Dez's Rock/Pop List: #30 - The Cure

Fall, 1992.
I had always bought into the caricature of Cure audiences as wimpy, goth, black-eyelinered, pasty kids on the perpetual verge of suicide. Perhaps there is some truth to that. So I was a bit hesitant when my friend Willis, whose taste in music I always respect, suggested that we go to a Cure concert up at the Woodlands Pavillion, just outside of Houston. This was senior year in high school, and I was all about testosterone-fueled classic rock at that point. Willis was a Cure fan (and not goth, did not wear eye-liner, and was not suicidal). He knew that his best play was to present the suggestion in the guise of a joke. "Let's go and make fun of the pasty and morose fans." It worked.

An odd group assembled for the evening. Willis and I were joined by Eric and Johannes. I cannot remember whose idea it was, but somebody thought it prudent that we all put on eyeliner and do our our hair a la Cure leader, Robert Smith, here...


I do remember Willis arguing convincingly that if we did not do this, then we would really stand out. My girlfriend at the time came over and assisted with our make-up and hair. We arrived at the venue, and of course, nobody looked like us. This was 1992, so most people were wandering around in flannel shirts. Eric was fairly oblivious, Johannes and I did not really care and thought it quite amusing and tried to play up our goth roles, but Willis, who takes great care with his appearance and general presentation, was horrified. And of course, the worst happened (for him). We ran into some other people from our school, and Willis desperately tried to explain that we were being ironic and making fun of the entire Cure ethos.


ABOVE: Photographic evidence. Dez and his amigos prepare to attend The Cure show

But that is all secondary. The real point here is that I started the evening considering this band and show a joke, and left the concert loving Robert Smith's teetering melancholy to joy musical mood swings. Under the substantial amounts of eyeliner, distorion (this was the Wish tour, afterall) and gothic posturing lay a band with unbeatable pop and melodic sense. Robert Smith is one of the great underrated pop songwriters. Yes, he has made entire albums of brilliant gothic gloom (Faith, Pornography, Disentegration), but to get a sense of his true gift, head for the singles. There is where you will find some of the greatest pop music of the last 30 years. Glorious stuff of masterful construction, incessant hooks and brimming with emotion.

What To Listen To:
As stated above, the neophyte needs to head straight for the two singles collections, Staring at the Sea covers the late 70's to mid-80's, while Galore covers the rest of the 80's to the mid-90's (by the way, their material since the mid-90's is quite good as well). If you want to explore further, Disentegration is their towering, gothic masterpiece. The Head on the Door is an earlier milestone.