For more than 50 years, Robert Smith has taken enraptured listeners along a mercurial journey, diving headlong through dark rainbows and radiant shadows, worlds where epic atmospherics and ultimate intimacy swirl.
As The Cure, Smith and company — currently vocalist/guitarist Smith, bassist Simon Gallup, keyboardist Roger O'Donnell, guitarists Perry Bamonte and Reeves Gabrels, and drummer Jason Cooper — have continually pushed the boundaries of rock and alternative music, setting the tone for post-punk and goth rock only to cheekily dismantle each. Since their 1979 debut, the group have defied labels and pushed their unique brand of inventive, intimate, and experimental rock into the mainstream. And with the release of the excellent Songs of a Lost World — the band’s first full-length of new material in 16 years — there’s no better time to explore The Cure's outsized influence.
Now canonical hits "Just Like Heaven" and "Lovecats" paint a picture of deep love, both ephemeral and everlasting — capturing that fleeting bliss of a stolen kiss and the eternal deepest love in equal measure. Favorites like "A Forest" and "Charlotte Sometimes" show The Cure's ability to teeter between despair and delirium, pulling hard musical turns and delivering lyrical twists full of familiar delight. Over more than a dozen albums, Smith’s iconic voice rings through that ever-evolving map, part trickster and part companion.
Fans of The Cure know the trance that comes with slipping into a favorite album, each second becoming an incantation and protection from the "real" world. And while outside observers may see the Smith's aesthetic — cake makeup, wildly teased hair, black attire — as a monolithically goth, initiates in The Cure’s world can trace the nuanced ebbs and tides of their sound with each decade.
The Cure’s discography is a many-forked road, an overflowing river that refuses to be tamed. But by using the passing decades as dividing lanes, the paths through the labyrinth become less overwhelming and the corners that most excite and entice each listener are easier found — not to mention honing the big picture that makes The Cure an essential part of rock’s history.
The 1970s
Although The Cure’s first album came in 1979, that record’s footprint encompasses the six years prior — including Smith’s first middle school band, Obelisk, its next iteration, Malice, and the eventual founding of Easy Cure. In his memoir, drummer Lol Tolhurst said that he and Robert Smith were the first punks in their hometown of Crawley, a town south of London.
As they evolved into The Cure, that punk mindset and musical influence only grew. The band’s 1978 debut single "Killing an Arab" is a poetic reimagining of Albert Camus’ absurdist novel The Stranger, in which the protagonist kills an Arab man in a sort of sunstroke-and-nihilism-addled psychotic break. Therein, Michael Dempsey's tin-edged but thunderous bass and Tolhurst's rippling drums provide the adrenaline to bolster Smith’s ragged guitar to mimic the combination of inescapable pain and disorientation.
That sound expanded on their debut, Three Imaginary Boys. That full-length carried some of the same heady DNA that fueled the Buzzcocks’ more emotional punk, but was rougher around the edges and slowed enough to allow the pain of the moment sink further. The choppy and propulsive "Object" and "Grinding Halt" foreshadow their greater ability to reach epic energy, while the wispy and whispery "Subway Song" showcases their theatrical potential.
As the decade rounded out, The Cure released two singles that have become staples of live shows and fan playlists to this day: "Boys Don’t Cry" and "Jumping Someone Else’s Train." Both tracks demonstrate the band refining its post-punk angularity, while Smith's vocals feel more controlled. Compared to the roughhewn sound of Imaginary, The Cure's off-album singles sound immensely more professional — perhaps lending to their longevity.
With an album under his belt, Robert Smith was also demonstrably more confident in his role as bandleader. That position was also bolstered by a 1979 jaunt supporting Siouxsee and the Banshees’ tour for Join Hands, during which Smith became a temporary Banshee to fill in when guitarist John McKay quit that group. While Smith and comrades had done a great job of finding their own voice within post-punk, the close-up view of the Banshees showed that they could invent their own language entirely.
The 1980s
Legend has it that label interference in Three Imaginary Boys (a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s "Foxy Lady" sung by Dempsey was never meant to make the cut, so they say) hardened The Cure’s resolve to have creative control. Fittingly, the first track of their followup, 1980’s Seventeen Seconds, is a moody instrumental. By that time, Dempsey was out of the band, replaced by Simon Gallup on bass and Matthieu Hartley on keyboards, and the record shows the depth of that larger group — particularly on the iconic "A Forest," which embraces the smoky swirl honed in their Banshees support.
Seventeen Seconds is only the beginning of a legend-making run in the ‘80s, with The Cure releasing seven albums in a 10-year span and cracking the Top 10 in the UK with five of them. The decade also saw the band propelled into the global mainstream.
The next phase in that takeover was 1981’s Faith. Hartley left the band in that record’s run-up, explaining in Jeff Apter's book Never Enough that he wasn't into the "suicidal, sombre" stuff Smith was developing. Faith does feel darker and heavier, though of course in part because the keyboards aren’t there to brighten the compositions. (Then again, a one-two punch of "All Cats Are Grey" and "The Funeral Party" aren’t exactly going to start a dance party, even with added keys.)
Pornography followed almost exactly a year later, compressed and brooding. The album is considered by many to be the third record in a triad; three albums in three years can be very taxing, and with songwriter Smith in his early 20s, the emotionality and moodiness should come as no surprise. Paired with an interest in exploring guitar tones, The Cure's early '80s output cemented their gothic aural legacy.
After Gallup’s departure, 1983’s non-album single "The Love Cats" showed Smith and The Cure’s readiness to explore new tones; the playful meow-laden song features upright bass, piano, and vibraphone. 1984’s The Top continues in that trend, with single "The Caterpillar" exemplifying the experimentation — the story of death and rebirth pulsed through cheery wordless harmonies, hand drums, and needly acoustic. Across the album, Smith adopts a variety of vocal styles and the band incorporates new ways to deliver their emotional pain after the more staid darkness of the predecessors.
As if those records weren’t already enough to justify The Cure’s place as ‘80s icons, the next three records are all groundbreaking favorites. In 1985, The Head on the Door showed their ability to fuse heavy-hitting hooks with their darkest explorations — as on "Close to Me," the cheeriest song about impending doom and anxiety you’ll hear, or "In Between Days" where familiar new guitarist Porl Thompson adds a shimmer to the confused love song (which also marked the band's first time reaching the Top 100 in the U.S.).
Two years later, double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me jumped from Prince-y funk ("Hot Hot Hot!!!") to New Wave bombast ("Why Can’t I Be You?") to so-blissed-it's-scary ("Just Like Heaven"). In 1989, Disintegration made an even bigger bang with a richer and more lustrous shade of black than their early decade goth-ish releases. Yet Disintegration is no less intense. All four singles — "Lullaby," "Fascination Street," "Lovesong," and "Pictures of You" — wear their grimace well and remain live highlights.
The 1990s
The '80s ended with an explosive turn for The Cure’s music, but also its lineup, with founding member Tolhurst removed from the band due to substance issues. Still, The Cure had attained a global reach, including a stadium tour of the U.S. and a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.
There was something of a retail hangover following hit remix albums from the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, and Janet Jackson in the late '80s. The following decade, an increasing number of labels tried to cash in — The Cure's Friction Records was no exception. Released in 1990, Mixed Up was a remix album befitting the band's ever-increasing inescapability; some of the dance mixes sound less dated than others, but overall it functions as a fascinating time capsule. (The "Tree Mix" of "A Forest" will always hold a personal soft spot.)
Demand for The Cure was at its fever pitch, and their first record of new music in the ‘90s became their highest-charting entry. Wish became the band’s first No. 1 album in the UK, reached No. 2 Stateside, and netted their first GRAMMY nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. That all likely came in large part thanks to "Friday I’m In Love," one of the songs most synonymous with the group to this day. The song is exemplary of Wish's push into brighter guitar tones and grander alt rock songwriting; regardless of the subversive context, there’s something so thrilling about hearing goth royalty singing the line "Let’s get happy" on "Doing the Unstuck."
In the latest in the many Cure lineup changes, Thompson left and Williams was replaced by Jason Cooper on drums. Their next record, 1996’s Wild Mood Swings, was the first Cure record in more than a decade not produced by David M. Allen. While it lacks a truly standout, memorable single, gems like the self-loathing sendup "Club America" and the rubbery, jangly "Mint Car" deserve their time in the sun.
In moves both gloriously ‘90s and gloriously goth, this decade also saw The Cure write songs for the X-Files movie and The Crow. No one’s likely to put either at the top of their Cure favorites, but damn if it doesn’t tickle a very specific and very passionate nostalgia.
The 2000s
After tasting the rabid attention and fame of leaning on the band’s pop ability, Smith decided it was time to spread raven wings back into darker territory. He told The Guardian that 2000’s Bloodflowers was meant to be "part of a trilogy" with Pornography and Disintegration. The record opens with the long and atmospheric "Out of This World" and "Watching Me Fall," which clocks in at nearly 12 minutes — signs that The Cure were as eager to explore as aim for the pop chart. But even those two tracks harbor massive bursts of intense passion, Bloodflowers holding a fascinating, more mature and controlled mirror to their early ‘80s goth mode.
The Cure teamed with producer Ross Robinson for the 2004 followup The Cure, a record that proved divisive for fans and critics alike. Robinson had previously worked with Korn, Slipknot, and At the Drive-In, so Smith embraced the heaviness. Some of the post-punk that initially defined their sound peeking through the mist, but also some choices (like the uniformly massive guitar tone and constant splashy cymbals) that peel back the quirk and oddity.
The electronic drums and chimes featured in the opening of 2008’s 4:13 Dream, then, are that much more refreshing. The songwriting and production are much more diverse than the self-titled, but similarly fails to reach the admittedly sky-high bar of Cure's most legendary releases.
The 2010s
Live albums, box sets, and remixes have been essential parts of The Cure’s universe dating back to repackaging Three Imaginary Boys and the surrounding non-album singles as Boys Don't Cry in 1980. And the 2010s are, for better and worse, dominated by that side of The Cure's story. The decade marked the introduction of their Reflections concerts, in which they played their first three albums for adoring nostalgia-seekers and those who wished they could’ve been there in the ‘80s.
They added festival spots and toured South America, and covered "Hello, Goodbye" for a Paul McCartney tribute project. They celebrated their 40th anniversary and released a sequel remix album called Torn Down. All told, the ‘10s are more of a reminder of the Cure as live powerhouses.
The 2020s
The last decade of this Songbook is also, by Smith’s account, the last decade of The Cure. Per an interview on the band’s official site, his current plan is to end The Cure in 2029, when Three Imaginary Boys turns 50 and he turns 70.
Fans are lucky enough to have at least one more album to chew over. The brand new Songs of a Lost World could be their finest record since at least Wish in 1992, a looming cloud of shattered obsidian, brimming with beauty and pain. Written in the shadow of the passing of Smith’s brother, "I Can Never Say Goodbye" is an obvious highlight, a piano-driven tear-jerker that cracks the sky open and looks for something to grasp onto. The scouring "Warsong" is the stuff of mature goth epic, gouged feedback and bellows-y melodica chords — and Smith splintering the world of hatred he’s surrounded by.
The expansive opener "Alone" finds Smith in full, powerful voice, delivering lines like the very Cure-y "Left alone with nothing/ The end of every song" under an inescapable synth/string warble wall and slow-fluttering heartbeat percussion. The duality of "And Nothing Is Forever" follows—because of course nothing lasts, but also the specter and impact of The Cure’s brand of nothing will truly last forever.