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

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.

I really dislike this idea of splitting votes for songs based on alternate versions. I haven't seen this allowed in any other poll in which I've participated. Is everyone else really OK with this?

I mean, I'd love to specify the full 7+ minute version of "Just One Kiss," but I don't want to split the vote from people who don't specify a version.

Are really early Cure a punk band? I feel like there might be a separate genre for the Cure/U2/Jam/Joy Division strain that's kind-of-rough-n-powerpop-but-a-bit-weedy-not-fighty, but I'm pretty sure it isn't called that.

On another topic - why do most CD versions of "Charlotte Sometimes" and "The Walk" sound so terrible and muffled? The JW version of "The Walk" is the only decent, crisp-sounding version of that song that I've heard, and I've yet to hear "Charlotte" not sound wretched (which is weird considering how clear most Cure recordings from this period sound).

the pre-3IB demos have some stuff that sounds surprisingly like the Vibrators

Are really early Cure a punk band?

yes, imo (same w/Warsaw-era Joy Division)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmoFgi2EB9c

At the very least, The Easy Cure were punk if the Buzzcocks were

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 could have easily squeezed the closer remix into my top 40 solely on loving the original the two originals so much, but I stayed away from the Mixup Up album, except for "Never Enough"

I got to thinking about who were the biggest thing to come out of the punk movement. I guess U2 have it in a walk, but The Cure might be second? Or Blondie, I don't know - it's kind of hard to get a handle on, when their peaks are happening decades apart.

Biggest in what sense? If chart success, you could make a case for Adam & The Ants.

I was thinking about playing arenas, but yeah The Ants, The Stranglers, The Rats, The Jam, Blondie, etc all had much bigger hits. Probably Talking Heads too. There are likely other threads for this, it's not exactly what you think of when you think of The Cure.

I've just realised I forgot to vote for that one that goes "ooh, I love cats!"

Ok, when I said that remixes off Mixed Up were ok to vote for, I thought that they were different enough from the originals to be considered different songs. Close To Me certainly is, I'd say. After relistening, I realise that maybe some are and maybe some aren't but it's obviously going to lead to confusion to allow some remixes but not others, so I'm going to say that remixes aren't allowed, and the only song from Mixed Up that is allowed is Never Enough. Sorry for any confusion.

uhh the Closer Mix and Closest Mix are a lot more different to either the single or album versions of Close To Me than the Big Mix is to the single version of Never Enough, wtf

Thanks - that makes more sense to me.

Sic, I think Nate means "Never Enough" qualifies even though it's original album is Mixed Up - not that alternate versions are allowed.

How many ballots so far? Only 4 days left!

Sic, I think Nate means "Never Enough" qualifies even though it's original album is Mixed Up

single came out a couple of months before Mixed Up tho! and Big Mix is the only one on the album. I demand more pedantic pollrunners http://www.4thletter.net/wp-content/plugins/smilies-themer/SAEmoticons/emot-colbert.png

iirc: single version of Close To Me has some new recording compared to album version (ie the horns), Close and Closer versions are different mixes of a new re-recording?

(A Forest and Primary* were def. completely re-recorded in order to be remixed, bcz Polydor had lost the masters. Which raises some questions about the album remaster project.)

* for the Keith LeBlanc mix on the 12" of above

How many ballots so far? Only 4 days left!

Only 13 so far. I'm a bit disappointed with the turnout to be honest, especially considering (for example) Paul Simon got 33 ballots. Are The Cure not as popular on ILM as I thought? Are people bored with these ballot polls? There's been a couple of normal Cure polls recently, maybe people have run out of things to say about The Cure?

Anyway, I have to extend the voting period because it's my son's birthday this weekend and I'm away Tuesday night, so voting will now end at MIDDAY on WEDNESDAY 15th. So get your ballots in, folks.

Lots of people wait until the last two days, I've noticed.

Still, part of it may be The Cure aren't loved around here like they once were AND their discography is gigantic and hard to narrow down for a ballot AND maybe there's some poll fatigue. Personally, I'm looking forward to taking a break for a few polls after this one.

I wouldn't worry Nate, twenty ballots is enough for a decent poll - and you probably need even fewer for this one since you're asking for forty songs. You might even have enough already.

I would say, though, that raising it to forty songs makes it much harder to vote. These polls are most fun when there's a lot of people pitching in imo, so anything that makes voting more onerous is best avoided.

I definitely plan on voting but haven't had time to work through the options yet. I reckon there will be a healthy influx in the last day or so. No reason to doubt the appeal of the poll - this is a catalogue where the big hits aren't necessarily the best-loved and album tracks loom large, so the results should be full of surprises.