While I always loved the new wave bands that made it to radio, my musical journey took a significant change in routes.
The Cure hit the kind of commercial and artistic heights that few bands can achieve with 1989s Disintegration and 1992s Wish. Over 30 years later, it's not surprising these achievements overshadow everything else.
Contemporary fans may have had a hard time realizing this at the time, but everything is possible when you are young, and if we are being honest, rock was still new. The U2 or REM (or Beatles-Stones) conundrum is real. Continue to churn out albums that are pale imitation of predecessors or break up and keep the legacy intact?
The Cure chose to continue.
The band's trajectory was unusual though. By the time they had mainstream radio play, they had been around 15 years- a string of iconic singles compiled in 1986 for Standing on a Beach. In my mind the preceding albums 1985s The Head on the Door and 1987s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me are every bit as great as the more well known two that followed.
And that's my opinion.
Heck- those early Cure albums (along with their compatriot Siouxsie and the Banshees) essentially created genres that followed and are considered cult classics. Even the debut of Three Imaginary Boys (resequenced and released in the US as Boys Don't Cry) is shockingly timeless and likely more regarded now than it was 30 years ago.
But following their peak, the Cure could never quite find that next great recipe. It's funny that at the time, Disintegration was considered an instant classic and Wish was weirdly upbeat for a band known for depressive songs. I think most Cure fans have come around to Wish, but subsequent albums are largely unloved.
I have a soft spot for 1996s Wild Mood Swings which strived to do what it said on the cover- jumping styles and emotions. It feels overlong (though it's surprisingly shorter than Wish) and maybe a more selective edit could have saved it.
The Cure strives to advertise 2000s Bloodflowers as the final chapter of a trilogy of classic albums with Pornography and Disintegration. Try as I might though, I never found much to like about the album. Reviews varied and though it had the traditional sound, it was to some ears, uninspired.
In 2004, the band tried something new that sounded intriguing on paper, working with Ross Robinson who had produced the biggest Nu Metal albums of all time, working with Limp Bizkit, Korn and Slipknot.
That eponymous 12th album is better than its reputation with “The End of the World” worthy of inclusion on a greatest hits compilation, and in general, it's a pretty good end-to-end listen even if it doesn't break any kind of new ground.
Which brings us to the last time we had a Cure album.
It's hard to believe it was in 2008 when we got 4:13 Dream. While it has some fans, I found it, as many did, a fairly generic album that tried to recapture some past glories but is ultimately one of the worst albums of their career.
Songs of A Lost World comes not only with much delay but also a ton of positive reviews out of the gate.
The shock may be that it's as good as advertised. The 2024 version of The Cure has added Reeves Gabriel of Tin Machine on guitar (Of note, the band also re-added Roger O'Connell and Perry Bamonte who were major contributors to Disintegration and Wish respectively but had been jettisoned for the four piece outfit on 4:13 Wish).
This feels like a cheap review but there does seem to be a lot of truth to the fact that Gabriels's guitar work is the element to make the band sound fresh. It's maybe even a little jarring upon initial listens, but in quick order, it feels like an important ingredient in the final product.
It's also probably a bit unfair to the rhythm section too, who are equally captivating here. While from a quality control point of view, paring down to eight songs as opposed to 14 or 15 as the last two records, means we get the “all killer, no filler” vibe.
I think some of the newness will wear off - a New York Post review calls it the Best Rock of the Album of the year- but it should also stand up. After a couple of decades or more of trying to recapture a sound, it seemed that everything just fell into place.
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