1/1/1985 Unknown Source
The Cure
We’re probably the least miserable band in the history of popular music, in the privacy of our own homes," says Robert Smith. That’s hard to believe, coming from a man who has made a career out of exorcising personal demons as leader of The Cure.
Are The Cure guilty of milking the angst of junior-league existentialists? Smith explains: "When you’re feeling happy it seems irrational to document it really... it’s gone too quick... but it’s a good release to write when you’re feeling frustrated..." Smith leaves it unclear whether it is important to him that his listeners draw similar cathartic benefits.
Fortunately he doesn’t take himself or The Cure too seriously. He acknowledges stealing ideas from books he reads: "I would never be obvious about it, but it would be impossible for me not to show any of the things I’ve absorbed... what we do is tinged with influences of people I discover at the time of writing (lyrics)."
The Cure’s new The Head On The Door LP (Elektra) neatly summarizes their previous work, form the skeletal pop of Three Imaginary Boys, to the adventurousness of the recent singles and last years The Top LP. It draws atmosphere from everything in between. It forges new ground through its unlikely combination of brilliantly simple arrangements and virtuosic playing from the five current band members. Highlights are newcomer Boris Williams’ innovative drumming and the return of abrasive bassist Simon Gallup.
The Head On The Door mixes genres effortlessly. Flamenco-sounding "The Blood" follows "Kyoto Song," and precedes the warped reggae styling of "Six Different Ways." No two songs sound alike, yet they are all clearly Cure songs. Smith explains the diversity: "I think it’s fun to pretend you’re a different group from time to time. It keeps everyone fresh." "A Night Like This" is most telling of their present optimism. It starts out like "Cold" from Pornography, but it adds positive lyrics and a tasteful saxophone solo where austere space would have done in the past.
The Cure are more concerned with writing and playing the songs they want to than with growing more popular. "The main reason we go on is because of how much dross is going on around us musically," says Smith. In talking to Smith you can’t help wondering if part of the reason they continue is that Smith can’t figure out what else to do with his life. It seems like he resents being happy, finding it boring and uninspiring.
Smith has no definite plans. The Cure will continue only as long as it seems right: "I would like to be graceful about my decline, rather than flaunt it... we’ve just about reached maximum popularity. It will get to the point where we can’t handle it." Their new LP is moving up the charts, and they are selling out large venues like New York’s Radio City Music Hall. In what would be a fitting irony, success could mean the end of The Cure.
