Bandsplain - The Cure: Part 2 with Hanif Abdurraqib

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Hanif and Yasi continue on their voyage, picking up in the heart of the Cure’s discography. Did we leave you with your Head on the Door? Don’t Disintegrate. Our heroes pick up right where they left off and take you to present day. You can follow Hanif Abdurraqib on Twitter @NifMuhammad Listen to the accompanying playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/647QhOpb2HfJUhYiIF1KmD?si=87156fa1f52f4ed8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili and host of What About Your Friends? A brand new show on The Ringer Podcast Network dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the Ringer dish feed, I'll be talking with my best friend, Stephen Othello, and your favorites from within the Ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture, and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the Ringer Dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS back in the day.

What about your friends? What's with this band? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Hey guys, it's Yossi. Before we jump into the show, I just wanted to mention that we made some changes to the format of Bansplain, most noticeably that we no longer feature full-length songs in the episodes. Why? Well, that's between me and God, babe. As the great poet Nicholas Hexon-1 said, we changed a lot and then some, some. Know that we have always been down, down. I want you to really think about that, okay? Anyway, enjoy the episode. Hello and

welcome to Bandsplain. I am your host, Yossi Salik. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to explain cult bands and iconic artists to me and to you. Today's episode is part two of The Cure. My guest today is once again the brilliant Hanif Abdurakib. Let's get into it. A hugely important moment, huge for me personally, July 1984. The feud with Morrissey begins. Yes. One of my favorite little throughlines of the Cures, right? Yes. So, Stephen Patrick Morrissey is interviewed by the face, with this, obviously, that's part with the Smith's.

The face interviewer, in fairness, the face interviewer did ask an insane question, which was, if I put you in a room with Robert Smith, Mark E. Smith, of, you the fall, and a loaded Smith and Wesson, who would bite the bullet first? You can't imagine. This is not a question that a music journalist would be allowed to ask in 2020. And Morrissey, this is what it says. He said, I'd line them up so that one bullet would penetrate them simultaneously. Robert Smith is a whinge bag.

Wing bag is a fucking sick dish. it's rather curious that he began wearing beads at the emergence of the smiths and has been photographed with flowers. Then he went ahead and made himself sound stupid. You didn't invent beads. The things that, like, dudes would get so worked up about in this era, I mean, still, always. But, like, in this era where it felt like everything was insular and everyone was insular and everyone could borrow kind of freely from people, the shit that, like, these dudes would get really intense. So that is so funny to me. It's like, it is curious that you wore beads.

Like what? Puffing your chest out because they took photos with flowers. L.O.L. Then he said, I expect he's quite supportive of what we do. But I've never liked the cure. Not even the caterpillar. Okay. Just like you.

He doesn't like the caterpillar. Yeah. I hate to have something in common Morrissey. But here we are. See, if you're on the right side of history, you like the caterpillar. In the fall of 84, the Kira tour again, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Canada, America, tons of touring. Now, did you read these stories about Andy? Yeah, well, I read a few.

Okay, so basically, the narrative is that Andy started getting into too much trouble on the road because he was like maybe dealing with some mental illness, which may or may not be true. I think he's maybe known to be a bit of an erratic person. But the first incident, given the fact that Andy Anderson is black and what happened was that he came back to his own hotel that he was staying in and just happened to be carrying a boom box and wearing army fatigues. And they hassled him being like, are you even staying, you know, like classic. And he got upset. And then they maced him in his eyes. It feels like, so the stuff you read about Andy Anderson on this tour, it seems like the racialized aspects of these things are totally divorced from these narratives.

It doesn't even mention. It's like pretty puzzling to me because it's like, isn't it weird how this guy like just flipped out? He just flipped it. It's like, no, no, no. They literally maced him in his own hotel and he didn't even do anything. And then, of course, he got upset and he was like kicking a door. But he just, I mean, who can blame him? Yeah, I think kicking.

the door is probably justified. Good for him. And it ended up that the daughter of the mayor was staying in that room that he was kicking. And so there was some issues and they basically had to like sneak him out of the city. That story I was like, okay, yeah, he might have been wasted, whatever, whatever, but it didn't sound like he was really at fault at all here. Like, in my opinion. Again, I don't have all the stories. He was definitely drinking too much everyone. Everyone was. He got into like another situation. This one did sound like. It was a bit his fault where he was just running around the hotel, beating people up for no reason. Yeah.

Like bonking people on the head, like late at night because he was really wasted. Fine. The cops came. Certainly, he was not innocent. There was a thing in Japan, too. Right. Where he kind of like flipped out on the band. Yes.

So, you know, there's. His hands were not clean either. Yeah. He was a little messy. He was a little messy. And they didn't want to deal with it anymore. Yeah. I do think he, I mean, it seems like he potentially was really struggling.

with some things. Yeah, I think so. I think because Loll and him, I think, are still good friends. And he basically talked about it. He just does have these, like, sort of bouts in his life where he's prone to erratic behavior, for lack of a better term. Is Andy Anderson? He's dead, yeah?

Well, Loll and Andy were friends all the way till the end. RIP, R&D. RIP, Andy. R&D. Anderson. Yeah, he died at 68. That's sad. It is crazy that they never mentioned the racialized aspects of these things. But it also is crazy that they never mentioned.

they never mentioned his race at all. Yeah. Like even impress or any, you know, which I think is kind of cool. Music Press, I think, in print, you're right, was like a really harshly racist, particularly if you were like the lone black member of a group, or if you were a group with only black members. I actually never saw it mentioned in all the articles I read, which I thought was interesting. Yeah.

Okay, anyways, this, Andy is the only member of the cure that Robert Smith himself ever kicked out. So you can put that on your little bingo card. But they're like in the middle of tour. Like they're in Japan, but they need to go to North America. And they, so they get to America with no drummer. Phil Thornelly phones up his old mate. Vince Eli, who used to drum for the psychedelic furs. And he does fill in for a few shows.

But unfortunately, he did have a lucrative career making like jingles for advertisements. Right, which you want. And he preferred to get back to that. That's where the money is, like really and truly. For sure. Like Vince Eli is like, I don't want to go on tour with you guys. I want to keep making. my little ad jingles and make my money. I live in, I think he lived in L.A.

and probably had quite a nice house from the psychedelic for his money and he was thriving. So Phil calls up Boris Williams, who was at the time the drummer of the Thompson twins. The Thompson twins are massive at this point. Hold Me Now has happened. They're a big fucking deal. They're commercially very successful group. Do you also love the Thompson twins? Love, I don't know. I like, I have a great vintage Thompson twins shirt. They had good merch. They have incredible merch. Okay.

Well, Boris Williams is very down to drum for the cure for several reasons. Number one, he said drumming for the Thompson Twins was very boring because it's all very precise and, you know, kind of needed to sound electronic, I guess. Also, because he loved to party. Boris, he loved to party. And so did The Cure. And he said the idea of a party with the Thompson Twins was a cup of coffee. and a cheese sandwich. I mean, I would not consume those things together, but I do like them individually.

Really? I love coffee and a sandwich. It's such a delightful. But not a cheese sandwich, I feel like. I feel like I'm like a hard world detective in the 50s, you know, having my coffee and my sandwich. So he turned down a ton of money. He was making a lot of money with Thompson twins to join the Kier and party and have fun and be more creative. Thank God, too, because Boris Williams, I don't know how to use your sports metaphor here, but I don't know. We got another first draft pick for the cure. So in 1984, they released that live album that they had, you know, he had taken all that time to put out called concert. February of 85, Phil Thornelly leaves the band.

Ostensibly, I think, to pursue his solo career, but actually, I think he changed his mind at the last minute, and they were like, no, you said you were leaving by. Bye forever. Goodbye forever. And this does open the door for Simon to return. Thank God. We got Simon back. We get Simon back. It's all to do with Bittles, who has also since passed away RIP Bittles, he calls Robert near Christmas, and he's like, do you want to go for a drink with me and Simon? And Robert's like, fuck it, this has gone on too long, porol's back, it's all too silly. Let's go.

Simon said, I remember Love Cats coming out. I used to go to this really trendy half pub, half disco in Horley, and they used to play the singles in the album. And people would come up and say, bet you're sick now. What is wrong with people? I might do that. I can't lie. I might do that too. If I saw someone who left a band and I saw them in the club while that band's absolute, like, top tier banger was on, I would have to acknowledge it. You'd be like, bet you feel like shit now, bitch. But you regret it deeply. Yeah. Listen to this. You know what I mean? Like, imagine hearing Lovecats and being like, damn, I missed out. I wouldn't want that. Yeah. Poor Simon. But you know what? It all worked out.

He's fine. He said, well, I was. but at the same time, I felt proud that they'd made it and that they'd got there, that there were so many people who wanted to put the cure down and Robert had the last laugh. I got really protective when people used to slag them off. And when Let's Go to Bed came out, I really wanted to call them, but I couldn't. Too much pride. I thought, after the way they've treated me, I'm not going to make the first move. And I suspected Robert hated my guts, so I didn't want to phone up and say,

hi, how are you, and give Robert the chance of saying fuck off. Subsequently, I found out that Robert felt exactly the same way. He didn't want to ring me up in case I said that to him. Isn't that cute? That is cute. So they hung out at the pub, babe. They have some pints. They reconnect.

Start hanging out a lot. And Robert, once again, does this weird thing more slowly. He's like, come play on a single. Okay, I'll buy an album. Do you want to go on tour? And eventually, he becomes a member of the Cure again. He had started another band called Fool's Dance with Bittles. That's why Robert, I think, was being a little delicate.

kit and a fool's dance was was pretty mad that they lost Simon. Really? That's what my reading said. Another hilarious thing is that Simon, even though Phil Thornali never did anything to him personally, held a just long time grudge against him. Like, would see him on the TV and be like, fuck that guy. That should have been, I should have been, he should never have been in the band, or should have been me.

Here's the thing. The team is back together. Okay, this is the formation that really gets shit popping. They have Robert. They have Lull. They have Boris, who is the best drummer they've had, and who is also fun vibes. They have PORL, who never forget, Sixthreader, and an old mate, great vibes. And Simon's back?

We're cooking with motherfucking gas, babe. And Robert did say with Simon, the excitement came back, and the band was more aggressive and more vital. He knew me so well, I didn't really need to explain anything to him. What single Doth come out upon our ears in 19. 1985, July 19th. It is in between days. In between days. Gosh, I love in between days. Massive tune. Yeah. I really love it between days. It's so fucking good. It's crazy how good that song is. Yeah. And I think it takes the best impulses of what was going on on the top and kind of meshes in into something that I believe is more useful than what was happening on the top. Useful.

Useful is maybe the gentlest word that I can. But also, the video is very good. Oh, it's so good. I just love the colors. Tim Pope is a bloody genius. Yeah. I also have a great vintage shirt in many photos of me and a great vintage in between day shirt. I love that shirt.

And I have one that I'm lying and I really want to buy it. But I secretly would love a reply guy to buy it for me, but I think they're not going to do it. So I should just buy it for myself. No, they'll do it. I don't really understand. the reply guy relationship to the world. So I guess I can't speak for them, but one of them will do it. Is a reply guy just someone who replies to all of your things?

Oh, that means I've got, I've got some of those, except they're not always guys. I'm sure you do. Reply guy is largely genderless, although they do tend to be men. I mean, of course, for sure. Yeah. Another thing about in-between days that I need to mention. Okay, besides the fact, it's an international success, okay? It's fourth consecutive top 20 hit in the UK.

In the U.S., the first single to get onto the Billboard Hot 100. I mean, it only got to 99, but still. I think this song is proof of my fan fiction theory that Robert and Mary had an open relationship. Oh, you're really committed to that theory. Well, and I know I was wrong when I said it was true that it couldn't be me and be her in between without you. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's plain as fucking day what this song is about.

he's been with one woman his whole life. You do the math. Yeah. Not that it's any of my business. But it does add a little spice, too, you know. To me, it's so interesting that if that is the case, that also to make sort of total blatant art out of it, you know, that Mary is obviously also aware of and can hear and is probably fine with.

Also, no one talks about the B side of the single, which is an incredible. incredible song, The Exploding Boy. On the UK single, you get a few hours after this, which is a song I really love. All these like buried B sides. Yeah. I mean, The Exploding Boy is very good. But on that UK 12, you get in between days, Exploding Boy and a few hours after this, which I think is that one, two, three is maybe the best release of a Cure single. Because sometimes I felt like their B sides didn't, like, were good.

But, you know, they were very much, it seemed like they were like, we're going to highlight the A side. I mean, they put killing an Arab on like 22 B sides. They're like, here's killing an Arab. Here's killing an Arab live. Here's jumping someone else's train instrumental, but we change in the name. Some of those B-sides they were really phoning it in. Here's a review of in-between days that I wanted to ask you about. Yes.

I'll read it in total, but I wanted to particularly ask you about the point two that the guy makes. He makes three points. He says, three thoughts occur. I don't know what publication this is out of because they, They just scanned it into 10 imaginary years, but they don't list the publication. It's just the picture of the review. Three thoughts occur. One, how does he do it?

How on earth does Smithy keep that face straight as he unloads these records? The top was a schoolboyishly cruel, legs torn slowly from helpless insects, companion to the bunny men's contemporary and equally silly, sod psychedelic ocean rain. While his butter wouldn't melt love cats routine was sublime, media-mocking TV. The man is a comic to be rated with Keaton. Buster Keaton, no first name necessary. Two, if I didn't believe New Order to be rich as czars, I'd advise them to grab this record and their own temptation and power corruption and lies and to hot foot it to the nearest court of law. The monstrous scale, nerve, and cynicism of Smith's plagiarism in a world where most claim unique creative genius had oddly to be admired.

Number three, either because of or in spite of one and two, in between days, a sneeringly offhand debunking of all that factory's finest seek so assidiously to mystify is a good 45, easily the best of the week's pop crop. Do you feel that this is a plagiarism of New Order? No, but I also, again, like I think New Order offered up a template that it is easy to hear. echo throughout the central part of the 80s. Like they just kind of not created, but they capitalized on a sonic template that relied on these kind of short bursts of sound, repetitive in nature, collapsing upon each other.

And I think it led to this thing, because this didn't just happen with the cure. This happened with a lot of bands, I think, where people were like they're ripping off new order. Anytime people heard kind of repetition and short stabs of sound, in that way, it became this thing where it was like, this is a New Order song, but it's really, it's not. It's just kind of an expansion of the container in which New Order kind of created a sonic lineage, I think.

That's maybe like the most generous possible way to talk about this, but I also think everyone wasn't ripping off New Order at the same time. It feels more zeitgeisty to me than anything, but what do I know? It's 1985. Phil Collins, babe. No jacket required. LL Cool J, radio. Great album. Yeah.

Your girlfriend, Charday. Oh, I love her. Promise. Tears for Fears. Songs from the big chair. God, I love Tears for Fears. Okay, so head on the door comes out, August 30th, 1985. We've cheered up, bitch.

This is what I'm talking about, okay? Like, to your point about the transitional album, I must restate my thoughts that if you allow existentialism to simply take its course, you will eventually find things to be cheerfully absurd. I believe this, and I think it's absolutely the case in the discography of the cure. You can hear it as it goes along. When you have the benefit of perspective, all of a sudden it's just funny. instead of devastating.

Yeah. Yeah. This is also where we get, again, the cure beginning of the year into being silly little guys in part because... Silly little bloke's.

Silly little blocs. This is a British episode. But it is because, like, after... One, I think the cure was always funny, but I also think that, like, once you get past a certain level of devastation, all you can do is kind of break into laughter. Like, everything becomes a bit absurd.

Yeah, exactly. Head on the door does one thing. they become extremely popular in France, which does endure for the rest of their career. France, for whatever reason, the first place to make them huge stadium rock stars. That's interesting to me. I wonder if that's like a sound thing or a temperament thing. I think it's probably both. Some combination of the two.

Yeah. I mean, who loves an existentialist more than the French? Yeah, perhaps it's probably like sound as an expression of the temperament is what's working. And who loves a cunty little bitch more than the French? Again, nobody. It's so many things. are happening here that make them embraceable by the French. Robert basically set out to write a pop album.

He said, there aren't many groups that make intelligent pop music the way we do. I'll make sure we won't sell out. We'll always have our own little things that set us apart. After pornography, I felt the need to write silly pop songs. But now that Simon is back, I think it might be time for something a bit more serious. Not only the press was surprised about the direction to which the cure was heading, so was Simon. Interesting. A little foreshadowing on disintegration there. Yeah. Yeah.

He said, I loved this. He said, because Simon was back, he really was just like into, he said this in 2000. I think the cure really started again at this point, head on the door. There was a real sense of being in a band for the first time since 17 seconds. It felt like being in the Beatles. And I wanted to make a substantial strawberry field style pop music. I wanted everything to be really catchy. Do you think that was achieved on this? Like, do you think that this is an album of catchy songs?

Like, close to me and in-between days are so massively huge and catchy and perfect and incredible that it colors my whole experience of this album. Just, you know what I mean? Close to me is one of those songs. And I don't know if you feel this way. But because it's so popular and I've heard it for so long, I forget until I like re-listen to it with sort of a fresh perspective and don't take it for granted. How magical and insane this song is.

You know what I mean? Like, can you imagine hearing this song for the first time in 1985? I mean, I feel like if I were alive in 1985 listening to this song for the first time, I would be in some kind of, that's where you would find me in a drug-induced haze. That is where my life works into the, and I would be like wanting to, this would be dangerous for me because this song in a sober state in 2000 and whatever the fuck makes me feel like I am like literally able to walk on air.

Yeah. And I feel like in 1985, I was like, let me test that theory. You nailed it. To answer your original question, I think in Robert Smith's estimation, it's a pop album. I think that while he loves to like really

flesh out a theme. He's also very incapable of doing something to one-sided. I could see him making this album, having in between days and a night like this on here, and needing it to even out a little bit so that it's not just this, like, in his terms, sell-outy album. Because look, is the blood a catchy song? It is. It is. It's totally catchy. Also, what a bizarre little song about a Portuguese peasant wine called the tears of Christ, but then he decided to change it to the blood of Christ. I wish I could see this bottle because apparently on the label it was the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus in one arm and a bottle of booze in the other.

Right, right, right, right. This perhaps is a question of what do we believe a pop album is, right? I guess it's more of a question of what did Robert Smith? What did Robert Smith think of a pop album? Like, this is in my mind someone who was not familiar with the idea of what a pop album was and just made their kind of pop album. And so it's just kind of like pop music is a vessel to express this kind of like anxiety and dread that's ever present. All this is to say, I think this is a great pop album. Do you think it's Strawberry Fieldsy? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, that's what he said he was trying to do,

so he did it. And I actually don't think it's entirely super catchy. Now, close to me, of course, is like the catchiest. Like I want to die. It's so catchy. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the thing about those songs like in between days and close to me kind of taking over your your mind towards the album i get that close to me does that for me but if i were to say what's the next catchiest song outside of those two i just don't really see one but that doesn't to me the little walt is kind of catchy musically yeah six different ways it just like kind of like hooks in your mind but these songs are like really good like i don't think a song maybe this is a function of my brain that says more than an album doesn't need to be have catchy songs

to be a pop album i think if i'm drilling down on that. What I'm saying is a song does not have to be catchy in order to be good. Yeah. Oh, I think you're revealing your bias, and which almost maybe you think catchy songs are not good. No, I love a catchy tune. Love a catchy tune. But I do not love a songwriter who seeks catchiness at the expense of song quality, which I think that we end up there a lot. Like, we end up there. That is the matchbox 20 zone, as I like to call it. I hear what you're saying. The title of this album is, comes from Robert's childhood. He said, I slept in the same room as my little sister, and we used to

play together with handmade puppets. Unfortunately, we also had a brother that seemed to be born just a bullies. One day, he cut off the head of my favorite puppet and stuck it to the door. For you, that might not seem very impressive, but I was pretty shaken up by it. Weeks later, I still had nightmares about chopped off heads who came peeping through doors. That memory came back to me a while ago. The head-on of the door seemed like a nice record title, a bit mysterious, but funny nonetheless. I think if I'm ranking their record titles, which I have done in my head, head on the door's top three, it's third, only next to disintegration and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Bro, pornography, that's such a sick album title. Great album title. This is to say that I've ranked them is to say that almost every album has a good title. Like literally, even Three Imaginary Boys is really good as a title.

It's really good. It's really sweet. They didn't miss with the titles. And that's, the hard thing. The title is, I mean, I mean, no, like writing the songs and putting the out, that's the hard thing. But the title is also a hard thing. Yeah, 100%. I'm sorry to, like, just drill down on this, but I need to talk about close to me just a little bit more. I would love to talk about close to me. I can't think of another song that gives me, it's such a perfect evocation of what it feels like to, like, have a crush on someone. Yeah. Because there's this sort of like intense, just like, oh!

You know, like, I don't even know how to put it. Like this just like, like teetering on the edge of something, right? And this sort of like desire that cannot be fulfilled, this itch that cannot be scratched. Yeah. Well, we talked about 17 seconds as an album of trying. But it's an album of trying to make an existing. set of emotions feel new again. This is a song of trying, but it's a song of trying to make a new set of emotions feel

cemented, like they're yours, right? And that's how longing. That's the machinery of longing. Which is just like my favorite machinery. But it's like, it's longing. I feel like there's a lot of music that does longing justice, but it's a little more dower sometimes, right? Yeah.

This is almost like a buoyant longing. Oh, for sure. Which is what I mean about having a crush, right? Where a crush is like two, it's like equal parts hopeful and just miserable. Right. There is a lot of, but I think it trends towards hopeful, which happens in this song because like, because the misery of a crush is like low stakes misery. And the hope of a crush is high stakes hope.

It's two parts to one. You're right. It's more of a two-on situation. Robert said it in a fancy that this song is frustrated humming with your head under the pillow, like the end of a day where you feel nothing has been achieved and you're in a hurry to get the day over with so you can start the next one. You tell yourself tomorrow you're going to do lots of positive things, but the next day is just like the one before. Sometimes it goes for weeks. Oh, gosh. I will say this too. The versions of close to me, because there's

like three versions of them that came out that year. The brass? The brass. I was good, that's what I was to say. The scaw version. if you will. I think the album version is probably the superior version. Yeah, I think so. But I kind of like the brass. I think I probably heard the brass one first because that was the version they played on alternative radio because it was the same.

Yeah. Yeah. I heard the brass one first, for sure. So much so that when I heard the non-brass one, I was kind of like, what the fuck is this? Something's missing? You were like, wait. Where's the horn? But I love it. Yeah, it was a very, like, crazy, weird, I think choice.

Like, you wouldn't have expected it, but it works. Yeah. I don't mind a little journey in the sky. I don't mind a little, like, as long as we're not full, you know, I don't mind a little half. A little half foot in the door. You might dip your toe in to the sky. Yeah. Like, close to me, it's not a ska tune, but it just doesn't shy away from the potential for a little ska flavor.

Yeah, a little bit, just slight me for something. gimmick, give me, this album broadly, I don't think it's the highest manifestation of that transitional

period, but it is the one that represents firmly and concretely that this is a different band capable of a different thing

with a different set of concerns. Yeah, I would argue the next album is in a transition anymore. We've arrived.

Yeah, I think the next album is where you arrive. But it's like, if you have not set out to be a pop band, it is hard to become a pop band. Mm-hmm.

Especially at this stage, of a career. If you have had a handful of albums and you've expressed some pretty heavy and dark concerns on those albums. And so much of the critical language around you has been like, why the fuck are these people so sad? You know? Right. It's hard to then say, well, we can make ourselves into a pop band. And we can do it efficiently and we can do it thoughtfully and the actual emotional concern of the work doesn't have to suffer. Right. And I think they really kicked open that door on this album and then with the next album they like really made the home theirs. Man, you're so much smarter than me. I like that you're just saying these like profound

paragraph long things and I'm just saying like, this song fucks. And there's real estate. As my therapist would say, there's real estate for everybody. Truly. There's room for everybody. Room for everyone. This got pretty good reviews. Yeah. So many of their albums get these like retrospectives, but in the moment head on the door was like, pretty adored, particularly by the British press, I think. Totally. And, you know, I do think the singles were massive in America.

Like, even I kind of remember that as a child, you know? Like, I don't remember a time where I didn't hear these songs. Yeah. Like, I don't have a cognition of being alive and these songs not being on the radio. Right, right. I will say there's some fun interviews that happen. There's a magazine called Just 17. This is around the time that Robert Smith becomes a bit of a pinup.

they ask him about his appearance and his makeup and hair. And he says, I don't worry too much about it. I mean, I haven't washed my hair for three and a half weeks. I always use gel, not hairspray. It's called KMS or something. His gel was called KMS. His gel was called Kill Myself. I'm dead.

I mean, I don't think it was actually called Kill Myself, but it was called KMS. What are the odds? And we can, like, be liberal with what KMS stands for. We can be a little free with that. Howling. He goes, into a whole description of how it's the gel is superior

to hairspray and it's he used to use moose but it would drip onto his nose when he was on stage. They've come a long way from being a band with no look to now being asked specifically about the look. Yeah, literally. Then he does an interview with the face. This is where I

feel like it's interesting because prior to this there's not a lot of interview talk about Mary, right? But now it starts to come up a lot. And I find that really interesting. I don't know if it's because the press wasn't interested prior or didn't know, or because they didn't have as much, like, over-love songs that were poppy and catchy. So now they all of a sudden want to know about what's the inspiration. I don't know. But

this is also the first time that a photo of him and Mary comes out in the press. I have such an overwhelming respect for Mary, like a queen on so many levels. Same. Nobody knows anything about her. Yeah. I guess, except. for what appears in the songs, which is hit or miss proposition. And what Robert said to the press. So here he says, actually Mary and I have known each other for so long that I don't have to finish my own sentences.

A word is enough and she knows what I'm going to say. We can actually have a conversation. I don't dress up, but Mary does. She used to dress like a witch to scare little children. Quintit. And she likes practicing on me. I feel more natural in the company of people who are mentally unstable because you have to always be alert.

You wonder what they'll do next. It's funny if you are with someone who all of a sudden starts crying. Actually, it's not funny. It's rather annoying. It's a quick change of heart there. She likes that more than I do. I can never bring anyone home because I never know who's going to open the door. She says, please don't bring anyone because I feel limited.

I loved that terminology. I feel limited. The only person who came into this apartment in the past three months was Simon, our basis, but then she was wearing my pajamas. I think she was pretending to be me. I'm obsessed with her. Again, this predates the manic pixie dream girl. And again, I must say, I feel it's something stronger and more evil in many ways, more powerful, with more agency.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm very interested in it. I'm very interested in Mary and her pretending to be him. And clearly, according to him being mentally ill and full of surprises. Also, I just love that approach of, you know, all the world's the stage. But, I mean, it truly is.

Like, you can't even be yourself if you wanted to. You just can't because there's a perception bias. Okay. So they talk about live aid here. Because live aid happened. Big deal. I listen to that U2 set from live aid all the time. I'm not even like a big U2 person, but I love that set.

Anyways, he says, we weren't. invited to participate, but we wouldn't have done it anyway, to be honest. It was good, but useless. Because if people had donated a percentage of their wealth, like the people who sent money, that would have doubled the benefit. I think so on the artists. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen on television. Freddie Mercury was okay, but Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and Ron Wood took the cake. They were so terrible. It was humiliating in the extreme. It was that bad. Legendary hater. But he has a point. I mean, you know, It was a little cringe.

Yeah. And not free. Not free. Not free. Not free at all. I mean, we don't have to go on like a live aid thing. But if we were talking about like a distribution of wealth. Just like the richest rock stars on Earth getting on saying.

Exactly. Please, if only we could solve this problem. If you would simply get from your home, send $5. You know, there are worse ways to attempt to care about a thing. Right. But they're probably better. And I say this is someone who had the live aid VHS or DVD or something for a very long time. He'd watched it and enjoyed it to, you know, the people who were good on live

aid were really good. That you two said is very true. Yeah, it can be useless, but also very entertaining. Absolutely. But shout out to Bob, who hates fake shit and will not be shy to say it in the magazines. Honey, do you know this journalist Antonella Black? Are you familiar with her at all? I'm familiar with the work, but I'm not. Oh, yeah, personally. I mean, yeah. The name just struck me because I remember that she is like or was like Nick Cave's mortal enemy because she wrote that like sort of a hot goss story about him being on heroin. So she does this like really just like an interview that this is the kind of interview that like got me wanting to do music journalism because like I thought this is what it would be like but like absolutely it's not like this. She basically starts asking about

drugs because like, you know, they're still kind of known as the drug band and the drug album had just come out. And he goes, my favorite drug is being happy. Yeah, same. Same. And then she goes, poppycock. And he goes, all right, I admit it. I'm lying. My favorite drug is alcohol. It's so good. Why is it? I don't know why titillates me so much. More, more interestingly, they talk about Mary, right? Right. And she goes, does she like your work? Which is like a real fucking, you know, ball busting question.

And he goes, she's very critical of it. She likes some of it. I suppose she understands it more than anybody else because she sees what goes into it. Well, she causes a lot of it anyway. She has done. I mean, there is so much in those three or four sentences that, that I just lived off of. I just ate from there for weeks.

She's critical of it, A, amazing, gorgeous. You're literally Robert Smith, and she's like, this is trash. She likes some of it. And then she understands it more than anyone else because she sees what goes into it. Okay, fair, straightforward. And she causes a lot of it anyway. I love it. She causes a lot of it.

It's such an interesting, because I think, you know, a lot of people would say she inspires a lot of Right, exactly. This is like she inflicts. Yeah. She, it's her fault. Yeah, but it seems more honest, too. And also, just like, I guess, I guess I was, like, happy to hear it because eventually you assume that musicians are just, like, writing songs and maybe, like, it starts to get further and further away from their lived life, you know, and just more into, like, the better you get at writing. songs, the less it's like maybe coming from this like real place of inspiration. And I'm simply assuming

making asses out of you and me because I don't know. But doesn't it feel that way to you with music over time? And it's maybe one of the reasons why like earlier music tends to be more visceral. Yeah. And like

if we're being real to go back to like she causes it thing, I often feel like I don't know if I draw inspiration from people. Like, I think it's a cause and effect thing. And so I actually, what I love about the language there is the honesty in it. Totally. It's like an alchemy, right?

Not so much like a, yeah. Okay. Anyways, she goes, what part does she play? And he says, she just suffers me. And then she says, but don't you think love is the ultimate compromise of self? And he says, that depends on the nature of the relationship. My relationship with Mary is what most people would consider to be liberal, quote unquote, but not in that horrible contrived sense. My man said, listen, don't call us Polly, okay?

However, we have an understanding. And literally, that's exactly actually what Angela Black said in an American accent. I just did it perfect. You have an understanding, right? And he says, well, it's not quite like that. But I mean obviously from what I do and what she does, we spend a lot of time apart. If I'm on tour, she doesn't come with me because she doesn't like that side of it. She remembers when nobody wanted to talk to me.

She can see the hypocrisy of the whole situation as I can, but obviously it's far more difficult for someone who is close to me to cope with it. People tend to ignore her and think she's just another fan. She doesn't tolerate that, and nor do I. We understand each other, which is why we've been together for so long. There's very little which needs to be said, which I like. Sometimes it's glamorous and romantic, which is fun, but only if you don't take it seriously. Love should never be taken seriously.

And then, and then, and then, and tell us says, I think actually love isn't taken seriously enough. And he says, God, no, it kills everything if you take it seriously. Oh, I love that. Right? Yeah. I really loved that. I'm sorry that I had to do like a dramatic reading, but I just, I really felt, I really felt moved by that. for whatever reason, and I thought people might enjoy it.

Yeah. And I think that also reflects the way that love is written about in Cure songs and the way that love is, I mean, one, I do think that they take love seriously. I think the band takes love seriously. But I also think the tunes can be really playful. Totally. Like Love Cats is kind of like a cartoon of a song. Literally, it sounds like a cartoon.

Honestly, bless you for being still interested in the music where I'm like literally often, like an us weekly world in my mind, like trying to like analyze this relationship that I'm like just so obsessed with. Anyways, I just thought all of that was very interesting. Okay. So he does an interview with a magazine in Holland called O-O-R. And they bring up the Smiths. And the guy says, but Morrissey is the same as you are. You're both tortured artists. And Robert Smith is not not having that. He says, no. Morrissey is sick.

He hates me because we had this public row ones. In those situations, it always gets kind of macho, even if you don't want it to be. It's hard to swallow your pride in public. So ever since we have been throwing mud in interviews, I'm sure that in the end it will turn into something good, though. I agree. I agree with Robert Smith about Morrissey being sick. Little did he know, honestly.

Yeah. I mean, back then, it was just like, you know. you know, he's a souser, he's a future seer. Yeah. I was talking to someone about this, though, and they said something really interesting, when they were like, I don't know if they actually hated each other or they were like so much saw each other. Anyways, I thought that was also kind of interesting, right? Like, the hating someone because you see the shadow sides of yourself and them could also be. So Morrissey is like an evil, an evil rubber smith? Or like what? Maybe just the parts that you hate about.

yourself, you know? And like, I mean, they are both kind of like theatrical and like dramatic. You know what I mean? Like producer Jesse says Morrissey has a warrior Robert Smith. That's right. Yeah. Okay. So the only other thing I want to mention from the press at the time is like this magazine called Blitz brings up. They just go, I understand they refer to you as fat bob at Polydor. What? Yeah. The whole is not just the press that called him fat Bob, which they did. Just that. That's what it was called Fat Bob. There was like a specific music magazine that was like basically like teen beat vibes, but about these bands.

And it was like really just like gossipy and like even more than the NME and melody makers and stuff and had like spreads of them and all this stuff. But that one coin, they would like give everyone nicknames and they gave him the nickname Fat Bob. Oh no. I know. Apparently he said it actually originally came from Susie because he used to call her Janet the old witch. in interviews. And then she wanted to call him the Pillsbury dough boy, but it was too long. So then she went with Fat Bob succinct.

Has more of a ring to it. Oh, man. Does it have more of a ring to it? I mean, it is like, it's just like, you know, it cuts deep, as producer Jesse just said. Again, this is a different time. He doesn't even seem to be bothered by it. He says it doesn't worry me at all. The last five days I spend Italy eating spaghetti.

so I'm at the peak of my fatness, really. Does not care. So in September of 1985, we're putting out a single bit. And that single is called Close to Me. Yes, I adore close to me. Oh, me too. Again, we already said it,

and I don't want to sound redundant, but it really is one of those songs that, like, is so ever present that you maybe forget how good it is. Yeah. It's like a rom-com soundtrack song in a way. Even if it's not on every rom-com soundtrack, it feels like it could easily slot into a rom-com soundtrack. And so it does become this kind of like ever-present thing now.

But I also kind of think that at the time, it didn't like have a real splash, not in the States at least. It didn't have like a big chart splash. No. I mean, it did, it hit number seven in Australia. And then it hit 24 on the UK singles chart. This is the version we mentioned with the. Fun, jaunty brass. Yes.

Instrumentation. The only thing I love more than the brass are the dolls and the music video. Oh, my God. Yeah. Which for me, I think that this is where Robert Smith kind of becomes a little more creepily romantic. Can you elaborate? Yeah. Like, he's, like, I think the video for close to me is brilliant and beautiful and also just a little unsettling.

Oh, my God. Totally. But I think this is kind of where Robert Smith leaned into a type of unsettling that's still kind of charming. like unsettling in a way that's like, oh, I wouldn't mind. What's going on with that guy? Like how like a clown that offers you candy in a van is perhaps a little bit alluring? Yes. Weirdly.

Yes. But I know what you're saying. I get what you're saying. The video, by the way, if you guys haven't seen, and it's truly gorgeous and amazing. The whole band is in a wardrobe. They're close to me, each other. And the wardrobe falls off a clip. into the English channel.

The cliff is at a place called Beachy Head because the UK is not a real place where real things happen. I also love that the single version has that like long creaking door sound in the beginning. And that's specifically because that's how the music videos start. Like that's, they basically just use the soundtrack of the music video for the single. Yes, absolutely. I just think that's a fun little tid. Also, another fun little tid is that the way they filmed it is, you know, they're in a ink with 100 gallons of water and all this stuff.

Apparently, as soon as they got in the water, every single band member started holding Loll under water and, like, beating the shit out of him. This poor man. Apparently, when they watched the tape back, they all, like, cried from laughing because they were, like, watching that. Was Llel also crying from laughing or was he just in pain? He might have just been crying from crying. Who can say?

He seems like he was a good sport for most of the time. Robert Smith said about close to me that it reminded him of Jimmy Mack. the song by Lomboeves and the Vandales. And that's apparently why he decided to add the brass. Oh, that's fascinating. I'm not going to be able to unhear that now. I know. There you go.

That's what we do here on this program. In December of 1985, the Cures contract with Polydor was up. However, Robert decided to put out a singles compilation with them. Because in his words, if we didn't release it how we wanted, they'd just do it anyway because they had the rights to all the music. so it was actually quite wise on his part. This is a very important thing for me.

It was called standing on a beach, the singles. When I came to it in like the early 90s, via the Columbia House or BMG or whatever, I was grifting at the time, it was called staring at the sea, the singles, which was the name of the video compilation, I guess, back then. This comes out, it's kind of a big deal. May 23rd, 1986.

Kind of immediately, there's controversy, again around killing an Arab, namely because the U.S. at the time was up to their usual shenanigans, air raiding Libya, and the song started to be used as pro-war propaganda. So that's fun. Well, it's one of those, I mean, you know, it's the born-in-the-USA problem of people not being able to use their minds and brains to have any nuance or understanding of art. People don't read. It's like, you know, you hear the title.

and then it's like, this is what it is. Yeah, it happened with Rossi Kaspwad, too, the clash song. So the American Arab League petitioned Elektra to take the track off of the compilation. And Electra was like, came to Smith about it. And he was like, he had apparently advised Elektra that they could delete the whole album actually. So he was like, you want to take it off? Take the whole fucking thing off, bitch, because it's not coming off. or you don't put out the album.

So it stayed. But they added a sticker on the album. It was on the cover that said, The song Killing in Arab has absolutely no racist overtones whatsoever. It is a song which decries the existence of all prejudice and consequent violence. The cure condemn its use in furthering anti-Arab feeling. I must have been a big sticker. It's a lot of words.

I don't know if that worked or not. I have no idea, but they did do that. The thing I remember most about this, album besides, again, that I was like, The Cure is an amazing band that I did not know about because I'm 10, is the cover art, which is just a weathered old man. His name is John Button.

Were you ever wondering? That's his name. John Button. He was a retired fisherman. That's right. Again, the UK, not a real place. Apparently, Jeff Aptor, who wrote the 2005 biography about The Cure, asked him, tracked him down and asked him why he agreed to put his face on the album.

And he said, if I can help these youngsters break through after all, why not? Oh, John. He didn't know him about anything about The Cure. He apparently bought a record player afterwards just to listen to the band songs out of curiosity, just to see. This album is doing really well. It's spreading the gospel of the cure all around the world. Between 1986 and 1987, we tour.

We play Glastonbury. We tour America. The Boston Globe says, with the possible exception of Pink Floyd, there's Pink Floyd again, no rock band has ever put across such compelling sadness. Okay. Just a quick aside at April 1986 for me to mention another mean thing that Robert said about Morrissey. If I ever read an interview with Morrissey, if I ever did, I don't think I've read one because he's such a boring bastard. But if he's going to say life is cack, then you think, kill yourself or I will, because it's literally the same for every. Everyone. Things are generally absurd and pretty awful most of the time, but I'm in a better situation than anyone. I know. So it seems too-faced in me to walk around moaning. Everyone in any room I've ever been in is going to die the same as I am. So there's no point bleeding about it. He's not wrong. No. Actually, I love that approach. And I also feel like, you know, Robert Smith can put forth those ideas and it sounds cool. But when I tell people we're all going to die, you know, it's a lot.

It ruins the date. Yeah, they're like, should we call someone? They're like, are you? Okay. I mean, listen, the ephemeral nature of life did really fuel. I mean, Robert Smith is 27 at this point, which is hard to remember because I don't know why in my mind, Robert Smith is always an adult man, like in his mid, a middle-aged man.

Yeah. But no, he is 27 years old. Here's another huge moment, huge, massive. July, 1986. it cuts his hair off. Right. Right. He says, I was fed up with people saying, God, how did you get your hair like that? So before I went to America, I thought I had to cut it off. The paradox, of course, is that now people talk about the hair even more. It's all they talk about. Everyone hates it. I hate it most. It's the most unattractive haircut. I just about recognize myself in the mirror,

now it's grown a little. Still, it makes no difference to me. And if it does to other people, well, I hope they die. There's that cover of, I think it's Cream, 1986 Cream Magazine where the haircut is with the haircut, and he, yeah, it looks like he is displeased with how he was styled. I think it's just like too low, you know, I think early on it was just like too low. And it gave us, it drew too much attention to how close his eyebrows are to his eyes. Like I think when the hair was longer, it could kind of,

distract from that, which that's not like a flaw. Robert Smith is a beautiful person. So, you know, this is like just, this is pretty much just like reading the statistics. This is just looking at what's in front of me. But yeah, I think the haircut, I think it just like exposed too much forehead. He doesn't have like an abnormally large forehead. But I think with the height of the hair, expose the forehead. And then from there, you're like, well, wait a minute.

What's going on with the eyebrow eye distance thing? It was just also like cut in a very bizarre way. It gets like porcupine hair. It wasn't like styled or... It looked like an Abercrombie model in the early 2000s. Exactly. He needed to have like frosted dips and then it would be really ahead of his time. He's kind of right because we're doing it too where he's just like, why do you guys care so much?

Like he's like, do I make music or am I a walking haircut? And he, I guess he was like, he didn't say that. I'm paraphrasing. But he did say he was really tired of all the cure fans showing up with the same hair. Right. It was very funny because this is around the time, like this summer that he cuts his hair, they play three nights at the Theatre Antique de Orange in the French countryside, which they have Tim Pope film on 35mm, and the results being their first concert film, the Curin Orange, but I'm sure people just read it as the Curin Orange. And have you watched this? Yeah.

Okay. The best part is in the beginning. Yes. So if you guys, it's online. and I think it's on YouTube, where they're, like, walking out to the stage and, like, Robert has his hair, but then dramatically, Simon grabs it off to reveal that it was a wig. And here is his new short hair. And the crowd was like, wow. It gets, like, it's, for me, it's a little, it gets a bit meandering after, but the beginning is, I would say that the first act is really the gold.

Yeah. If you're, like, a hardcore cure fan, I'm sure you'd enjoy just watching them play live. It's not like, you know, it's a nice concert. Just taking a quick aside for a quick interview in which once again Robert Smith does throw a lull under the bus. He says, we don't take ourselves so seriously now. No one is in this band because of technical proficiency. I just need to know this is with Musician Magazine. No one is in this band because of technical proficiency. They are in it because of something they bring as personalities. Lawrence, for example, was an atrocious drummer, and he's even more atrocious

now on keyboards, but I can't imagine him not being in the group. And that dictates the tone of the music, if not the direct content of the words. I actually, so. It's not, it's like a backhanded compliment. It's like, I don't know why everyone says they hate you. I think you're lovely. It's like that. Yeah. I also think the cure is a very technically proficient band.

Like, I don't know. With maybe the exception of Lul's. Yeah, I mean, Loll's just doing his best. But Loll, some of those arrangements have Loll like fighting for his life. But I think that's actually a testament to how proficient the band is, because I think sometimes they could cover for each other's weakest, weaker points. Totally. And also, like, what a testament to Lul's vibes. Yeah.

Good old Lull. Much like myself, it was not actually technically proficient in anything, but great vibes. And thusly, coasted off of those for a long time. Okay. In 1987, they put out another single, Why Can't I Be You? How do you feel about this song? Okay. I'm glad you

actually asked that in that tone. Okay. Because I but I think this is maybe like a bottom three cure single for me. Honestly, same. Yeah.

I mean, I'm talking, if we're talking like golden era cure, I mean, there's some stuff in the 2000s that I don't love, but. It's like egregious.

Yeah, honestly. But this is, yeah, I don't like, so the video for why can't I be you does feature LOL. In literal black face.

Yeah. Which. it's literally one of those like nobody colon, the cure of putting Lollin blackface. Like it serves no per, it was like, it just makes no, besides the fact that it's like vaguely, if not overtly racist,

it is for no reason. Yeah. Like I don't under, I don't really understand. Because they're all dressed as characters, right? I think it's like it's a cat and I don't really remember. Like they're all wearing costumes.

But what is Loll's costume? I haven't seen to be on a long time because I hate it. Yeah, it's not. And I also probably, I think the song also, like, projected my hatred for the video on the song. I also, though, think the song is bad. Yeah. So, anyways, just had to mention, I guess almost every white band made a detour into racism at some point during their tenure. But that's just like a harsh dabble.

I feel like the cure was like, you know, we're going to try to skirt racism except this one time. We're going to just like run through the wall. Right. It's one time where we just did full blackface. Nobody talks about it, but sorry, I had to bring it up. Now it's May 26, 1987. 1987 is an interesting year for music. It really kind of is still like 80s, right?

Like George Michael's faith comes out that year. Michael Jackson's comes out that year, some of like the most iconic. We are welcome to the jungle, as producer Jesse says, because appetite for destruction comes out. Debbie Gibson. I mean, has there ever been anything more 80s than Dickinson? But also like Deadkin Dance put out within the realm of a dying son, Sisters of Mercy puts out Floodland, the cult puts out Electric.

And then there's another Susie album through the looking glass. Great, Susie album. So, 197, big year. We put out, we being the cure, me and you are in the cure. Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me. What a record. You love Kiss me, Kiss me. I love.

Yeah, it's my second favorite cure album ever. love Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Wow. Wait, you don't? No, I do love it, but I, I mean, maybe I'm unwell. I love Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and I love the top almost the same. Whoa, really? They feel similar to me in like exploratory tones. I mean, the top doesn't have a Just like Kevin on it. Let's be, let's be really real. I think the top is exploratory. I think Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is the thing that was found post-exploration. Like, I think the top is like feeling around a room for the light switch, and I think Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is where the lights come on.

Just feels like it's still, I mean, the kiss is like just an absolutely insanely long instrumental intro before there's even vocals to begin the album. Yeah. Like, so I'm like, we're not exactly in our pop bag quite yet. But it is a singly a pop album. Maybe just a touch too long. like that album is, without looking, I think that album is like... Because it's a double album, is that why you might say that?

Because they decided to make this a double album. However, it's not so long that it couldn't fit on a single CD, which is kind of an interesting distinction, right? Like, it was a double album because it could only fit onto two vinals, but, vinals, plural. But it was short enough to fit onto a single CD and a single cassette, which I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but a CD is, what, like 73 minutes or something? Yeah. 74 minutes. So, yeah, it's a touch too long. It probably didn't need to be a double album, which is 99% of the time, the case of double albums, would you agree?

We don't know. We're not going to get into a long set way about. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, it's true. This album is very internationally successful, right? It reaches top 10 in numerous countries. It's the first cure album to hit the top 40 in America. and it goes platinum.

I have to imagine that's like solely on the back of Just Like Hepman. Yes. Which was a massive, massive tune. It was like the third single off the record, too. I know, which is so, so weird. I think, like, why can't I be you and what was it? Catch was second? You know.

Just really bizarre choices. When you have just like, like, if that's all you've got, you know, because Zakara's had albums before where it's like not a single in sight, we just got to do the best we can, you know? It's like, sure. pornography is just like, well, what do we do? Yeah, here's the like only song that has like a lightly catchy drum. But if you have just like heaven and Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot and your choice for the first two

or why can't I do you and catch that? That's just a little, a little lot. It didn't like really affect the album sales. But if I heard just like heaven, I would like wait in line. I would like camp out. I don't care how long between the single release and the album release it was. I would set up a tent outside of a record store and just wait to hear the album. Literally.

like period period that is absolutely let me take my thing back catch is actually one of my favorite cure songs of all time well whatever how top 20 i don't know it's a top 20 song it gives me like a caterpillar vibe but like not quite as like catchy i think it's good i don't know if it's a single i think there's a difference between a good song and a single yeah true i think robert smith is maybe like, it seems like the caciest cure songs are the easiest for him to write. Like he's just like dashes those off and thusly

probably doesn't find value in them. It's the only explanation I can find for him hearing a song that he wrote himself just like heaven. One of the best songs of all time by any band and being like, that's whatever if I'd bury that in the back half of the fucking record doesn't need to be a sickle like

babe, what are you talking about? Yeah. And I mean, just like Kevin opens the second album and the double album, yeah. Yeah, if anyone even gets there. I love Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. I think the weakest point of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is Side B of album one. Like, it's not weak enough where I would be like out, but you have to endure, why can't I be you opens it? And you also have to get through the snake pit, which is not a bad song, but it's one of those Kier songs where you're like, this is maybe a minute too long.

This might not surprise you. I don't know. again, those of you who are long-time listeners, I apologize, but also you've heard me speak out, you know, if you will, against group projects and my feelings about them. This Cure album is arguably the first truly collaborative band album after like a long string of Robert Smith carrying the bulk of the weight of things. Interestingly, this album had a sort of system in which it was called the panel, and they would bring all the songs. All the girls, being the spouses and girlfriends, would sit on the sofa in the back

of the control room, and they would rate the songs. Yes. That the people would bring. And so there was, according to Robert, a very big female input. That's fascinating to me. Yeah. That's what he says. He says, the perfect girl was a very female song.

Shiver and Shake was my male kind of song. we're doing a lot of gendered language, but keep in mind it. It is 1987. I personally think that much like how group projects should be illegal, this is to me why maybe the album's a bit uneven. Yes. Because each band member would submit a song. I guess Robert would grade them himself with a smiley face, a frowny face, or a blank face. Then it would go to the panel of the girls. There was a whole situation. Whatever, we don't know. Can you guess what Robert Smith's face? favorite song on this album is. Like cockatoos. No, it is, if only tonight we could sleep. Oh, yeah. I mean, I love that song.

If only tonight. I love side A. I mean, for me, it's like both side A's, a side A of both disc one and disc two are just perfect, perfect sides. Yeah. You know what I like about this album, lyrically, is that it's not really afraid of like the bludgeoning repetition of language. Sure. One of Robert Smith's favorite things in general, but yeah.

I feel like he does it really well. And this album, it's like he's, I mean, not just the title, right? But even on the first words of the album mirror the title. And then it's like later it's like love me, love me, love me. Of course, it's just like having show me, show me, show me, et cetera. This kind of repetition that is like relying on almost like commands where I feel like in Robert Smith does this a lot. But I feel like this is the album where that kind of bludgeoning repetition is,

almost exclusively done by way of command, which I think is some, dare I say sexy, it is sexy in a way. It is sexy, man. It is sexy. Really, honestly, made me think this is, I'm in like word association, but you as a massive prince head will understand. It just makes me think of like the, if I was your girlfriend, if I were your girlfriend. Yeah.

Where it's like the gist of it is like, I'm going to tell you what to do it, not because you're helpless, but because it's sexy and fun. Absolutely. Sort of the vibe that we're getting at here, which I do enjoy. As someone who would love to be told what to do. One thing that I would love to hear your input on if you think it works or doesn't is that it does seem that on this album, Robert Smith was like, what if I try singing in different ways?

Yeah. For me personally, it doesn't work that well. Like the snake pit, babe? Yeah. I really and truly the snake pit is a rough time for me. I was like, I was trying to be as generous as I could about like, maybe it's just one minute too long. But I think it's maybe like six minutes too long and the song is six minutes and 56 seconds long. Yeah, it could be removed.

I think, well, okay, here's what I'll say. I am not drawn to Robert Smith for his voice. But that, to me, does not mean you get like carte blanche. You know that you can if you're like putting on like a clown voice. Right. Which is when you already have sort of like a distinctive clown voice to be in with. It's like, I think the struggle is that these songs are also not very good. Well, again, we're experimenting.

We are letting the girls weigh in, which you know me. I don't believe girls should weigh in on anything. We are best in the kitchen and, you know, feeble-minded, I think, personally. I can't even believe they let me do this show. It's crazy. They let me be having opinions for hours at a time. Someone should take this show away from me. I need a husband.

And that's neither here nor there. I don't know about you, but like it's very rare that I come across a person in my life that doesn't like the cure. And if I do, I have to take a hard look to be like, should you still be in my life? But when I do, they're often their thing is like, I don't like his voice. Yeah. Like, do you hear that as well? Like that they find Robert Smith singing voice off-putting. Yeah.

Yeah. Which I don't find it off-putting. I just think, I mean, here's the thing. Like, my approach to singers are different because I just grew up loving black singers. I grew up listening to the gospel singers. You know what I mean? That's just a different class of, you know, so when I... You mean Johnny Rotten and Mavis Staples?

They're not in the same league of singing. Is that what you're saying? But I remember when I first started going to punk shows or when I first got hip to, like, punk when my sister, like, or brothers would bring home like punk and grunt shit, I'd be like, what the fuck is this? You know, like, what? But once you understand that there is a clear, Which isn't to say that folks in grunge, I mean, obviously there are singularly good punk singers. Edward Vedder comes to my.

Right. But it doesn't, it's not like a requirement to enter. You know, it's like, it's not like, like if you showed up to Motown and you couldn't sing, then you're out the door. But you can, there's an entry point to punk and hardcore and all this shit where, you know, it's just not, it's not a requirement to enter. And so I, by the time I got to the cure, by the time I started loving the cure as much, I did. I was like, well, Robert Smith just sounds like, you know, a guy who's who's found out what works for him. And so I feel like the problem, the problem with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and all the kind of vocal detours is that he's steering away from what works for him. He's someone who,

because his voice is distinct and he's figured out how to use it as an instrument that is his own. He does not have the range, if you will. Yeah, not at all. But in a way, I think if you don't have the range, you just need, you were required. have a deep knowing of your abilities and what the container for your voice is. And I think Robert Smith, most of the time, knows that well. But, you know, when he detours, it's like, man, nah, nah, no, no, you're just not a good enough singer to be that far off track. You know, it's interesting, right? Counterpoint is that these songs, I don't think, work as well without his distinctive voice. Sure.

We need to just have, like, a little sidebar about just like heaven. I know we've already talked about it, but it's one of, it's one of my favorite songs of all time. I mean, I absolutely think it is one of the best songs ever made, without question. I have a little note here that just says, just like holy fuck, you know, that's my, that's my note that I wrote to myself. Robert said, it came to me on top of a cliff in the south of England. These cured, they spent a lot of time on the tops of cliffs. Have you noticed?

A song that's very easy to understand. A lot of these songs are easily understood. They're probably the easiest to understand. I've written. I've spent enough time on each of them to make sure that what they contained would be seized by those who'd listen to them. While previously I wouldn't bother about it, especially on pornography on the top, you don't say. Where I find them sometimes hard to understand, even for myself. I wonder why the lyrics aren't clear, more comprehensible, they would have been better. This time, I was very clear, sometimes too much like on just like having it.

I don't think it's too clear. Do you think it's like too direct? Lyrically? Yeah. No, but I tend to think, can I express a small theory? Absolutely. I think it is a deeply vulnerable song, and I sometimes think that particularly men, songwriters, who go to that place, mistake vulnerability for directness, when I think those are too, like those can be the same thing, but they certainly aren't always. Because while this song isn't a vague, but, I mean, it opens with a vagary. You know, the first lyric, the first line is a vagary because we never define what the, you know what I mean?

And like, that's fine to me. Like, that's cool. But, you know, I think anytime you open, like, the first verse, like, hangs on something that is vague and never defined. You don't get to be like, I was too direct here. Yes, I agree with you. That's a good theory. Back to my fanfic. I just, okay, we talked about his quote about how, like, you can't take love too seriously.

I also just, like, I'm obsessed with this idea. We're, like, 28. 29 here. It's been half our lives that we're with the same person at this point. And still, one of the best parts of love, right, is that space in between the knowing of a person and the not knowing of a person, right? It's even like sort of in the lyrics, right? Why are you so far away? Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you? You know, like, why are you so far away? There's still that distance. And this is a 14 years. been with this person. And this song is very, I think, pretty clearly about Mary.

I mean, she's in the video and who knows, maybe it's not, but. It feels very merry. It feels like a very merry song. Strange as you, Strange as Angels. I love that line. I love that line. I love that line. Bye.

Goodbye. Also, they went on like a camping trip once again to the Beachyhead cliff. These people, they're always on the fucking cliffs and the Moors. I don't know. The UK. I need to just. I need to go. I need to move there.

And Robert got very drunk and, like, lost the party, but it was, like, pitch black. And he couldn't move to find them because it was a cliff. So he just, like, laid down. They didn't come back for him, and he, like, passed out. And so daylight licked me into shape. I must have been asleep for days. This is, like, this partially, like, inspired this. A, it was, you know, alone above a raging C.

I found myself alone, alone, alone above raging C. Isn't that interesting? That is interesting. And she didn't come back for him. She didn't come to find him. Mary, absolute fucking legend. I always, I think that just like heaven, I think this album also is kind of like a turning point for Robert Smith's writing style.

And I wonder, you know, there's not a ton on this, but I wonder if he was like reading things that were different. He was reading Baudelaire, babe. A lot of Baudelaire. There it is. Sometimes I feel like. on early queer songs, which were all image-heavy. But there were points where sometimes he, like, you could tell that he was thinking,

because I can tell when a writer's brain does this, just thinking, like, are people going to get this one? Do I need to, like, flesh it out a bit more? But it seems like he's so much more comfortable with presenting the image and exiting the scene. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I love the line daylight, like me in the shape. What a great, great mom.

Me too. I really like all I want, TBQH. I know you don't like side too very much, but I, I don't like, That song. I think it's okay. How do you feel about Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot. I love it. Robert Smith, I sound like my idea of a gospel singer.

It's supposed to sound like chic. Not chic, fashionable, sheik, the disco outfit. I love Hot, Hot, Hot. I also think The Cure would make a very good disco album. Yeah, totally. I think they'd be good at it. Yeah. Robert said that everyone was laughing while hearing me sing on it.

I knew, therefore, that it was good. It's so rare that people laugh. while I'm singing. I sing sugar. That's a weird song. I like it, though. It's weird in a good way. I like it too.

It's a strange little ditty. Simon and Boris wrote that song. And then they end with fight, which I just actually do not enjoy. Oh, you don't enjoy fight? No. Well, you know what's funny is, I think it has your thing.

It's commanding. It is commanding. Yeah. I love the command of it, but also I will admit that I don't listen to fight a lot in part because this album, I do love it. It is a bit of an exhausting listen, which for me means that it is sometimes

hard to get through to the end and feel like, you know, you're just kind of like fighting through the end. I very rarely put this album on, but I love just like heaven. So that's where I stand there. Most of the reviews were like positive-ish,

but the way that music journalists hate double albums. That was just always there. Like, you know, calling them sort of arrogant and, you know, could have cut down, et cetera, et cetera. Robert Smith says to Popcorn Magazine, Germany, once again, this man doing an interview, any single person that would ask. It never bothers me if people don't like our music.

I also don't like 99% of what I hear or see, and I still have to live with it. I mean, same. Absolutely fucking king. Literally same. Everyone's like, nodding. That's right. I do have to do that, too. Just a quick jab at Morrissey in number one magazine.

cynicism is perfected by the Smith's Who I Hate. Morrissey makes me want to go out and get a stake. This is a crazy interview he does with Spin Magazine in 1987. The writer is like, nobody quite understands why the cure are so massive in France, including the French, who keep asking Robert why it is, which is very funny. Again, the cure was the most famous in France. Then the writer says, and the Americans seem to think you're gay.

Oh, yes, I remember this. And Robert goes, do they? Like he's actually surprised and he goes, that's because no one ever sees Mary. We've been going together for 13 years. 13 years of gayness. She hates having her photograph taken. She hates being associated with me.

She thinks of me as her boyfriend, not as her being my girlfriend. Okay. Can we just take a moment with that? She thinks of me as her boyfriend, not as her being my girlfriend. That to me, like if I heard that, if I were in a relationship with someone and that was the vibe,

I would be like, then we're not, are we breaking, break it up? I think it's kind of cool. I don't know. I'm just, Mary, come on the pod, babe. Mary, come to my house. Mary's never done like an interview, right? No, nothing. Queen, queen of mystery.

Then he says, and people probably think I'm gay because I'm very close to Simon. We're not worried about being seen with our arms around each other in public. In fact, none of the group is really. It's a very tight-knit community. And I thought that was truly a perfect way of answering the question. He was just like, oh, I'm not gay, but that would be fine if I wasn't. Maybe it's because me and Simon Hug a lot. This is something I really wanted to ask you about.

So there is a Music Express slash Sounds, the German magazine again. They ask him, let's take a look towards the States. Aren't you surprised at the Cure sold 600,000 records in the Popland USA? And he says, well, the U.S. is a difficult case, a dangerous. place. If a band made it over there and then lives their success, that's most of the time the beginning of the end. The American audience is notoriously dumb because of the following thesis. A formation which made records for 10 years simply has to be great. But that's not true in most of the cases. Even Fleetwood Mac are still making records but are already appallingly bad

for years. This is clearly a translation. A, you don't have to do Fleetwood Mac dirty like that. But B, then he says, Americans tend to... institutionalize a pop band if it only exists long enough. I thought that was like, you're real for that, Robert Smith. Yeah. Like, that's even, that's even real. If only he could have known how true that would prove to be in the future. Yes.

It's not, I feel like that the first part of that, the first act of that statement is not that uncommon for UK musicians in those eras to kind of be like, well, Americans just are like dumb and have no taste. Americans are stupid have no taste or whatever. Sure. Which, you know, I mean, you know, Americans sometimes that that is true. We don't do itself any favors. Yeah. And I don't know, you know, he did do Fleetwood Mac dirty, but I think like, by that, that was what, 86, 87? 87.

87. So like. Tango in the name. Not a popular album. Yeah. Like, you know, was he entirely wrong about Fleetwood Mac? I personally don't like the Mirage Tango and the Night type type shit, but I know that many people do. so maybe I'll, maybe I'm out of my depth there.

I just think, I just thought he was like so soothsayer to the only bands that matter now are the ones that have existed long enough. Yeah. You know, like it really is, it's just like, I was thinking yesterday about the Super Bowl and I was like, oh, they used to, they used to like alternate pop and rock. And now they're just like, we don't want to do rock bands anymore. Maybe they will. But it's like, you can only think of like four that they would like try. back out. It's a cold play again, U-2, Bruce Springsteen, you know, there's no one left that's big enough to. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably true. My personal opinion is that Oasis should

reunite to and announce their reunion at the Super Bowl. I would watch an Oasis Super Bowl halftime show. Well, I feel like it would be unpredictable, and I love an unpredictable thing. We love, we love an unpredictable. So after Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the Cure recruits, keyboardist Roger O'Don, from the psychedelic verse. This is largely, I think, because Lull has really upped his alcohol consumption at this point, and it's interfering with his ability to perform. So they actually needed, like, a new keyboard player. Yeah, this makes me feel bad a bit because I do worry that Lull is, like, suffering.

You're, like, actually suffering. Well, I think he's deeply suffering, for sure. I think they did what they thought as friends and as people who in, you know, in 1987, alcoholism was still kind of like not a thing that people talked about as much. It wasn't so open, you know, there wasn't like people like openly quoting AA, you know, like that just wasn't the vibe in 1987, especially not for British people. So I think they were just kind of like, okay, well, we don't want people all the band. That's our mate, you know, his vibes. But we do need someone to play the keyboard, so. Lowell, you can stay, and no, we're just going to bring this guy to do your job.

Now, Roger is a really good keyboard player and an artist, and that's going to really pay off pretty soon when we get to disintegration. But I don't want to get ahead of myself because there's a couple of things I just want to mention before, which is number one. The band in 1987 performs in Buenos Aires. They are one of the first British alternative bands to ever perform a large-scale concert there. The vibes in Argentina at this point, babe, they were bad. Yeah, very bad. Bad vibes. You know, it's the post-general Leopoldo Gallaudetary, excuse me, from my pronunciation,

who was an anti-socialist who had overthrown the previous president. There was some bloody dictatorship post-trauma vibes. The concert did end in a riot after there was fans that purchased counterfeit tickets and they were not allowed in the venue. Also in August of 1987, Robert and Mary get married. important to me and my fanfic. The cure is there. Simon is the best man.

It all seems very nice and lovely. They move away from London back to Sussex, mostly because Robert did not like hearing footsteps above him in an apartment, a flat, if you will. And you know what? I get that. I can't blame him.

I can't blame, babe. So it's the top of 1988 where they go to Boris's house to record the demos for disintegration. Around this time, things are about to hit ahead in many different ways. But one is that Loll's Australian neighbor suggests that he goes to see a doctor for some help

with his health. I think she was basically like, you have a drinking problem. So he goes to the doctor and the doctor sends him straight to detox. The doctor was like, you're literally an alcoholic bit. You need to go to detox. So he goes to detox. And then afterwards, he meets some nice AA people there, but he does not go to rehab as he's supposed to after.

He decided, in quote unquote, the fall. had lifted and I had the valuable advice the AA people had given me, I would be fine. Reader, he was not fine. He was not. He was not bad at all. And he knew, I think in his book, he's like, that was the worst decision I ever made. Anyways, he goes, he's like, I got this now, babe. By the end of the recording of disintegration, it had gotten so bad that basically the rest of the band gave Robert an ultimatum.

And they were like, either Loll is kicked out of the band or we all are going to walk. Like, that's how bad it got. I think it was like twofold. Like, it was bad vibes. Like, the whole thing that Lowell was bringing to the table, arguably, was vibes, right? And, like, now the vibes were bad vibes. But also, they were sort of pissed about his, like, outsized share of the royalties, considering that, like, in their estimation, the last few albums, he had not contributed

anything really musically. Which, I mean, kind of, that's, you know, kind of facts. This kind of facts, yeah. Yeah. And especially when you consider up until 1986 when they did the new deal with Polydor just before this, the thing was split 50-50, him and Robert. They were like partners, which is crazy. That is wild to consider. And I feel like, I don't know, we don't have to go to detour on the business of music making.

That's how people get messed up because I bet that deal was in place for a long time and then no longer those deals are in place, the harder it is to detach from them. Totally. I mean, when they renegotiated, I think Robert was just like, okay. And it sounds like he would, again, didn't care much about money and was extremely generous. But, like, I think anybody would stop doing a 50-50 deal with someone who's not contributing literally anything musically. Like, that's just crazy. Robert Smith did not want to kick Lull out of the band, to his credit. Like, I think he really, like, that's his childhood friend and that's his main.

He didn't want to do it. But the band was really pressuring him. And then I guess things really came to a head when they were mixing disintegration. And Loll showed up to, like, listen to the. mixes and he just like, A, was absolutely hammered and B, like, shit on it. He was like, well, half of it is good and half of it is shit. It's not a cure record. And then he just like left. That was the last time Robert and Lowell spoke for over a decade. Lull's got bad taste. Yeah, babe. You thought half of disintegration was bad? Show me which half. Was there a half that we

never heard? Because none of this is, this is all just exquisite. So Christmas of 1988, Robert sends Lull a letter to kick him out of the band. According to Lolle in his book, the letter said, this has been one of the hardest letters to write for me. Either I felt it was too hard or too soft. Everybody in the band says if you come on the next tour, they won't be coming. So you should not come on the tour I am planning. Please don't build a wall between us, but don't try to change my mind as this decision is not changeable. Lull tried to call him, I guess, on the phone, but Robert wouldn't talk to him. So now it's 1989. First single of disintegration. comes out in April of 1989.

I'll tell you what else has happened in 1989, though. We're getting a bit into alternative rock music here. Yes. Do we have the Pixies do little? We sure do, bitch. Has Nirvana put out bleach? That's right. Faith no more?

We got it. Also, the Stone Rose's self-title to come out. The tides are shifting, I think, rock musically. Oh, absolutely. I mean, and everything's just, like, kind of heavier and muddier. And then a lot of like what leads up to grunge, right? Yeah. Before we have grunge, stuff is happening.

So, Lullaby. Let's talk about a lullaby. Yes. God damn, we're just beautiful song. Beautiful tune. Beautiful tune. Again, though, bizarre choice for a lead single. No?

Um. Pictures of you is on this album. Yes. That is. Love song is on this album. In those, like, again, the, this is another one of those things where the single should have been flipped. first two singles are Lullaby and Fascination Street, both beautiful, beautiful songs that I love.

But I don't know if they're necessarily singles. And I think this is maybe just a trend with the Cures, that they're not necessarily, because I feel like this happens on like four albums in a row, where I look at the run of singles and I'm like, oh, the last two should have been the first two. But, I mean, I think Lovai is incredible. I would have probably led with pictures of you or, yeah, I would have certainly led with pictures of you. Well, Robert Smith does not like Lollaby. he says it's his least favorite track on disintegration, but he supposes it's a sensible choice because it sounds very cure-like. He didn't even want to release it.

I don't even know at this point what a cure, you know, because this has come up a few times where people like, this isn't a cure album or this isn't a cure song. I'm actually not entirely sure if I can pinpoint what exactly that is or means. It's only in the mind of Robert Smith. Sure. Sure. Yeah.

Lullaby, despite the fact that he didn't want to release it, and he said he wanted to actually get rid of some of the people who bought the last album. Bizarre. I think that just like heaven, hordes maybe freaked him out. But this song becomes the band's highest charting single in the UK. It hits number five. They liked it. They loved it. Like Kyle said on South Park, this is the best cure album.

Would you agree? Yeah. I mean, with that question, I think it's... Right? There's no argument. it. Yeah. I mean, I think the distance between this and all the other albums is large, which is saying a lot because

I think the cure has a lot of classic album. I think the cure has like a, I think the cure is like a four or five classic album band. But I think the distance between disintegration. I mean, it's like, I mean, I feel similarly about the Beach Boys. I feel similarly about Stevie Wonder, right? Like, the discography for those folks is

incredible. But there's like one album in the discography that is, you know, like nothing is fucking with songs in the key of life. I don't care if, you know, I know, I know Stevie Wonder has like five other classic albums, but nothing's fucking with that one. And so that's kind of where I'm at with The Cure is that disintegration is something beyond classic. It's like a note for note perfect record. And it's kind of the band at the peak of their powers.

And it is amazing to me, and I know we're not at Wish, but it is actually amazing to me that The Cure made an album that I love after this album. Like it's amazing to me that there's another very good album after this record. That's insane. That's sort of like unheard of. Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. Disintegration fucking show me the lie.

Note for note, perfect. I think it's interesting not to get into the astrology of it all, but Robert Smith is 30. And this is very much a Saturn return album. I don't know what that means. Tell me. Put me on to that. So Saturn, I'm sure some astrologers who listen to this will write it and correct me. And please allow me to have a wide berth of Explorexplan.

but the gist is that Saturn goes through your chart every 28 years and it causes great growth. And how do we grow through absolute fucking traumatic terror pain? So it can present as actual physical events in life or it can just present as like existential crisis or whatever. Basically like that is one of, especially the first Saturn return, I think, is one of the the hardest times in your life. I think the Saturn return is also partially responsible for, you know, the 27 club. Oh, yes. Because depending on your chart, it comes at it, it can come a little earlier than 28 years or a little bit later, right? Anyway, so all that to say is I think this

is very much a Saturn return album for Robert Smith. And what it did yield was something incredible. That's an incredible way to look at it. Now I feel like I'm going to have to go down the rabbit hole of these charts. Yeah, I mean, most famously, no doubt, made a whole album called Return of Saturn about that time, but I think it's a deeply formative time. One thing that's kind of interesting to me is that, like, if you look at interviews from this time or like where the mindset was, Robert Smith is talking about how he like sought out deliberately to make an album that felt and sound depressing. And that's fascinated me because like on its face, if I were talking to a musician who said that out loud to me. Internally, I'd be like, that's some corny shit. You are me?

Like, eye roll. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually don't know how this was executed so well without being heavy-handed. You know, like, well, to be clear, I think a part of that is because Robert Smith actually was pretty depressed, right? This wasn't like, he was living. He was like living the turmoil himself. Okay, but counterpoint.

I think back to my original thesis, which is not the fanfic, but the original thesis. about how the long arc of misery and existentialism bends toward absurdity, I think that's where we hit here. And you hear him saying it in the interview thing I read a little bit ago about Morrissey, where he's like, yeah, everything sucks for everyone. We're all going to die. So just like kill yourself if you don't like it, but this is just what it is. He's getting to that acceptance point. And now it's like all that playfulness has sort of come to the surface. He says in an interview, I'm getting more and more aware of how absurd it actually is.

All things considered, I have nothing to complain about. And in fact, I don't want to. I don't want to become no Morrissey. Hello. Because I can only laugh about those kind of professional moaners. I try to find balance between what touches me personally and what touches others so that they can recognize what I'm talking about. A universal disintegration, if you look.

like, but in a very personal way. Maybe I'm saying something very stupid now, but in a perverse way, I envy people who never think and just do things. Sometimes I hate myself because I think so much. I hate myself for the quantities of drugs I've taken in the past and the amounts of alcohol I've drunk. The most was escapism trying to get rid of the idea that everything is futile and pointless. So this, again, this to me, backs up my Saturn return theory. Because another thing that Saturn comes, Saturn's a teacher, right? Saturn represents. lessons, they're stern. And this to me is very like taking stock, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's also kind of like a turn away from, like I don't think depression and nihilism necessarily are required to go hand in hand to, to propel someone

towards something both that is potentially either destructive or creatively propulsive. But it does feel like Robert Smith was a bit more nihilistic in the early 80s during that run. And now it's kind of just like, There's a new level of depression, I think, that unlocks actually when you extract nihilism as the core engine of the depression because it's like, well, I don't really want a self-destruct, but then what the fuck, you know? Well, yeah, now I have to deal with this shit. I actually have to like, it's like a turning inward and facing it. And I feel like to this album sounds like that to me. Yeah, I was going to say, that's what makes us something more interesting. Yeah, it's so much more interesting.

There's a lot of speculation that this was meant originally to be a solo record because he made the demos. for all the songs on his own and blah, blah, blah. But he says, you don't need a six-member band if a piano and a cello are sufficient. But I wanted to make the secure record. Being in a band is so much better. I think that's true. Yeah. Vives, babe, vibes.

A part of what works to me about disintegration is that it is so musically full. Like, the beginning of Plain Song is like orchestral. Oh, my God. Goodbye. The great thing about Plain Song is that it does, do that thing where it really tricks you into thinking that it's just instrumental. And then the opening lines on the album, one of the greatest opening lines, I think, on any album, track one side, whenever. It's like, damn, it makes you kind of long, once you hear the lyrics,

it's like, I can't believe that there was a world where I imagined I would not get to hear these words. I think it's dark and it looks like rain, you said. Yeah. The wind is blowing like it's the end of the world you said. I love that repetition of you said also. Poetry Corner, Iowa, Writers Workshop Corner. It's so good. Yeah, I think Plainsong works. I think that that mechanism works better on Plainsong because it's more. Okay, so a Plain Song is the name of like Gregorian chants and also like other Catholic liturgies because they're sort of translike, right, enchanting translike. And that's sort of what that

orchestral thing that you're talking about is doing. It's not what it's doing in the first track of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. It's just, that's just instrumental. But this is like, it's almost like luring you in, right? And I think that's why it works so well. Because you're sort of like, you're lulled in

and you're just there. And then you're like, oh, a song. Gorgeous. Beautiful. I love it. I do feel like we talked about this, needing to be a band album. I mean, Roger O'Donnell, and I wasn't in the room, but I have to assume he brought so much to the table, right? Because he really is an incredible keyboardist, and he, the layering of sound, I think, was a lot to do with him as well. Well, yeah. I mean, if you look at, like, the other thing, like, there's, there's kind of a theme that you can find in the

records he's played on or contributed to where he builds his own kind of wall of sound. no matter what else is happening. You know, like on some of those psychedelic furze records and some of the Thompson-Twins stuff he was on, it's like he's not doing his own thing. He's definitely working in harmony with the rest of the instrumentation. But, like, I mean, on Plain Song, it's like a very thick waterfall.

Not maybe not even a wall of sound, but a very dense waterfall of sound just happening with what he is doing. And I think that's, you know, just the keys themselves. It's doing a lot of work. I truly couldn't agree more. Another thing about this album besides the Saturn return and the, you know, subverting of the existentialism is Robert Smith isn't feeling old now.

I'm going to KMS, not the hair gel when I hear that, but he's really grappling with aging. And I guess, like, to not make a joke about it, like 30 is kind of, especially when you're a rock star or whatever. I mean, 30 is a time where you're like, again, taking stock, Saturn's returning, and you're like, oh, I'm not going to live forever. Also, speculation. But your body doesn't bounce back the same way from the copious amounts of alcohol and drugs that it might have in your 20s. And I think that very physically, probably that feeling was taking over Robert Smith. And he was like, oh, man. Yeah.

I don't feel good. Yeah, I mean, this album, too, was a, this is a cocaine album, yeah, I think. They were, I think they were definitely fucked up, but I don't know if it was, I don't think it's cocaine. They don't really speak explicitly about what's going on. They're definitely drinking a ton. The vibes were bad, babe. Yeah, I was saying the making this album was pretty rough.

Robert didn't talk to anyone the whole making of the album, just didn't want, basically don't want to talk to anyone. He said, he told Rolling Stone in 2004, it sounds really bigheaded, but everyone wanted a piece of me at the time. I was fighting against being a pop star. being expected to be larger than life all the time. And it really did my head in. Okay, here, I had a theory.

It was hallucinogenic drugs, and I'm right. I got really depressed and started doing drugs again. Hulusogenic drugs. Yeah, because this is not a cocaine album, babe. It's too, it's definitely not. It's just too vibe and slow and milky. Like, when we were going to make the album, I decided I was going to be monk-like and not talk to anyone.

It was a bit pretentious, really looking back, but I actually wanted an environment that was slightly unpleasant. He's the meme of Sue Sylvester being like, I'm going to create a vibe that is so bad that we make disintegration out of it. The other band was like, what is wrong with you, basically? Except for Loll who was like basically blocked out the entire time. Right. Lowell was, no one's vibes were worse than Lolls. No one, yeah.

And Robertsman says this is where the vibe, because, and we already talked about, he got kicked out of the band. But Robert Smith said the only way we could communicate that he was turning into a complete parative of himself. was beating him up. I didn't know who he was anymore, and he didn't know who he was either. I think the whole dynamic with Lowell was like, we make fun of you and you jostle us back or you react, and he just stopped reacting. And I think they were like, oh, God, this is really dark. Porrell actually tried to get him to go to rehab during that disintegration making, but he said no.

Okay. Do you want to hear something fucking insane? I would love to. The label did not like this album. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. they hated it. Well, they didn't know, I mean, they were looking at it from like a financial point of view, right? In one way. Imagine being so wrong. Yeah. I will say this. I love disintegration. I don't have the brain of like a label boss. If I were at the head of a label because your brain is so directly tied to capital, you know what I mean? I can see if someone played playing song for me and they were like, this is opening our new album. I would be like, oh, uh, this was the.

time perhaps to capitalize on their ever-growing fan base because they had a hit. They had like, you know, just like heaven was massive. And I can see if I'm a label person thinking like, the next album you make after Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is going to be the album that sends you to the stratosphere of stardom. And it was, but if like you're thinking with your ears and money, your money brain and not your like sound brain and ears or not your like quality brain and ears, then yeah, you hear playing song. You don't even get the pictures of you. You're just like, what the fuck, man? Right.

We need something. This can't play on the radio. And there are a lot of songs on disintegration outside of Pictures of You and Love Song. Like, I love fascination streets. One of my favorite here songs of all time. But I don't know if I hear that as like a radio single. I just love it. You know, Pictures of You is a great, great, great, great single.

But I don't know if I heard it in context with the rest of the album. If I'd be like, that's the one. Love song, of course. Yes, without question. If I hear that in the context of any album, like, that's a song. the one that's the hit single. But pictures of you is like fucking eight minutes long. You know, like it's all the minutes are good minutes. All good minutes. It goes by so fast. That song, little known fact, that song is about me lurking people on Instagram.

Pictures of you actually, there's multiple stories about what this song is about besides me lurking on people on Instagram. There's like a fire. Then his fire come hit his house or some shit. Yeah. So one of the stories is that there was a fire at the Smith's house and he found pictures of Mary in the wreckage. And that thought about this. song. Another story is that he once threw away all his personal photos and home movies to like start over or whatever. And another story is that this is the story that's in the liner notes for Galore, which is a compilation album that comes out later. Also very formative for me, but he says, the song was loosely based on an essay by Myra Polio. Here's where we're getting a little bit of a

imagine lying to your own liner notes. But anyways, I'm going to get ahead of my phone. Myra Polio entitled The Dark Power of Ritual Pictures. After reading it, I destroyed all my old personal photographs and almost all my home video collection. I think I was trying to wipe away my past. Within days, I was suffering great regret. I still am. Okay. Myra Polio, however, is an anagram of Mary Poole.

And there is no such poem that has ever been found to exist by the poet Myra Polio. Of course not. He lied to his own liner notes. It's not even an interview. Gorgeous, beautiful. Pictures of you is a fucking... Perfect. song. One of the great songs over like six minutes all time, although I think the single,

the single had all these different lengths, like the U.S. singles, six and a half minutes, I think. The album version is a minute more than that. But like on this, I had, at one point I had the seven inch. And the seven inch is like four minutes. It's like a, you know, it's an in and out kind of thing. Right. At least for, for that song. Four and a half minutes. No, I want them all. I love how much of the interiority of the character. the female subject is here. Yeah. The level of witnessing that Robert Smith is doing of this person is so profound to me.

Like it starts with like, you know, you were bigger and brighter and wider than snow, which is like a real, it's a feeling. I mean, just like this feeling of like overwhelm of someone. And then screaming at the make believe screaming at the sky. But my favorite, you finally found all your courage to let it all go. it hits me every time. Every time. The writing works so well because it's like it's a series of vignettes of like frozen images. So the song itself.

Yeah, right. So the song itself, it's like, it expresses on top of the expresses, right? Like it's the song itself is rendering itself through its lyric, through its kind of like lyrical arc. Sorry. Closedown. Does not get enough credit. No, not at all.

And I think it doesn't get enough credit because it's between the two. it's like sandwich between the two massive beautiful symbols. But you could almost think of it as like a club sandwich, right? Absolutely. Because to me, Plain Song and Closedown are sort of like two pieces of bread or whatever, you know, like around the like meat of the profound love songs. Because to me, Closedown really has that same feeling. Oh, it does.

Yeah. It's like a bridge that ties those two together because I think about disintegration as an album of movements. Like Plain Song is its own movement. but pictures of you close down love song is like a that is also a distinct movement and you almost need all three to work in the exact order. Disintegration is also a perfectly sequenced album, I think, because it's easy to kind of like break apart these movements really well.

But close down, yeah, I mean, that's a perfect tune, perfect tune. Love song, we all know it. We love it. It was Robert's wedding gift from Mary. I hope he got her an actual gift though. I will say that. I hope there was like a, like granted, that song is beautiful, but it's not, Like, I just, whenever people are like, I wrote this song as a gift, that's cool, but also it's a gift to everyone.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, that is a gift to me, too, Robert Smith. Like, I am not your spouse, but thank you. And so, hopefully there was a gift that was also a personal, you know, personally exchanged. I don't know. Maybe I'm just, like, so beguiled by the idea of being immortalized in song. Oh. And I do think it's an incredible listeners of the pod now.

I've had two songs written about me. I was not to ask if you've ever been immortalized in song. It's straight. It seems. Just twice. One is very good and one is not so good. Just twice. Yeah, just twice.

Well, that's what. If you serially date musicians, it's sort of inevitable that eventually your annoying ass will make its way into at least one or two songs. Anyways. So, yeah, he said, he said, I couldn't think of what to give her, so I wrote her that song, cheap and cheerful. She would have preferred diamonds, I think. But she might look back and be glad I gave her that.

Okay. I wanted to ask you about that. this. He says it's an open show of emotion. I'm not trying to be clever. It's taken me 10 years to reach the point where I felt comfortable singing in a very straightforward love song. In the past, I've always felt a last minute need to disguise the sentiment. Yeah. It is pretty much the most plain language love song, I think. I mean, it's called love song. And there's no, there's no mincing words. No, there's no real image or metaphor. And also the whole population of a song revolves around like the eye and the you and that's kind of it you know and there's such close

proximity to the eye and you you know it's just like whenever i'm alone with you you do you know it's there's just no real nothing is covering the eye and the you that is the entire population of the song and therefore like even more than plain language like the concept of building a love song that that kind of strips away any kind of exterior mess and then moves two people in a room where one person is just kind of immovable in explaining things, explaining things beautifully. I think that's in concept really a simplistic, wonderful way to express what a love song can be. It's funny. I think this song is the first cure song that I actually really remember knowing because my cousin, Sima, shout out Sima, had a boyfriend named Joseph. They were like 10 years older than me.

and she told me this is his song for me like he told me that this is his song for me and I went and listened to that I was like, you know, nine or ten years old and I was like,

oh, this is what, this is what being in love is like? Someone dedicates this song to you that's however far away I will always love you. I was really, really imprinted on young Yossi

and now I am forever disappointed and unhappy because nothing will ever live up. up to this. Best part of the song, I think we can all agree, Fly Me to the Moon. Yeah. Just one at every time.

Every time it comes. I'm like, damn, what a fucking little genius moment that is. And he said it, he said it kind of quietly, like almost like he didn't want you to hear it. It's like, he's a little embarrassed about it. It was not embarrassed, but just a little like, is this too far? Last Dance? Bitch. Ooh.

The lyrics? I think maybe we're. for word, my favorite writing on this album is Last Dance. Guess what? Not about Mary. The only song on this album about Mary's love song. Isn't that insane? Yeah.

This song is about somebody else. He said, it was written about a disappointment I felt after a meeting with someone from old times who's not anymore like he or she used to be. He says he or she. And I know that. I know, but it's like where a woman is standing where their ones was a girl. I think we really know it was a she, babe. I know that, of course, like, at least back then. it feels like Robert Smith was adhering to a very strict gender binary.

Sure. It's so funny because he's so coy about this where it's like, you know, he or she, or she was like, my man, like, we can see the lyric. You can hear and see the lyrics. They're right here. Also, even if the sentiment was like, you're an adult now, not a child, I think he would have used those words. I think the word choice of woman and girl is very specific to a woman.

You know, like it's, you don't have to, like, that to me speak of volumes. He's too smart of a writer to, you know, he wanted that there. You know, it's like he's such a deliberate writer. And he's such a self-aware writer that everything is in its place for a reason. Totally. Okay, we already talked about Fascination Street being a banger. It is about, quote, unquote, booze and drugs. Yeah.

Spoiler alert to the record label. It did incredible. Robert Smith did keep the letter from them that said that they didn't like it because it went on to sell millions. I think they literally said he was committing commercial suicide. I don't know. Yeah, which is, given the, given the state that he was in

in the contents of the record, it's like, oh, come on, come on, choose your words better. But I do, while he's, like, in hindsight being like,

I thought it was my masterpiece and they thought it was shit. I think maybe he did think it was his masterpiece, but I would bet Robert Smith also did not think it was going to be commercially successful. And maybe on,

he absolutely didn't. He's on purpose, right? He was trying to get away from being a pop star. And he was like, what if I make such a willfully obscure and difficult and opaque album, surely it will curtail my, you know, rocket like ascent to the top. It didn't.

And he's like, he talked openly about regretting it, about like becoming the minute they started playing stadiums. And I know that like a lot of bands kind of put this on of like, oh, we never dreamed, you know, I came up on the punk scene in the Midwest. So like I've seen this, I've seen this iteration in early 2000s when the, when the emo boom happened.

So I've seen this iteration happen before. where some bands are like, well, we never really wanted to play stadiums, and here we are. Ho-hum. But I think it, like, really affected him. Like, he was like, what the fuck? And it's because I think he did not think he was making a record that would be commercially appealing. Like, he thought this would be the record that not a commercial death, but I think at

worse, he thought it would hold steady where they were in the eyes of the world in terms of the commercial impact they were having. And it's actually hard for me to understand because, like, of course I wasn't alive in, I mean, I was alive, but not a part of the music buying public in this time. It is actually hard for me to understand why this is the album, because it's not a, you know, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. It's kind of like a lush pop record in some ways, or it's perhaps their luscious most poppy record. And it's weird to me that this is the album that catapulted them to like massive, massive commercial success. Because I actually don't think this is a, again, putting on my record label hat, I don't really think this is a commercially viable album.

But I think perhaps the argument then is that the album is that perfect. It's so good that like commercial viability doesn't really matter. And disintegration is a departure from Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. It is a darker, more polished version of their old shit that everyone was like, why are they so fucking depressed all the time? But this time out, the album was so undeniably perfect that both critics and fans had to kind of be like, this is just, this is a good record. I can't.

It's like undeniably good to the point where. this isn't like good for them for switching it up or good for them for kind of returning to some roots. It's it translated something, I think, about the depths of really difficult emotion. And people, I think, by 1989, were perhaps a little bit more willing to admit that those depths were something they were familiar with. I think you're totally right. Like, I also just think that perhaps, like, there was just some sort of like accrued popularity, you know? Like, I think the cure was just, um, stacking. popularity. And then while they didn't deliver a huge pop album, they delivered, like you said,

a really fucking good album that was undeniable. So at the very least, it didn't take away from their, like, growing and mounting fame, because also people are revisiting the back catalog, blah, blah, blah. I don't find this album depressing. Is that insane? I find this album, like, it's like a thing that takes a little balloon inside your heart and then goes, you know, And it just like continues to like grow and expand my heart when I listen to. It just like cracks me open. But it's not depressing. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense. It's vulnerable, but I don't think it's depressing. No. No. And I think there's like a real clarity between like vulnerability and feeling and, you know, feeling of depression kind of thing. Totally. So anyways, I want to like take a quick detour where.

Q Magazine basically accused them for not being original in this album and said that they were like conspicuously looking north to Manchester home of New Order and Joy Division. But like, I just don't agree. So I'm going to skip right over that. Everyone then was like, well, Joy Division and New Order and you're like, leave us alone. Does it even sound like that? Go away. So we've catapulted to international fame and glory basically at this point.

We still make a quick time to tell Sky Magazine, I hate the Smiths and everything they've ever done. There's a self-importance about the Smith that the cure have never had, and Morrissey's precious, effete, glib, out of touch, and a million other vile things that I can't be bothered to list. He makes me squirm. Just a quick, quick stop by to drag the Smiths. Which, again, the one thing that Robert Smith was wrong about, the Smiths are a very good band. Is Morrissey extremely annoying? Absolutely. But are the Smith's a really good band?

Just one more. Q Magazine 19A. He's a precious, miserable bastard. He's all the things people think I am. Morrissey sings the same song every time he opens his mouth. At least I've got two songs, the love cats and faith. If only people knew how easy it is to be in a group like the Smith's. Damn.

Fages, to this day, I think Robert Smith's favorite song he's ever written, according to himself. Isn't that interesting? That's the favorite song ever written? Yeah, he thinks it's the best song he's ever written. Really? He said it in multiple interviews, yeah. I mean, I like face, but wow. I think he obviously has different standards that he's holding his songwriting to than we do.

Right, right, of course. It's more of expression than taking in. So I guess for his level of what he wanted to express that was the peak of it. Okay. In 1989, after the, like maybe a little bit before the album comes out, they make it public that Loll is not in the band. They say some mean things about him in the press. like Simon basically says he couldn't exist outside of the group. He couldn't order a beer without saying,

do you know that I'm in the cure? What would mean? It's a little unnecessary. I mean, I feel like if I were in the cure, I would also, you know, I can't lie. I would be also like, you know, did you know I'm in the cure? You would be making sure that everyone was aware that you were in the cure. Sadly, yes.

You're like, hey, you know that been in the cure? Lul told Jeff Apter that towards the end of his time in the cure, he got sick and destroyed a lot of things, and he's aware of that. But before that, he put everything he had in. And I think that's right. That sounds totally honest and correct. Calling an album disintegration was a bold move, because the band does a bit start to fall apart here. They do the prayer tour. They played a 40,000 people in Paris, so they're getting really big. Now it's time to go to America. Guess what? Robert and Simon are suddenly afraid of flying. So they insist on by boat.

They take a boat to America. It's like a casino cruise, so they basically spend like whatever a week getting wasted and gambling. So they're just like wrecked by the time they get to America where they have to play giant stadium. Incredible. They're basically full on pop stars at this point. Okay. They're huge.

Their stadium, it's a big thing. Robert keeps insisting very Robert like that this is the last cure album ever and it will be the last cure tour. So spoiler alert. This is not the last year. Not the last year. Nor is, I believe you're literally currently touring.

Roger O'Donnell said that all the breakup talk was just a bluff on Robert's part, obviously, to fight complacency in the band. He likes to say that. He likes to keep us nervous. But of all people, I think Robert doesn't like change. Of course, my tour is king. Then again, he doesn't like things to be settled either. It's a very difficult contradiction. In May of 1990, O'Donnell quits for a solo career.

That's a bummer, right? Because he really brought a lot to the table. Who do they replace him with? This is fascinating. The band's guitar tech, Perry Bimanti, who does not play keyboards, does not know how. And is not maybe even that good at guitar, I'm not really sure. No, I don't want to besmirch Perry Bimante's guitar name.

Who, hilariously, Perry was friends with Martin Gore from Tepish Mode in school, and his brother, Daryl, was a roadie for Tepesh Moe. who later becomes the manager of the cure. They really like to keep their circles tight. Keep it in his family. Perry just gets in the band, babe, and they literally asked the roadie. This is how much they cared about vibes and having a good time and having beers, because they were like, that guy's our friend.

He's a good time. He could be in the band. And then Janet, remember Janet being sort of an incredible, you know, savant musician, she gave Perry a crash course on playing piano and keyboards while the band, was recording Wish so that by the time they toured Wish, he could play on the tour. Robert said, we could have hired a professional to take his place, but why not use someone who knows all the songs? I mean, bitch, I know all the songs.

I could have been in the band, I guess, but that doesn't mean I know how to play them. Anyways, 1990 is also the year that Lull actually finally gets sober, for real and is apparently still to this day. Congratulations, Lull. It put out Mixed Up in 1990. Did you have any relationship with Mixed Up, the remix album? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I don't love it. But I do think there are like a few gems on there. Like, I think the Flickr remix of Caterpillar is good. In the dub mix, extended dub mix of pictures of you, I really like. I like that too. I don't like, why can't I be you? Which means that like any extended mix of that is like triply bad. Yeah, we're like, we didn't like the short version and we don't want the long version.

You can keep it. Keep that. It was a cool. I think less that it yielded. incredible results, which some of it's cool. More importantly, it really shows that the cure, like, sort of did have their finger on the pulse in some ways, because, like, it's, this is fucking going on, right? Acid House has become huge in the UK.

We're clubbing, babe. We're raving. Yeah. This is definitely going on. And for them to, like, be aware to the point that they're going to, like, participate in it, is very cool. And it's the first musical entry of the cure into the decade that is the 90s, which is very interesting to me.

Like, that's their first offering of the 90s is rave music of their own music basis. Gorgeous. Okay. They get the Brit Award for Best British Group, kind of a big deal in 91 or 92. Maybe an even bigger deal, Goss T, drums, et cetera. Lowell-Tolhurst files a lawsuit against the cure. Saw that coming. Who, did you?

I'm shocked. No, I think he'd had enough, you know what I mean? You can't sue someone for being mean to you. I mean, you could try. As much as people tend to try to do that this day and age on the internet. Okay, but here's what happened. Basically, Lull was like, okay, I'm sober. I want to start making music again.

And he consulted a lawyer just to make sure that his contract with the cure wouldn't prevent him from making music on his own. Meanwhile, the lawyer saw a nice payday opportunity because he was like, oh, I feel like you signed that new contract in 1986 that took you from partner to a compensated member, that was unfair and you didn't know what you were signing. And Lul did admit in his book that in that moment, my warped thinking while pretending to lead me somewhere good was actually my undoing. And the recesses of my mind, I knew what I was looking for. Revenge. So yes, he was suing them for being mean to him or for kicking him out of the band, basically,

which he didn't really have a legal leg to stand on. Predictably, Robert Smith was real mad. Which, you know, like personally, okay, would I sue someone? for being mean to me? No. But Lull, he has no like legal ground to stand on, obviously. But I've become so low sympathetic that I, if he came to me and I would take this case, even if I were not legally able to practice law, I feel like, no, I hear you. I'll take you. I'll take it to court. I'm sorry. If I was Robert Smith and I was like, mate, rough, sis, I literally carried you on my fucking back for 20 years. And now, now you're going to fucking sue me.

me, bitch? I kept you in the band when all you did was drink and stand on stage and paid you money. Yeah, he did have the sweet 50-50 deal. I would lose my goddamn mind. This is why I'm not a lawyer because, oh, that's all it took for me. You saying that is all it took for me to be like, you know what, loll? You went back to the other side.

This is why. That would be my closing remarks. I mean, if they were your opening remarks, I would, that would win the case soon. The judge would be like, Gabel. It's over, babe. That's right. I'd be like, I forfeit. You're on your own, well, well, Robert said that it's really stupid. He'll lose, and he'll have to pay costs. Because I think that's how it works there. It's like,

if you sue someone and you lose, you have to pay all the court and lawyer costs. He said, he'll have to pay costs, and it'll cost him more than he can hope to win. And he's going to lose any credibility he has as regards to what he did in the cure, because it'll all come out. So he's basically saying, he's like, these people don't even know how little you did. Like, you're, but now they're going to know on top of everything. It took four years from this filing for it to go to court. Anyways, so that's what happened in 1990. We get out of disintegration land, which is the peak of the mountain of the Cures career, I think.

And just like a couple of years later, I mean, I think it might have been sooner had it not been for that lawsuit, because I think the lawsuit sort of hemmed them up for a bit. Yeah, for sure. But in 1992, post-punk breaking, punk has broken. punk it has broken Nirvana has topped the charts the monoculture has changed everything is different nothing will ever be the same

but it's 1992 Dr. Dre has put out the chronic which was the first CD I ever bought Wow I know that's a good first CD For a 10 year old it's a little much Yeah yeah But in fairness I was raised in Torrance

California which is like just a hop skip and a jump away from Long Beach So I was you know West Coast rap till I did Anyways, that's neither here nor there. PJ Harvey's Dry comes out. Allison Chains dirt, pavement slanted and enchanted. It's the fucking 90s.

It is the 90s. I guess I wanted to ask you, why do you think it's so surprising that Wish is this good? Oh, I feel like it's not, I mean, to me, it's not surprising. Although it does do the same thing where the first single was maybe a mistake a bit. Hi is a good song, but also like Friday I'm in love and a letter to Elise. is on here. So it's like, you know. I know. It's a crazy dress. I love high. High, high, scratch is the same itch for me as Caterpillar

does where it's like extremely silly, but, but really enjoyable for me. Like, kitten as a cat. Bitch, I don't know what that means, but I love it. Another cat thing. Another cat thing. Your kitten is a cat. I just think they got more guitar driven here.

Like joyfully guitar driven. I mean, perhaps they were simply reacting to the environment within which they were putting on music. Right. This is maybe the first cure album that does feel a bit more reactionary because for a long time, I think with a lot of the records, it felt at least to me like they were just kind of their heads were down and they were working. Not that they were not aware of what was going on around them, but just kind of that it did not impact their output. This was an album that feels a bit reactionary in a way that is to me not bad. It's like a little shoegasy in some places. It's a little like, grungy in some places, but I also just think it's one, maybe they're like most tender and playful record. I love doing the unstuck. I know. I love that one too. I love Wendy Tyne. My dog's name is Wendy, and I'd play that sometimes for her, though she does not understand songs. So, you know, whatever. You don't know that. That's true. She might very well. You can't, you can't know what's

going on in the mind of Wendy. I guess what I meant more was like, you don't often see. You don't often see the best album of a band's career followed by also a very good album, I guess. I mean, I'm sure I'm going to get like hate mail where people are like, what about Bob Dylan? There are some, there are some like, well, actually, is in there, surely. But I think broadly, I mean, Nirvana, honestly, in you know, the goddamn gorgeous beautiful album. I think, I mean, of course, all this varies. But if you're talking about like singularly great albums, it's not disintegration. But I would consider. one of the Curis classic albums.

It's also their ninth out, ninth. Yeah. So to make that good of it, first of all, the fact that your eighth album is your best album ever, absolutely mental, and then that your ninth album is still very good. Yeah. And, you know, I think part of that is a byproduct of you started when you were literally like 16 or 17 years old, you know, so you're sort of coming into this like pre, where it all goes downhill, middle age artistic peak.

Yeah. Well, it also kind of seems like they went through these waves of gaining a renewed sense of excitement for life and then being like, nope, that's no good. That renewed sense of excitement is not working for me. And I think when you ebb and flow like that, I think the output, you know, you can kind of have these bursts that kind of don't seem like they ever end. Yeah. I mean, I think that's truly, you've just described life. Honestly, like the tension that builds up until you're so miserable that you're like, actually, I have this burst of renewed enthusiasm and joy for life. and then you live there too long and all of a sudden the dark side pulls you right back.

There's plenty of dark side on this album, you know, like open, it's like a song about alcoholism. It's pretty depressing. It's pretty depressing. If you get to the, and we have our Sylvia Plath reference, which by the way, might have come from Loll. Because Loll was a huge Sylvia Plath fan. Did you know this? I did not know this. He mentions it all.

Now I'm back on the side of Lull. You're right back over there. I'm glad the rain is coming down hard. It's the way I feel inside. the original goth. And we talked about high, which I really liked. Robert said it was one of Simon's ideas, but he loved it. He said, lyrically, it's just about stopping to think about what you've got rather than always wanting something more.

Oh, that's kind of tender. I know. When I see you high as a kite, high as I meant, I can't get that high. Maybe he was talking about Nirvana. I'm supposed to say, I don't get that lyrically out of high, but maybe I'm... No, yeah, I thought it was just like a kind of a weird love song about it. a mentally ill woman, which is always my favorite kind of love song, as you guys know. That's just shaped my entire existence.

A part is extremely depressing. Yeah, it's a real bummer. It's a real bummer. He waits for her to understand. She won't understand at all. I guess now that I'm going through this, this is slightly more of a bummer than I recalling. It really is because, I mean, from the edge of the Great Green Sea, I just wrote, fuck me up, fam. Like, what the hell?

Apparently, people would ask him what this song and apart. were about and he would just say drugs. Again, to our point of some of the greatest love songs are actually about drugs. Drugs and God. Drugs and God. And then sometimes a mentally ill woman like myself. Amuse, if you will.

I have to just take a moment to shout out from the edge of the Deep Green Sea. I always forget that it's one of my favorite Cure songs. I think because it's not so like splashy and grabby as are the typical favorites. But what a beautiful song. It's an elite song. Incredible song. I actually can't believe it's

not a single. I mean, I get that it wouldn't play very well on the radio maybe, but like a lot of these, a lot of their singles are not, you know, I guess by this point, they did have a lot of radio shit, so it'd be a little out of place, but man, that song is perfect. It's really beautiful. I think it's

lyrically really beautiful. It's just a gorgeous song. Let's talk about Friday I'm in love because that's besides letter to at least, I think those are the two biggest tunes on the album. Definitely by the reviews, I feel like people were a little bit like Friday I'm in love is like lame.

A little corny. Corny, cliche, yeah. What do you think? One, I love it. Yes, I am honestly same. I do think it's corny, but I don't, I'm not like averse to cornyness in love songs. I like the story of the writing process where Robert Smith, isn't this a song where he like believed that he stole the chord progression?

So he just like called everyone he knew and played the song for them asking them if he stole it from him. Is that true? I didn't see that. Yeah. That's really funny. Which is so funny. Like, I can't even imagine a friend calling me like, hey, can I read you this poem? Because I'm pretty sure I stole it from you.

I think I copied it from you. He's, like, on the phone with, like, fucking DePash Mode. Like, mates, is this one of yours? He definitely didn't call Peter Hook, because Peter Hook would have hung up on him. But it's funny because, one, I think this is a very uniquely cure song. So it's funny to me that this is the song where Robert Smith is like, did I steal this from somewhere? Because there are songs.

And I know we talked about this where, you know, it's like stealing whatever. But there are songs that where some could say, okay, well, this is derivative of a new order because everyone was deriving from new order. Right. Whatever the fuck. But this song is like a uniquely, I think it's a uniquely cure song. Maybe not solely in chord progression, but the way the song is structured and arrives is a very cure-like tune. I agree. I also think like, okay, while it is a little corny and cliche in some ways, it's still lyrically there's like moments that are so deletious.

lightful and surprising, that even now, years later when I hear them, I don't know, I love always take a big bite. It's such a gorgeous sight to see you eat in the middle of the night. Because it's that thing that he does, right? That really specific scene, like you mentioned, that is so good. And, and, like, what a pure and beautiful expression of love to fixate on something like that, you know? Like, I just love to watch you eat in the middle of the night. I think that he is a uniquely gifted writer of love songs because is someone who fixates and like stays in one place with his images and his scenes. And that doesn't always translate to good love songwriting because there's a way that that kind of fixation of scene and moment can be terrifying and creepy. I hear you.

Which I think he actually does that well other times too. But I think he's such a good love songwriter because he is committed to be kind of like slowing down a moment and then analyzing it. Totally. Oh, I found the thing that you're talking. about. He said he was getting drug paranoia when he was calling everyone and asking if he had stolen it from them. Gorgeous. He also called it a really dumb pop song, but that it's actually quite excellent because it's so absurd. I'm like, that, that to me is the cure. Like, that's the best definition of the cure that I've heard of all the good tunes. It's a dumb pop song, but it's

quite excellent, actually, because it's so absurd. Does Robert Smith seems to have like an aversion to the songs that become massively beloved? Yeah. A letter to Elise, goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song, inspired by Jean-Cocto's Le Infants Terrible. I can't, my French accent is absolutely horrendous. At some point, Robert Smith was supposed to like compose music for the ballet of this and that never happened. And then also Kafka's A Letter to Felice. I'll also say a letter to Elise.

I'll also say a letter to Elise very good on the record. Almost every single live version is better than any version that's been recorded, I think. Why do you think that? Well, because I think the live version, they kind of draw out the bridge a bit and they get a little whimsical with it, you know? And it just, like, I think that the gift of that song is the moment where it gets to breathe and becomes like a half instrumental. And that happens on the record a bit, but there's something in the live expressions of it where you can tell the band becomes a little less aware of time.

Like they're not watching the clock the way you might when thinking about an album. And so, yeah, I mean, there's a playfulness that kind of emerges from it. I love that song. I love, don't get me wrong, I love the album version, too. I'm just saying to see it live is like, they're really transperative.

It's really transcendent, if you will. Yeah, yeah. I think this album works so well because it like balances between those emotional polarities. You know, like we just kind of talked about. Like, it's one of the ones that has really high highs and really low lows, but it kind of really works in that. I think the lows are perhaps lower and harder to traverse because the highs are. Yeah. You know what's funny speaking of like sonically Friday?

And love is was accidentally, it's like a quarter tone sharp on the record. it's like a halfway between D and E flat. Again, when I say these things, I am doing theater because I don't know what that means, but I can sort of piece together from context. And it was an accident. But Robert Smith said that is the fact that it's the only song on the album that's not in concert pitch is like really lifts it out. It makes it different.

And then I can't stop thinking about that where I'm like, it is so bright. It is. I'm like, oh, must, I mean, happy accent. I guess. Yeah. Can I like, what do you think of end as a closing track? Well, I think the name works. I'm just joking. I think they do a very deliberate thing here with the opening and closing. And if I just look at it as the message it's sending, I think it does work, but it is like sort of navel gazing, you know? Yeah. So I think I struggle because the only big critical, take a half of this album is that it seems like what I love about their albums is that they're so

richly sequenced and they're sequenced in a way that make it seem like everything just kind of fell that way in its own happy little place. You know, it's like, oh, look at this magic. It just kind of tough. And this is an album where it's like, it feels like the sequencing is kind of winking at us a bit. And I'm not that interested in the cure winking at me. I mean, in this, in this context. You're only interested when they're the clown with the candy and the van. But you're not interested in them winking at you. That's actually extremely true. As long as the clown with the candy and the van is not winking at you, you're all set to get in.

This is apparently Robert's second favorite album as of 2004, which is only time period that counts. So let's say yes. Blood Flowers is his favorite album. Blood Flowers is his favorite album? That's his favorite cure album? We're going to get there. I mean, listen, I don't know how you are with your poems. and I don't make anything that can arguably be called art.

But, I mean, maybe if you guys are very generous, you could say this podcast is art. But don't you often find that the more recent work tends to be your most beloved? Or are you still, are you a fan of your own earlier stuff? Are you like my own earlier stuff? Myself fell off, actually. Yeah. I guess when you put it like that, yes. you are kind of in a way beholden to

recency because otherwise like, you know, surely your agents and your publishers and whatnot would be like, what the fuck. Well, also it's like, and then why make it? This is what I always think. Like, even if other people don't agree, right? And we've done this. We've gone deep into some discographies on here where you're like,

wow, you're still going. Okay. But you have to think it's amazing or else why even bother? Yeah. I guess that's true and fair. I mean, I don't know. It's like you could just preserve her legacy and keep quiet. You could just make it for yourself and keep it inside the house, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Just make these little, make some mixed CDs for yourself of your own tunes. You know, like, Billy Corgan, you want to make an opera, babe, go off. But, like, you didn't have to put it out. But you're going to. Okay, anyways, just one detail I have to mention about this album, though, which, by the way, was the most commercially successful in the band's career. It hit number one in the UK and number two in the U.S.

I think Paula Abdul stubbornly kept it out of the number one spot, and you can't blame people for that. That was a huge album. Yeah. This album was made at a place called Shipton Manor, which is a huge mansion owned by Richard Branson, which does contain an atrium. Okay? And in the atrium,

the entire ceiling, Richard Branson, presumably had painted a mural featuring musicians' faces. Mostly ones the cure hated, like Boy George, Bono, Jim Car, and Phil Collins.

And then oddly, his own children, Richard Branson's children, were included in this Alfresco, whatever, beautiful atrium painting. And I'm sorry, I just can't stop thinking about that because it's so fucking bizarre. Yeah, that's a bit much. I genuinely love Richard Branson. I know he's probably done some bad things because all billionaires have. But, like, I do miss the eccentric billionaire era. where their eccentricism was mostly like,

I want to go to the moon. And I painted this insane, like, atrium with Bono's face on it. And not, like, I'm going to, you know, ruin society as we know it. Okay. So Wish got really good reviews. I think it was the highest selling cure album, not because it's the best one, but because it's 1992 and we're at the peak of the music industry. Would you agree?

Like, this is the financial peak of, they've accrued. accrued enough fame that they're like a, you know, a very well-known and beloved and respected band. And in 1992, CDs are just flying off the fucking shelves. Yeah, I mean, the early, uh, the early CD era, not saying that anyone could go platinum, but, you know, people just be going platinum, Ben. I think people were just in awe of the, of the technology. It was also a very good year of music. Like, it's kind of a, a big year in music. But I think it, the cure also just picked a good, release window. I mean, Paula Abdul's side. You know, this wasn't like before where a million

albums come out a week. You know, you kind of had to pick, pick and choose your slots. And the care kind of picked a good one because nothing else really could challenge them that week, except for, I think the Beastie Boys came out maybe the same day. Yeah, which was a big album, but not in the way the cure was a big album. Right. Right. You know who didn't like Wish? Who didn't like Wish? Bob Crisco. He gave it a C-Bee. Maybe there's sound scan scammers like Vince Gill and Skid Row reaping unwarranted cred from a revamped accounting system. That's the first line of the fucking review.

Or maybe they're cool alternatives like Nirvana and Pearl Jam poised to prove the sales appeal of self-dramatizing pessimism. Maybe they're even writing the actual hit Friday I'm in love, which actually sounds cheerful, though by Sunday it's over, actually. In any case, let it be noted that these new wave survivors, how much shit? Shade, can you pack into three words? New wave survivors? Just tell them you wish they were never born.

A specialized taste of undiscriminating undergraduates for years have just now scored their biggest album ever, a redolent 13 years after they didn't actually kill that era. I ask you, where were the Moody Blues after 13 years, riding their second and final number one album since you didn't know. He compared... Yeah, good old Bob. I would like to report a murder. Yeah.

And this is with all due respect. to Robert Griscoe, but I don't, I think by 1992, he wasn't quite as powerful as he once was. No, certainly not. Yeah. In Guitar Player magazine that year, they interviewed him and they asked him his favorite songs, and he said, my top five favorite songs are Are You Experienced by Jimmy Hendrix? Tom Waits' is Tom Traubberts Blues. Give my compliments to the chef by the sensational Alex Harvey band,

David Bowie's Life on Mars, just because it reminds me of the first time I danced with Mary and Faith by us. See, Faith his favorite. Adorable. Ninety-N-2, 33 years old. He is still so in love. Still so in love. And also still standing the sensational Alex Harvey band.

Gorgeous. From 92, after the album comes out, they go on tour for like six months or whatever. This tour is now Simon's turn to have a MENTDB. Everyone takes a turn in the cure having a M&TB. And now it's Simon's turn. He was depressed. He was late as he was. He was drinking too much. He was not eating food. And he did start to fall apart of it physically.

He apparently had a breakdown sometime around Halloween. They diagnosed him with a severe vitamin deficiency. And he left the tour to fly home. And they brought in this guy Robert Swap to finish it. So that's not great. A little good news, September 1984, because we finished the tour and then we don't really do anything. September 16, 1994, the court rules in favor of Robert Smith. that the fiction deal was not unfair, leaving Lowell to pay the legal bill that was more than a million dollars. Whoa. Another loss for Lowell.

Lowell has a real rough go of it. Actually, I like cried reading the book because, like, not only does that happen, then sometime shortly thereafter, his wife gives birth to a daughter who passes away a few weeks after she's born. That was really devastating for him, as of course it would be. But then a few months later, she's pregnant again, and they have their son, Gray, who actually now plays in a shoe gaze band called Topographies that are quite good. I know that band. I didn't know he was there. I didn't know that was a Lowell offspring.

Check out topographies. So Lowell at this point is rich enough to handle the financial blow of this. You know, remember he's 50% of the cure for a long time. Yeah. But just barely. Okay. Like it doesn't like he's not rich anymore. I mean at this time. I don't I don't pretend to, I don't want to slander Lull's bank account information at this point. I do not know how much money he does or doesn't have. and it's none of my business, to be quite frank. But until 2003, from 94 to 2003, 75% of his royalty income went directly to the court costs. No.

You know what he said? He said, I could have done without losing a million dollars, but it's only money. 16 years ago, this is from a book that was written in 2002, so 16 years from 2002, I was quite wealthy and very miserable. Now I'm not so wealthy and very happy. Well.

We stand Loll on this program. Yeah. He has a real healthy attitude. I think towards all of life's ups and downs. Lull continues to make music. Presence is the name of Lull's band. Which made a couple of albums. So he did make music again.

Okay. Now The Cure needs to make a new album. It's time to make a new album. However, the personnel is falling apart. HR needs to come in, babe. Because Paurol Thompson was asked by these two guys, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. I don't know if you know them.

They asked him to please come tour as their good. guitarist, and he said, yes, I will do that. So he left the cure to do that, which I guess you can't blame him. Sure, sure. Boris Williams had also moved on from the band to be in a band called the Piggle with his girlfriend. Simon was, I guess, technically still in the band. However, he was still sort of in a bad way mentally, and also maybe alcoholically. I'm not sure, but maybe. So now it's just Robert and Perry Bimanti, the roadie turned cure member, when it's time to make wild mood swings. By the end of 94, they also ask Roger O'Donnell back, so he comes back to join them, and they get a new drummer through an anonymous ad in the NME, which is how they get Jason Cooper, who was a Cure Mega fan. So that's the band that goes into making wild mood swings.

I have to say, aside from that, also during wild mood swings, Robert has entered his uncle era. He's in his uncle bag at this point. He has, like, an insane amount of nieces and nephews. 21, I think, is the number. That's too many. That's too many. It's too many children. While he never had children of his own, he was, like, really into being an uncle.

He would, like, give them presents, take them to Euro-Disney all the time. I really liked as Goths, too. He really liked Disneyland. So that's that. It's 96. Music has truly changed insanely from 1992. Would you agree? I would say so, yeah.

Dave Matthews Band Crash comes out this year. Sublime. It's pook. a shell dub reggae rap rock is in full swing, okay? Modest Mouse has put out, this is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about. So Cardigan indie rock is in full swing. Corn has put out life is peachy, new metal is in full swing. Like everything has changed. Lilith Faircore is fucking eating, man, Fiona Apple title, Tori Amos Boys for Pelle. Like, it's, it's a good time for music, but it is not the world the cure entered in any way shape or form,

nor is it even the hospitable world of 1992. It is, it's a different beast. And also, I'm really sorry to say it. Wild mood swings is not a very good album. It is not. It's a sharp decline, I would say. It's a sharp decline. Sharp decline.

Although I like Mitt Carr. I like Jupiter Crash and I like numb. But boy, yeah. The run of singles off this album, it's like none of the. None of these are giving what they're supposed to give. No, yeah. I like Mint Car. Did you say you liked Min Car?

Yeah, Mint Car is the one I like. Yeah, Mint Car is good. The 13th, bro, brov? Amigo, if you will. Amigo might be the right term because this is like a salsa song. What's happening? It's like, I listened to it a bunch of times because I was like, my mind was so confused. And then I was like, okay, actually, it's not a bad song.

It's just mixed. so terribly, weirdly? I don't know. I'd really tried to spend time with this album. I was like, listen, maybe I'm missing something. No, I don't think you're missing anything. Want is a good song. Yeah, Wants is a pretty good song.

They trick you in the beginning to be like, this is going to be good. I'm like, yeah, all right, hell yeah. And then you're like, Club America, bitch, what is happening with the singing here? Are we doing experimental singing again? I thought we got that out of our system. I will point out, they pick up Steve Lyon,

who was Depeche Mode's producer to produce this. It was the lowest selling Cure album in 12 years. This is not good. Robert Smith was actually very bummed that people didn't like it. Like, he was, like, surprised. I'm starting to think that Robert Smith has no, he's one of those artists who, like, doesn't understand. Yeah. You know, like, their relationship to the world, like, the things they love versus what everyone else loves.

Yeah, I think you're right. Also, it's like, well, I mean, what did you? You were rubbing two sticks together. They're the roadie and Roger, and this is what you got. You know, like, it's not a lot. So sorry. But like, okay, anyways, let's just move on. Let's, you know, cry because it happened, not and then smile because it's over.

Something very interesting to me happens in the year 2000. I love bloodflowers. Yeah, I like blood flowers. I don't agree with Robert Smith that it's like the greatest cure album, but I do like it. For like a late career. Yeah. Or a mid to late career. release, that's what you want. You want something like that. You know what it almost is to me?

It's like if disintegration was less legible. Oh, that's interesting. Do you know what I mean? Like, to me, it has a very similar tone and vibe and like gist, but it's the shapes are less clear. Like, I don't have as much to hang my hat on. Definitely. Yeah. I'd actually know if this had any singles at all. Yeah, I don't know if it did either. But the last day of summer, is a song that I, I mean, I just adore. Maybe Someday. Absolutely adore it. I love Maybe Someday. That's my favorite song on this album. Robert said that he actually wanted this to be a short album, L.O.L. And recording it was the best experience he's had since the Kiss Me album. I mean, it is a short album in terms of number of tracks. Right, but they're all

very long. Melody Maker didn't like it. The headline for, I couldn't find the article, but the headline was goth awful. Oh, that's good. though. At least that's like kind of clever. It's really good. That's like page six level. Yeah. It was page six level good. It didn't get as good of reviews as I, again, I think it was suffering from people were still processing the trauma of wild mood swings. And maybe unfairly maligned blood flowers, which is like a really good. Like it only got two and a half stars from Rolling Stone, which I think is absolutely incorrect. Yeah. I mean, I also just think there's a reality that sometimes. reviews just get harsher, the longer a group of artists around. Yeah, there's, there's like a tipping point. There's a point of diminishing returns, especially when you're putting this album out into the world that's like, you know, outcast stankonia, Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP, like Radiohead puts out kid A this year. It's just like the musical landscape is so different.

Oh my God, my dog's creed. Yeah, I mean, this is, we're so far from, this is kind of. We've come so far from God's right. But really, I mean, like, this is a point where I think the musical landscape was changing so rapidly. You know, not that the cure were beholden to keeping up with it, but people's taste and interests where we're shifting so rapidly. And I think reviews are reflecting that. Totally. You're so right.

And also, it's just like, it'd just be like that sometimes, you know? It'd just be like that. Okay. It's the Blood Flowers Tour. It's 2000. I don't mean to bring up all the tours because I know nobody cares. I'm only bringing this up to paint the picture of a few months before on this tour. Lowell had written Robert a long letter, basically apologizing and taking responsibility.

We call that the ninth step, babe, for those familiar with Bill W. in his work. And so Robert replies and invites him to come see the cure at the palace in L.A. Loll went backstage. He made his in-person amends. Robert got on stage and dedicated the figurehead to Lull. I'm not crying. you're crying. It was all very beautiful, I think. And then it all led to 10 years later, basically 11 years later, Lull joining the band to play the first three cure albums back to back in

Australia, which I thought was very nice. 2003, extremely important thing happens. It is the song that Robert Smith did with Link 1-82 called All of This. That's a top tier important thing. I thought so. The reason this even happens is because of Uncle Bob. We're in Uncle Bob era, Okay. His nieces and nephews really love Blinkwinty, too. So when he gets this message to Blinkwainty 2 being like, will you be on our new album? He goes to his teenage nephews and he's like, what do you think? And they said, that would be so fucking cool. And he says, so I borrowed some albums off them and I started listening to them. And I actually thought they had some really, really good songs. I thought some of it was awful. And some of the songs were

really sort of crass. I can't explain to you in what context I listened to those albums because it was too personal. It was like a family tragedy. The whole family was together and to kind of alleviate the atmosphere, one of my nieces put on a blink album and it really kind of did the trick. That detail to me just felt insane. Yeah, that's... Like, we were processing a family tragedy and so we put on the blink album and it really did the trick, and that's how I experienced blink for the first time. Anyways, the song is musically inspired by Love Cats. Did you know that? I did. And I miss you. I learned that I was like, whatever, three weeks ago old when I realized that I Miss You was inspired musically by the Love Cats.

You don't hear it a little bit? Yeah, okay. A little bit. Robert was very nice to them, and he wrote them a nice little letter and said, nobody knows what kind of songs you're going to write in the future, and nobody knows the full potential of any band. I really like the music you sent me. Just lovely.

A beautiful, unexpected marriage of two bands that I love, and I never thought that they would ever speak to each other. And the song is good. Yeah. I mean, it's not great, but I don't like run it back a lot, but it's a good song. It's solid. Never forget. Mark Hoppus was absolutely cure-pilled in high school and did dress like Robert Smith for a period before he started dressing like Mark Hoppus.

Before he started dressing like every guy that I went to high school with. It was supposed to be a single that song. It was supposed to be the fifth single, but then the band broke up before that could happen. Robert Smith broke up Blinkw White A2 is what I'm saying. Oh, well, someone had to. The Cure, self-titled, love when a band, much like Blueney2, who just did it, does a self-titled album, you know, later on. Late in the career.

Yeah. Yeah. This album is notable, besides the fact that I actually kind of like it, they had it produced by Ross Robinson, the new metal guy. He had done Slipknot. He had done every corn album. Funk junkies, if you'll remember. Maybe you don't.

Limp Biscuits Counterfeit, $3 Bill y'all. Like, he also, and in cooler news, at the drive-in, glass jaw, blood brothers, like, They chose this guy to do The Cure album. I thought this was a very cool, just like in the arc of your career as like you've become these sort of like elder statesmen who have inspired an entire new generation of music that doesn't sound quite like yours, but is directly in the lineage of yours. And then to go to the guy who produces that kind of music and have, it's just like such a cool, I feel like, moment of engaging with the timeline.

Yeah. I think it also kind of is an album, or at least an album that feels more like an homage to their past selves and like a new... Totally. Yeah. I think that's what they were trying to do, right? Like, I think that's Robert Smith said. We were trying to sort of like, it was like a greatest hits-ish album of new music. Absolutely. If that makes sense. Yeah. I learned from this album that Robert Smith has always liked corn, which I really tickled and delighted me. And he is ambivalent towards Lip-Noff. I'm the other way around. I've always left Slipknot and I'm ambivalent towards Korn. No, no.

You're wrong. And me and Robert Smith are right. I'm sorry to say it with such finality, but it's true. I thought this was cool. They were making this album. They were playing it. And Robert Smith said, like, the first day, Ross Robinson just came in and started kicking things and, like, knocking everything over, going absolutely mental.

And he said, he turned to them and he was like, don't you know who you are? You're the cure. What the fuck are you doing? And Robertson was like, wow. he was right. We are the fucking cure. Is there a song on here that stands out to you or that you remember? I don't put this album on often, if we're being honest.

I don't put this album on often, but there is a bonus track, I think, that was on the record called This Morning that I love. I do like that track. I have not put this record on in at least four years. It's 2008. Vampy Weeks, babe. Coldplay. Viva Lovina. Yeah.

808's and heartbreak, Coney West. How could you be so heartless? How could you be so cold as the winner win? Lady Gaga of the fame. This might be where the universe curved 2008, do you think? Yeah, I think there was some curving. Yeah. 413 Dream.

How do you feel about it? I like the perfect boy and I like all the remixes of the perfect boy that is. I like the perfect boy. Of which there are many. And every remix and cover of it. And that's all I'll say about that. 413 dream is really uneven and hard for me to get through from point A to point B. But now if I like extract perfect boy, hungry ghost, sleep when I'm dead, and maybe underneath

the Stars and Freak Show, then it's like a good, it's like a really good AP. If I take half or 75% of it off, then it's a nice, it's a nice little tidbit of music. Yeah. Okay. It's just too long. This is one of those like too many tracks thing. I'll say it again for those in the back. Artists have every right to keep making whatever art they want to make far past the time that people like it or care about it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that is the last care album. And before we close out, I will just say, here is a thing that Robert Smith said in an interview with Spin in 2004. He said, I most certainly will not be wearing black and lipstick in 2011. That's a guarantee. Spin said, really? And he said, yeah. Spin said, I think. Thank you will. And it is 2023, and last I checked, Bob is still wearing lipstick and black. I respect the commitment to aesthetic and movability. Yeah. I think they might put out a new album.

They've played a couple of new songs on tour. Yeah. And honestly, one of them was really good. I heard someone sent me a YouTube of a line. It was really good. So I look forward to the next year album. And then I'll come back and we'll chat it up. Just another smooth two hours to cover the last pre-room.

Okay, before we finally say goodbye, and I feel that I'm going to have some withdrawals about not talking to you all the time, which has become most of my life recently, we need to hear from the fans about The Cure. Hit it, producer Jesse. The Cure is such a huge influence on me. The Cure is like the best band ever, man. The Cure,

defies classification. They've made some of the most touching, romantic, melancholic kind of like music that I've ever heard. They abandon all formula while retaining sonic and presentational signatures that are only theirs. The cure will be remembered forever, not just for their lyrics and Robert Smith's amazing voice, but the baselines

the extended intros, the pop stuff, the dark stuff. They're just, they're irreplaceable. The music understands the devastation of life, romance, abjection, absurdity, euphoria, sarcasm, madness, and the darkness within the light, the light within the dark, you know, all that good stuff. I remember sitting down with Robert Smith and saying, you know, I lost my virginity of the cure. And his response was you and everybody else, which I think is the best response you can give to that compliment. I mean, his most critically acclaimed album came out, and it was

the eighth album that they did. And it came out when he was 30. I will forever love them. It's like asking someone why they like food. It's like, I fucking eat it every day and it it's like I need it to survive, you know? Like, that's why I fucking love the cure. I need it to survive. It's the cure. It's literally the cure to, you know, anything at any fucking possible moment in my life. The cure is the greatest band of all time, period, point blank. It's the cure. It's everything. Gorgeous. Honestly beautiful. Shout out Jeff Rickley. Big shout out to Jeff, who writes beautifully and who's written a beautiful book that I got to read. You already got to read it. I'm so jealous. You can pre-order it, you guys. Rose Books. Yeah, go pre-order. I can't wait for

everyone they get to read it because it's really special. Yeah, Jeff Rickley is a national treasure. Also, Patrick Sandberg was heard on their future fans playing guests. The Cure have great fans and we stand in the stands. Honey, thank you so much for, I mean, truly from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for taking so much time out of your presumably extremely busy life to talk about The Cure at extreme length with me. I'm really, it was really awesome and fun and you're so smart and you have such a great

perspective on just everything, honestly. This was a real joy. Thank you for having me, and I hope we can talk about other music soon at some point. Hell yeah. All right. Thanks for listening. Come back next week for a new episode of Bansplaine. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplain.

Our guest today was H-A-B-R-Keepe. You can follow Hanif on Twitter at N-I-F-M-U-H-A-M-D. Huge thanks to the Cura Megathans you heard on this episode, Jeff Rickley, Patrick Sandberg, and Aidan O'Connor. This episode was produced by Jesse Miller Gordon and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Executive producers for Bansplain are Gina Delback and me, Yossi Selleck. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cozantino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos De LaGarza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDana, Dana Meyerson, Jessica Hopper, and Seas Candy Lollipops.

Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify. I know. The Crows, as a true goth, that's my jam and I've been spending a long time trying to befriend them. We're not quite there yet, but we're getting there.