which Smiths fan hasn’t at some point lost it at least once when he or she his listening to I Know It’s Over……

I’ll stop there.

There’s been something like 40 singles released by The Cure over the years of which eleven have hit the UK Top 20 and could justifiably be called a big hit.  Two of the best known are The Love Cats (1983) and In Between Days (1985) but the one single released in the period between those two was this from March 1984:-

mp3 : The Cure – The Caterpillar

It’s not an obvious hit single. It’s very unconventional and sounds in places as if it is a highly improvised and almost free-form piece of music to a lyric which in places is incredibly romantic in its imagery and at other times sounds like a childish nursery rhyme.  From recollection, it got very little in the way of daytime radio exposure but such was the popularity of The Cure at the time that it soared to #14 in the singles chart.

The b-side of the single is also a strange but brilliantly gothic  bit of music:-

mp3 : The Cure – Happy The Man

The 12″ version contained identical versions of those songs but with a bonus track which was altogether more poppy:-

mp3 : The Cure – Throw Your Foot

Enjoy!!

it can’t be denied can it?

mp3 : The Cure – In Between Days

Quite possibly my favourite few minutes from The Cure.  And yes, it is because it so reminds me of Lowlife era New Order. A #15 hit in the UK back in the summer of 1985. Still sounds gorgeous after all this time.

It’s one I’ve had on 12″ vinyl since its initial release.  Here’s yer rather splendid b-sides :-

mp3 : The Cure – The Exploding Boy

mp3 : The Cure – A Few Hours After This

Three excellent tracks on one 12″ single.  What more can you ask for?

Enjoy