Category: Cure

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