THE CURE

Although I will doubtless give the Cure a complete (or at least comprehensive) page of reviews some time in the future (how far in the future I would not care to venture) I thought it beneficial to provide a micro overview of their career. Although there is now a more popular Greatest Hits collection available, covering more of their career, this compilation still offers an excellent snap-shot of the band at their peak years, before they started gaining money but losing respect by pursuing the pop crowds (ie. pre-"Friday I'm in Love"). Even without some of their biggest singles, though, the quality of the material on here is to be viewed with respectful awe. Even the singles from their darkest goth period are excellent songs, even if hardly top 40 material. Indeed, for me, the highlight of the entire album is the bleakest, most disturbing moment on the album - "The Hanging Garden". Plucked from their correspondingly morbid album Pornography the song presents Smith at his most miserable ("cover my face as the animals die" goes the uplifting chorus), with the sort of intense industrial goth backing that had Trent Reznor creaming himself in morbid delight. "The Hanging Garden" forms the peak of the album, or pit if you prefer, as the singles building up to it start with the new wave guitar-pop before increasingly darkening the outlook with the likes of "A Forest", "Primary" and "Charlotte Sometimes" charting Smith's increased fondness for lipstick and gothic make-up. Similarly, once the depths of Dante's Inferno have been explored the compilation documents an increasingly lighter approach from Smith, with classics "The Love Cats", "The Caterpillar" and the sublime "Close to Me" showcasing a far more playful side to Smith's preoccupations. The gothic synths are replaced with jolly keyboards, and Smith purrs his way through songs, detailing his experiences with love and devotion, rather than misery and despair. Proof, really, that the Cure were far from as one-dimensional as some critics make out. They may not have been as brilliant as the Smiths but their strengths are still there for everyone to appreciate and it was Smith's restless desire to pursue new directions that saw him elevated to a position not far behind his closest competitor and inspiration - David Bowie. Of course, the band started out quite opposed to such industrial goth-pop with the new wave debut Three Imaginary Boys that almost saw them caged by the stifling British punk movement. It was the subsequent single "Boys Don't Cry" that gave them their initial success but Smith soon abandoned formative indie guitar music on second album Seventeen Seconds which saw the band immediately bogged down in the sort of industrial dirges they went on to perfect. Although this compilation only tells half the story it ends on a high with the superb trio "Inbetween Days", "Close to Me", and "A Night Like This", all reflecting Smith's move towards unashamed pop music, even if many forget the timeless "Inbetween Days" begins with the ultimate anti-opener "yesterday I got so old I felt like I could die". That moment, as with this compilation as a whole, shows exactly why the Cure were such a brilliant band. Smith could not only pen a wonderful pop song, he could also invest it with an emotional depth and introspective glory unheard of by most, or devour it with intense industrial gothic overtones that ensured his band were not just hard to categorise, they were also hard to better.

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk