The CaterPOLLar -- ILM Artist Poll #23 -- The Cure -- voting thread

I'm usually really picky when I make a shortlist for these polls because I don't want to end up with 80 something songs. So I try to pick only the best of the best and reject the song if I have any doubts. That leaves me with about 40 songs and I just have to rank them. That's what I did this time too.

Except then I started thinking about my rankings, listened to a bunch of Cure ... and have been adding more songs to the list. I rejected "Disintegration", "Siamese Twins", and "Faith" the first time around? What was I thinking?

Some of these early bonus tracks on the deluxe editions - the sound quality is terrible! I used to wonder why bands didn't clear the vaults as a matter of routine, I guess this is why.

guys, i am voting in this poll, and limiting it to stuff i bought on cassette (w/the exception of 3 Imaginary Boys which I bought on vinyl because it was an import)

Wish is still the only Cure album I don't have, at this point I'm just waiting for the remaster (soon I hope!). I'm a little over halfway through the discography and my shortlist is nearing 40 songs as it is.

What was it like being a Cure fan at the time? I'm not getting any sense of what the hinterland is. Like if you were into U2 it'd be about passion & adolescence, or whimsy & kitchen sinks for The Smiths ... but what was it with The Cure?

There's a bit of teenage existentialism, a bit of romance, iirc they liked the booze - but that's all I've got.

for me, gloomy dark sloppy scary romanticism

i don't have time to contribute to this poll/thread, but you all have my blessing. i know you will choose well.

I didn't get into these dudes until like 2000, Bloodflowers era. I don't know, I was too young for the 80s heyday and by the time I was aware enough I only knew them through "Friday I'm In Love" as a pop band with the weird looking dude. Had no idea about even Disintegration until later, but by then I was all about "the new" and was in my "kill yr idols, fuck the past" phase - I was rejecting out of hand a lot of bands from the generation just before me. Anyway, I've only really gotten to delve in as the reissues came out and it has been fascinating to kind of follow the development of them throughout the 80s without any other clouding context.

I was a broody black turtleneck 12 year old when KMKMKM came out, was both terrified and permanently altered the first time I heard it. Jumped off the bus with 'Friday', never went back. Would take a lot of excavating for me to choose favorites at this point and I am newly really busy at work. Still, I wish you all luck. Looking forward to the results thread.

First band I really really loved, age 16. First band I ever saw live - Kiss Me Tour @ Wembley Arena, I saw no other non-white face there although seemingly everyone wore black.

I guess I got into the poppier side first care of a tape my friend made me _ Inbetween Days (which I thought was called 'Without You' for ages), Boys Don't Cry, 10:15 Sat. Night (play the drip drip drip one)etc

Kiss Me was the first CD I ever bought. Worked my way back through the albums and was just catching up when 'Disintegration' dropped. Must have watched 'Cure In Orange' video over 100 times along with some late night video show where Robert taalked through the Cure's videos with Gary Crowley. It seems most videos were designed to give Lol a hard time!

It wasn't an angst thing for me, though maybe the 'outsider' thing played into it. They were kinda local. Robert Smith just seemed v v cool. I will never love a band as hard as I loved The Cure for 4 or 5 years.

KMx3 was a real revelation when I first heard it.

Yes, I've just reached it and it's an unexpectedly mighty kick-off

i got into the cure around 1990 as an elementary schooler and honestly you didn't even have to be that dour, just sort of a new wave kid. they had goofy gushy pop hits and dressed funny.

They were about being different, dark, and romantic. For the "weird" kids, the outsiders. I thought they were really experimental for a pop band. They did become more and more popular with each album, but their biggest commercial success was with one of their darkest release, Disintegration.

I was a broody black turtleneck 12 year old when KMKMKM came out, was both terrified and permanently altered the first time I heard it. Jumped off the bus with 'Friday', never went back.

same here

will admit to being freaked out by "subway song" when i got boys don't cry

The first time I heard the scream at the end I almost died. It still scares me when I forget it's coming. Great song though.

The crazy laugh at the beginning of "Shake Dog Shake" and the howl at the beginning of "Other Voices" were other great freaky moments for the teenage me.

Totally geeky/bragging story about me and the Cure:

My freshman year of college, I took a class in existentialism as an elective. I was the exact right age for that, and I loved it. We read all the regular stuff, Sartre et al. The professor was this middle-aged woman of murky mid-European origin, with long black hair streaked with gray. She wore black dresses with black shawls and gold hoop earrings, she was kind of this exotic philosopher Gypsy Queen. The TA was a gay French dude who wore leather vests with no shirt. For the final exam, we had a choice of essay test or we could write a five-page paper on anything of our choice that somehow reflected and summarized the course. So I decided to do the paper. I'd been listening to Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me a lot all year, and really loved "How Beautiful You Are." So I took the basic idea of that song and rewrote the Adam and Eve story and called it "An Existential Eden." I wrote the whole thing the night before it was due and stayed up til 6 in the morning. I put a little note at the beginning saying the paper was influenced by Sartre, Camus, and "Robert Smith of The Cure." When I went to pick up the paper the next week, it had "A+" written on the front page in big red letters (there was actually no such thing as an A+ at the school), and a handwritten note saying, "This is wonderful." So that's pretty much what the Cure meant to me in confused late adolescence.

I discovered them in early '89 just as "Fascination Street" broke. As a soundtrack to misery they made me giggle but, man, I loved their pop side, and after buying Japanese Whispers and Seventeen Seconds I heard the (good) sobby stuff as more good weird pop.

xp - that song totally has that existential parable quality to it! that is a sweet story

When I discovered Baudelaire about a year after The Cure, the connection was one of those great AHA moments

RS is so good at turning literature into songs. "Killing An Arab" really captures the climax and the whole meaning of "L'Étranger" into a three minute rocking pop song. And he wrote it when he was 17! I was so impressed by that.
They've had such a prolific and amazing career since that it often gets overlooked in a sea of gems. But I think it's one of the best first singles of all time.

Ballot sent. As expected, two-thirds of it comes from '85-'89. And since ctrl-F "Kyoto" is giving me no hits on this thread, allow me to lobby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U-XuH3P8ZI

Had to leave it out at the last minute. But THOTD is still well represented in my ballot.

I got into them with "The Top" but first saw them live on the "Head..." tour. For this (then) teen it was the dark romanticism (i.e. gothiness) plus tales of drunken hijiks plus they're cool-as-fuck look at that time - all teased hair and paisley shirts and cool Yohji Yamamoto looking suits and BLACK (Robert knew about looking cool at that time) - just a standout band in every sense that hit every mark in my dark little mind. 'Twas a good time.

Hey, Wish is really good! I may stretch to forty after all and throw most of it some points. I don't think I'd heard it all before, but I remember now I did have a full-print t-shirt with the flowers and the eyes and all. I must've looked great.

God, I should reread and edit my posts when posting from work.

I've been relistening to The Cure all week before making my ballot, the THOTD - Disintegration run is pretty much flawless. And Wish is mostly brilliant too.

Anyone else ever have this book?

http://www2.gol.com/users/fusae/newday/bookpix2/be01cbig.jpg

Some great stories in there, iirc.

yep!

A gift in '92 from my best friend at the time -- certainly eye-opening in detailing the band's drink and drug use.

yes! And the lyrics book as well.

oh god yes, I have that book

I got into The Cure through seeing their albums and iconography all over the place and wondering who this slightly creepy band with a bazillion albums was and were they going to be too "out there" for me to appreciate; then I went to a party at a friend's house who had cable and saw the "Just Like Heaven" video on MTV and went "woah, this is awesome pop music wrapped in a weird wrapper, I love this!" and shortly after that jjj got KMKMKM and pretty much called me up the instant after he heard "The Kiss" and was like "dude COME OVER HERE NOW you have to hear this"

I've basically been obsessed with them ever since

Rereading the book's newspaper clippings and band coments on the making of The Top persuaded me to buy the thing a couple months ago.

The story that I remember the most is someone (Lol?) trying to kick a hubcap back onto a car wheel while on quaaludes, not realising his thumb was trapped between the hub and the wheel.

A most excellent read -- not sure if this has been linked here but I know it was linked somewhere on ILX -- Roger O'Donnell's extensive memories of the making of Disintegration, with photos!
http://www.rogerodonnell.com/disintegration/

holy wow that was fantastic

I didn't know this

Writing parts

Each person’s demos for the songs were finished entities so for example when I brought a song like Fear Of Ghosts it had the drum parts, bass and keyboards. People didn’t really write new parts for other people’s songs. Simon wrote Lovesong and his demo sounds exactly the same as the finished song, he wrote Same Deep Water and Untitled as well. I will have to check who wrote what.

so Gallup wrote "Lovesong"!

he never wrote full lyrics for a song afaik, though he would give Robert suggestions (generally, not nec. for his own compositions)

in an interview I taped off TV in 1989 that no longer even exists in the TV station's archives, Robert said that when he was stuck on lyrics, Simon would post sheets of paper with lyrics on them underneath his door in the middle of the night

ballot sent.

ballot sent.

ballot sent.

TIB/BDC 7
SS 5
F 3
P 3
JW 5
TT 2
THOTD 3
KMKMKM 2
D 8
W 1
& 1 non-album single

ballot sent

I still have to start ranking the songs on my shortlist (blame the Olympics).

I discovered The Cure around '89, the Disintegration singles (all of their singles, in fact) were all over our local alternative radio station. So like most others here, I heard their gloomy side and their pop side right from the start, it was always part of who the Cure were for me. But I've never talked with anyone who followed them in the early 80's, who identified with their most gothic phase, had to suffer through their possible breakup (back when that might have seemed like the real deal and not a cliche), and then suddenly a year later they're back and releasing "Let's Go To Bed" and "The Lovecats", WTF?? Or maybe it wasn't so unexpected at the time?

listening to every Cure song I own - about 147 - in hopes of having a beautifully diverse, obscurity-rich ballot and the damn thing is turning into hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-album track-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit-hit. They were more than an amazing singles band but holy shit were they an amazing singles band.

so is the deal that I can vote for both the regular version & the Mixed Up version of the same song? like I can vote for both "Close to Me" & to the Closer remix of it?

Yeah I'd say that's ok.