All The Faces Of The Cure

The English group The Cure is, undoubtedly, modern. Better, pos-modern. To comprove that just watch to a band show. Observing the successes of all the phases already crossed for The Cure, in nine years of career, we obtain a mosaic of the current pop music. All the goings and comings of the contemporary rock were already visited for The Cure.
Every group of a lot of phases has a lot of faces. In other words each disc that Cure realised did with the band went erroneously framed in a rock phalange. Who heard Three Imaginary Boys placed the band as the more representative of the cold wave (following Joy Division steps). A disc like Faith provoked comparisons between Robert Smith and Peter Murphy (the dark vocalist of extinct and overestimated Bauhaus). When Cure realised The Head On The Dorr, didn't lack accusations that the group was imitating New Order most recent work.
As it can be verified, Cure didn't choose a lineal line to model its career. And that not was the Bob Smith intention when creating the group in 78. He was 19 years old and joined to the childhood colleague Laurence Tolhurst and the bassit Michael Dempsey. Bob and Tolhurst were alternated in the vocals, guitars and keyboards. The drummer moved to each presentation and the sound mixed what remained from the fury punk with the skepticism and the monotony of that strange musical mix which was called new wave.
In 79 Cure realised its first LP, Three Imaginary Boys and, literally, nothing important happened. The shows of the band for England didn't go well on that the press classify as 'magnificent success'. A lot on the contrary. In London, the things even went well, but many shows for the interior of England were canceled by public's lack. Changes in thegroup line-up: Michael Dempsey left and Simon Gallup entered, and Cure sees a quartet with the entrance of the keyboarder Matthieu Hartley.
Incursion For The Darkness
That formation would record the disc of 80, Seventeen Seconds. The climate is depressing but the band begins to sell discs. Matthieu leaves the group and the remaining trio gets to record a new disc very more depressing than the previous one. Faith, 81, reaches the English charts and Cure makes three good European trips during the year. Its music, talking about suicide, transform the group in cult of a generation that still felt the master's of the depression Ian Curtis absence, Joy Division vocalist, that had committed suicide one year before.
Who thought Cure had arrived to the fund of the existential well with Faith, could not imagine that the next band album would be more cloister. Pornography (82) is a knock. Cure invented the pos- depression. The disc cannot never be heard by somebody that lost the employment and the girlfriend in the same day. In another way the person threads a bullet in the head.
That tour over the human depression seems to have been too much even for Cure, that decides to give a pause in the activities. While Simon and Tolhurst would be about their life, Robert Smith went help Siouxsie, playing guitar in Banshees. Taking advantage of the occasion, Bob joins to Steve Severin and record a disc in 83. The duo was hidden under the name The Glove and the album had the name Blue Sunshine. Who didn't like of that idea was Fiction Records. To maintain the group in evidence, still in 83 the compilation Japanese Whispers is realised. Just for the fans to complete their collections.
Hard And Psicodelism
It arrives the moment of The Cure to record a new disc and Simon Gallup asks more time for relax. Result: he was taked out. Smith and Tolhurst enter in the studio with the drummer Andy Anderson and the saxophonist/keyboarder Porl Thompson. The album recorded is The Top and the london newspaper Melody Maker ffirms that Cure was beginning a return to the psicodelism. They find weak likeness between the disc and several music of the sixties. But wait a moment! It is obvious that Cure disc is a little more cheerful than the previous ones, sounding more dancing when heard for the first time. But exists in The Top a more marked sign on its sonority. There are tones of hard rock in the whole LP, finding its great moment in "Shake Dog Shake", until the moment that is the music chosen by the group for the opening of the shows.
Talking about shows, Cure arrives to the obligatory apprenticeship of every rock group: a disc live recording. In the beginning of 85 Concert - The Cure Live is issued, with a fantastic version of "A Forest" and a new band member, bassist Phil Thornalley. It is not a memorable LP, the group seems a little discouraged in some songs. However Concert marks the beginning of The Cure in the Brazilian fonographyc market.
From that year on all the following band works would also out for here (besides The Top late reliase, in 87)
Curemania
Still in 85 the disk The Head On The Door is realised, and Cure places two mega hits in thr brazilian FMs: "Close To Me" and "In Between Days". The imported discs become sold every minute. All the people want to know the previous band phases. Robert Smith lookalikes proliferates for the São Paulo discotheques.
Standing On The Beach is the group complete compilation realised in 86. All the successes are included properly and who buys the cassette receive twelve extra tracks. That compilation sells very well in Brazil, reaching the mark of 150 thousand copies. In the end of 86 two attractions are announced in Brazil: Siouxsie And The Banshees and Ramones. The shows have great public and encourage the perspectives of international shows for 87. Cure is one of the first ones to be mentioned.
Curemania 2 - Ecursion
The rumors finish, the confirmation appears: Cure in Brazil. The band line-up: Bob, Tolhurst, Porl Thompson, Boris Willians in the drums and the already reintegrated Simon Gallup in the bass.
Shows: Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo. Immense public, many interviews and a lot of nonsense questions. A discussion with the press of Rio. They doubted of Bob Smith's manliness and the band didn't like anyway. The most pathetic of that episode is to know that reporters still exists in the rock area which worry about the pop singers manliness. What is sad. But the interviews were also good for a lot of things, for example it is known that Cure will realise its first double album and that Bob is fat, a little stammerer, that gets scared to the knowledge that a lot of people still considered him the symbol of the dark melancholy dark and that, above all, he likes football. How about the shows? Well, most liked or adored. But actually they was not as waited. The presentation of the group was a little bureaucratic, they played what they needed to execute the contract, nothing else than that. It lacked claw for The Cure. The band came back to England leaving the expectation here already in relation to the mentioned double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.
kiss In Double Dose
One of the sentences more repeated by the musical press of the world it that says: "Every double album would be very better if it was a single". Kiss Me follows that rule. At least six music are worthless. The disc hit: "Why Can't I Be You?", it is not so good. But the album has good moments, mainly the more weighed as: "Torture", "Hey You", "Shiver And Shake" and "Fight". The funk "Hot Hot Hot" is exactly what they wanted to do in "Why Can't I Be You?" and didn't get. The best of the disc is on the song "Like Cockatoos". Synthesizers and sweet claustrophobia. It sends a little "A Forest ".
Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, in spite of some defects, is more a step ahead in The Cure career. In fact, a career that seems to take another direction. It is that, finally, Cure is conquering the American public. Incredible, but even this year the group had not entered in the American chart. Now, with radios American university students (the same ones that introduced The Smiths for there) adopting Cures as a new cult, the band makes a great travel in the Michael and Bruce's reign . And Cure still takes advantage of that tour to present its new integral member, the keyboarder Roger O'Donnell.
Really a group of a lot of faces, Cure doesn't propitiate any idea of its next musical step. But it is good to keep the open eyes. Cure represents everything what the rock of the eighties is. In other words, it represents a little of everything.