The Cure
The Cure [UK edition] / The End Of The World [CD single]

I consider myself among those who carry The Cure "first in the heart and then to the grave" (assuming I’m not already unknowingly in the latter circumstance), I didn’t stop at "Pornography" (the extreme limit of the First Hour Purists) nor at "Wish," the guitar-driven counterpoint to "Disintegration" (perhaps in the end the most complete and organically integrated, contradicting the title, album by the band from Crawley); and yet after that, from "Wild Mood Swings" to "Bloodflowers," to the various compilations, and also the rather hasty closure of Fiction Records, the label that Chris Perry decided to open as a subsidiary of Polydor specifically for The Cure, the question I find myself asking more and more often is "why?"

I understand that Perry, after capitalizing on the first place for three consecutive times in the world charts of a not-so-accessible group (like U2 or Depeche Mode, for example), thought it wise to sell the entire Cure catalog to Universal, and that officially this may have offended Robert Smith’s sensitivity, even if unofficially the leader of The Cure might not have been too displeased to increase the power of distribution channels, production means, and American budgets by moving from Fiction to Geffen.

Official squabbles and "breaking ranks" aside, the question is indeed "why." If "Wild Mood Swings" was partly unjustly drowned in fierce criticism, with material that an inspired Robert Smith rarely experienced in the tapes, why not a different selection of tracks? Why then release a monochrome album with blatant drops in style like "Bloodflowers" (which initially was supposed to sound like the outtakes "Possession" and "Coming Up," and perhaps even "Signal To Noise," thus quite different from still fascinating pieces like "Watching Me Fall," "Bloodflowers," and especially "The Last Day Of Summer")? Why this 180-degree change in the creative lines the band (by Smith’s own admission) was taking? We might also ask why entrust production, controversial from the news itself, to Ross Robinson (at the mixer for Korn and Slipknot), with people like Flood and Reznor around, and this could go on for a long time, from collaboration with Blink-182, to backing vocals of a Bee Gees cover on Billy Corgan’s solo album (Bee Gees?? So those who listen to "Parsifal" might not be all that wrong...); but the problem is indeed the album titled "The Cure." Of which there exist 3 versions, one (the most "economical" and widespread) ends the tracks with the remarkable "The Promise," stylistically speaking a kind of updated and elongated "The Kiss," more psychedelic with that highly effective invocation repeated infinitely "and I am waiting..." suspended in the void, opposed to the power pop of "The End Of The World," once again an E.P. detested (now this is the worst single ever, instead of "The 13th"); a second "Enhanced CD" version including the "bonus track" titled "Going Nowhere," immediately loved by the fans (here the reminiscences lead instead to "Homesick"), and finally a third version, "Limited UK" where I stop ("just one second, please...") because it is here that, to use the saying that seems to refer to the ancient port city on the Black Sea, it seems to the writer that Robert Smith has lost the proverbial Trebisonda.

"The first thing I always did when I got my hands on a new single was to flip it over and listen to the B-side: I always expected the B-side to give me a good impression, but at the same time different and effective from the artists I loved..."; this listening to the ponderous collection “Join The Dots” certainly appears true, The Cure’s B-sides are often of excellent quality. However, when the image of an entire work (among other things a debut work for launching a new record label and for a potentially new cut-up of the band and new market) is suffering (to be kind) it is truly difficult to understand the reasons for choices that whether imposed or not, appear from every point of view questionable. Those who bought the version with the DVD will have seen Robert Smith busy recording vocals destined for the dubbing of a song titled (on the DVD) "Someone’s Coming": it is a song that alone would have shifted the entire center of gravity of the work toward a new course of the cure-sound, which we might perhaps classify in the (poorly defined?) concept of "post-rock". Oblique melodies, spatial guitars, singing "downward" then again "ascending," crooked melodic lines that meet again at the moment of the “girl like youuuuuuuuu” of Smith with the "u" held infinitely and fabulously offbeat drumming; one might say “perhaps, as The Cure should be today”; well, that song is titled "Truth Goodness and Beauty" and appears in the British market edition. Situated exactly between the romantic “Before Three” (far from "Just One Kiss") and the single “The End Of The World.” But there’s more. Because those who had the patience to buy this last mini-CD aside from the mentioned piece (not at all unpleasant) were struck by the quality of the “backings,” i.e., "Fake" and especially “This Morning,” atmospheric, melancholic, impressionistic, in practice a magnificent song that in mood and rhythm section, powerful (memorable the attack with that 7/4* in upbeat) could easily constitute the other “melancholic” focus of the album, alongside the (objectively splendid) “Anniversary”; but if possible, The Cure manages to surpass themselves (as well as the absurdity of their record choices) in the “instrumental” version of the same track, an astounding suite, simply Cure-ian, that perfectly recalls “Disintegration” (here there’s a splendid piano that along with the rhythm section and the atypical absence of vocals really gives the idea of contemplative meditation, drawing interior landscapes); for the rest of the album: “Labyrinth” isn’t bad, with its somewhat Led Zeppelin-like guitars (Porl Thompson is fresh from collaboration with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant), driven, oriental, and that singing with Robert Smith’s typical circular lyrics ("say is the same sun spinning in the same sky, say is the same stars streaming in the same night...") with “industrial” voice filtering and opening after the first two verses; and especially “Lost,” judged by all, critics, and public, the “best episode of the album,” “the best piece written by Smith since Disintegration,” by some even compared to “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. A dark, obsessive ("I can’t find myself... I can’t find myself...) angry, in the "restrained" version of Robert Smith’s anger. We have listed 7 pieces of considerable caliber (one in both instrumental and vocal versions); that on a collection of 12-13 tracks should/could have had a different impact; instead, on the album, the listener must endure that atrocity of "Us Or Them" (The Cure are not Linkin Park...) which however casually on the website under the heading “most requested songs for a live show” is in first place. I used to really like "More Than This" and "Play"... I take it all back: I didn’t quite understand... :-)

PS: (I don’t know) What’s Going On... and I don’t know if the 7/4 is right... but if it shouldn’t be; j’excuse moi même avec le DeBaserique très gentil auditorium.  

By ‘πνοςphere boy ©