The Cure

The Cure's history is largely confused with that of its leader and only permanent member since its beginnings in the late 1970s: Robert Smith. Formed in the London suburbs, the band released in 1979 Three Imaginary Boys , first album revealing a fine and relevant pop. The following year, the band released Seventeen Seconds, dominated by a dark and oppressive tone, slow rhythms, a sense of fatality. Two other tracks follow from what the fans called the band's "Gothic trilogy": Faith (1981) and Pornography (1982), an extreme album, constituting the end of the darkest and most desperate period of the band's discography. Or a series of authentic decadent rock masterpieces, emblematic pieces of this period: A Forest, M, The Running Man, A Hundred Years, Pornography, Siamese Twins ...
As if to abjure these years of infinite darkness, marked by excesses (drugs and alcohols), the band then entered a resolutely pop period, releasing some singles and compilations, as well as the albums The Top (1984), then the superb The Head On The Door (1985), containing classics such as Close To Me or In Between Days. In 1987, the double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was released, showing an inclination towards more ethereal and stretched compositions, a sophisticated pop of a troubled psychedelism. The album announces what will remain their last masterpiece: Disintegration (1989), one of the last rock monuments of the 80's, from which will be drawn the essential singles Lovesong (taken at their beginning by A Perfect Circle who mixed it with Diary of a madman by Ozzy Osbourne), Lullaby and Pictures of You. This last album is the swan song of a band that at the edge of the 1990s has nothing to bring. If it continues to release new records (compilations, live albums, albums) regularly, the band will never really renew its repertoire with relevance. In a decade, studio productions are summarized as: Wish (1992), Wild Mood Swings (1996), Bloodflowers (2000). In 2002 a double DVD ( Trilogy ) appeared in which the Robert Smith band replayed in their entirety Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers.
Finally, in 2004, The Cure appeared, whose sound is radically different from everything else: discography. It must be said that the band accepted the offer of the serial metalurgist Ross Robinson (Slayer , Korn , Slipknot ), a fan of the first hour, who wanted to produce them. In May 2005, for the first time in ten years, changes were made in the composition of the group. Robert Smith told Roger O However, the following month The Cure became a quartet with the return of guitarist Porl Thompson (beautiful brother of Robert Smith). After a long period of refinement in the studio of the titles of the next album, and before publishing it, the quartet embarks on a world tour, the 4 Tour, starting on July 27, 2007 in Japan, travelling through China, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico, followed by Europe and North America in 2008, completing the tour on June 21 in New York. The set, very supplied, could sometimes last about 4 hours. The concerts of Paris-Bercy, New York and Charlotte in the United States were filmed for a DVD. Finally, the shows of Charlotte and Paris-Bercy are aired on TV. The first, entitled 4Play in Charlotte, is broadcast in a one-hour version on the American channel HDNet, the second, The Cure Live in Paris 2008, is available in a 90-minute version on Virgin17. The band has planned to release four singles from May 2008 at a monthly rate of one, on the 13th: The Only One on May 13, Freakshow on June 13, Sleep When I'm Dead on July 13, The Perfect Boy on August 13. On 13 September a maxi entitled Hypnagogic States includes remixes of the four singles. The Only One , Freakshow , Sleep When I'm Dead and the maxi Hypnagogic States managed to top the charts in Spain, while The Perfect Boy reached 2nd position. The 13th studio album, titled 4:13 Dream, was released on 27 October 2008 with mixed reviews. The record includes the four singles released earlier. 4:13 Dream was supposed to be at the origin of a double album, but following differences between Robert Smith and Geffen about the selling price of the record and the royalties, he released in the form of a single CD.
The Cure remains is the most influential rock bands of his last thirty years, having influenced, in various ways from groups as varied as A Perfect Circle, Deftones, Placebo or Interpol and even Korn. As the many concerts around the world show, the scene is the favourite field of The Cure. Even though they played in large venues and stadiums, the band never turned its concerts into gigantic shows. The sets remain sober, only a large lighting battery comes to "dress" the songs, highlighting the vigour of the fastest (played on an even higher tempo and bringing real transformations compared to the studio versions), or favoring an atmosphere of recollection for the most melancholic that Robert Smith makes live intensely thanks to his interpretation, as Faith in particular. On stage, the band members are relatively static, unlike many Rock bands, which contrasts with the songs played energetically. A contrast that a journalist will express, after attending a concert in 1989, with his article "La Violence immobile".