THE CURE The goblins of dark-pop
by Claudio Fabretti
OndaRock – Online Magazine
They expressed the nightmares of an
entire generation. And they managed to turn gothic-rock into a mass phenomenon.
They made some memorable albums but also commercial pop. 24 years with the Cure
Bloodflowers is the Cure's latest album, but it could be
also their epitaph. "The fire is almost out and there's nothing left to
burn", sings Robert Smith making suspect that the "Dream Tour"
could be the last chance to see the British band playing live. The Cure have
put the clothes of cult band off in order to become a universal group, that
goes from rock to melodic pop till dance. A metamorphosis that has confused
historical fans, but it has been successful to Smith & C. in commercial
terms. 27 million albums sold all over the world is a good booty for a band
that has always expected from the record industry full artistic freedom. But
Robert Smith himself (the leader of the group) said: "I'm happy if people
consider us a poo band, because I've never taken myself too much
seriously".
Therefore, in the years, their demonic arrangements have got dance and
easy-listening melodies. "Bloodflowers" tries to invert this route,
with hard moments like "39" (the age in which Smith has composed the
song). The same Smith has defined the album the conclusion of a trilogy that
includes Pornography (1982) and Disintegration (1989), two of the
most intense and obsessive albums of the Cure. But the suspicion is that the
fire, by now, has been extinguished indeed.
Three imaginary boys
Born in 1976 in the zone of Crawley, Sussex, originally known as Easy Cure,
Smith & C. had become well-known since the debut album, Three imaginary
boys, like the pioneers of the British gothic-rock, toghether with Joy
Division, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie and The Banshees. With
the last group they have collaborated to along, between several triomphal tour
and arguments (Robert Smith also has made part for a certain period of the
Banshees). In 23 career years, the Cure have known how to keep in balance
between rock alternative and pop charts. And they had been able to transform
the dark from a trendy cult to a world-wide phenomenon. Therefore, it's not
surprising that these sons of the English punk have conquered the world-wide
arenas, neither that Smith considers his preferred concert the one performed in
Texas, in the temple of the Dallas Cowboys.
Curious it's the initial approach with the Americans: "Killing an
Arab", their first hit, was banned from the Usa radios because of the
presumed anti-Arabs containts. While the tune was inspired to "The
Stranger" of Camus. But the Cure were forced to dissipate every doubt
putting an explicative target on the cover, and devolving the takings of their
first american concert to a Palestinian orphanage in Lebanon. "America is
a strange continent - Smith says - even if you play in front of a full arena of
people they still consider you merely as punk. The more striking episode took
place in Buenos Aires: there were at least twenty armed tanks in the square, a
crazy experience, that I will never forget". This tour was the first step
towards success, finally succedeed with the album Seventeen seconds, a
kaleidoscope of dark and psychedelic sounds, from the dragging "Play for
today" to the hypnotic "A Forest". But also the instrumental
intervals of "To reflection" and "Three" were considerable.
A rock goblin collapsing
Robert Smith, eternally eye-lined, scarlet lipstick wore on, and pale faced, is
a curious character. Named "the guru of the sadness" or "the
messia of melancholy ", he is a sort of childish nihilist philosopher and
a goblin, an apocalyptic poet and a romantic dandy. He digs in the abysses of
desolation acting like a child himself with his scary songs. He tortures his
guitar and sings hypnotic lullabies, between desperate shouts and foolish
screams. He had announced that he would have killed himself before getting 25. After
that anniversary he changed his mind: "I have understood that I was
successful in concluding something in this life and this has given me new
energies. I feel happier. My worse habit is that I drink too much beer".
The Cure's songs have been the soundtrack of Smith's existential crisis. "The
more we play them, the more we depress ourselves. Many times I left the stage
in tears", declared Smith after the cut of the mesmeric Faith
(1981). An album that culminated in the dark symphony of "The funeral
party". One year after, Pornography, their masterpiece, clear it all
since the beginning: "It doesn't matter if we all die". Spectral,
desperate and claustrophobic songs brought Smith towards desolated abysses of
death: "The ribbon tightens round my throat/ I open the mouth/ and my head
bursts open/ a sound like a tiger thrashing in the water/ over and over we die
one after the other..." ("One hundred years"). And a dramatic
atmosphere, on the edge of the collapse, remains in other tracks of the album
like "A strange day", "Siamese twins" and "Cold".
But today all that has changed and there is a ray of light into the new Cure's
music. Smith has married with the girl with which he has been engaged since the
times of the school, Mary Poole. And he seems to have removed his darkest
ghosts: "I have a house, I don't need to be famous and I enjoy myself in
many ways: I have many nephews and the uncle's role allows me to do the things
that I've never done as I didn't have sons". No child at all, for the
Smith family: "We have decided not to have them. I prefer to remain an
uncle. I do not know if I would be a good father; I don't have much sense of
discipline in my life and I'm not sure that I would succeed to impose it to a
son". Nevertheless, there's still a thing that makes him gloomy: the
abandon of one of the founders of the Cure, the drummer Lawrence
"Lol" Tolhurst, whith which Smith joined a civil suit: "He
wanted to use the name of the Cure for his own goals, I couldn't permit it. All
the rest means nothing".
Concert in orange
Today only Robert Smith and the bass player Simon Gallup remain since the birth
of the band. The new fellows are Perry Bamonte (guitar), Roger O' Donnell
(keyboards) and Jason Cooper (drums). Smith has been the musical dictator of
the group for a long time. Then, from the double album Kiss me kiss me kiss
me, the things changed. "Our early albums hadn't been an example of
democracy", Smith says. "I wrote the lyrics, the bases, and left that
the group interpreted its part. Therefore, I have proposed to the boys to make
me know their musical ideas. Their proposals have made that album so
various". "Kiss me", in fact, is one the most interesting
records of the Cure's carreer. It goes from the melodic dance of "Just
like Heaven" and "How beautiful you are" to the relaxed ballad
"One more time", from the frantic pop of "Why can't I be
you?" to the trance psychedelic experiments of "Snake pit" and
"If only tonight we could sleep".
But to impress the audience of the Cure it's not only their music. Their
concerts, in fact, are memorable also for the spectral and alarming atmosphere.
The theatrical effect is guaranteed also by the stage full of psychedelic
lights. Maybe the most famous concert is the one perfomed in Provence, in the
Theatre Antique d'Orange, from which Tim Pope (director of the Cure and David
Bowie videos) has taken the film "The Cure live in Orange". Now, here
it comes the last chance to see them during their Dream Tour. Before the fire
is definitively out.