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I looooove this song, always have. Robert Smith snapped and they recorded some pure exotic, sinister, and cinematic vibe concentrate here. It’s not the typical Cure dark and kinda sadsack longing style, this actually feels like it has some danger and menacing to it and it makes it what it is!
Nov 11, 2024
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A grotesque, unsettling musical picture of chaos, massacre and lunacy. There were some years since it was released (1980) where I couldn’t listen to it at all.
It's maybe the most unlikely opening track of an album I've ever heard (despite Ian Curtis' repeated chorus: "This is the way, step inside"). It's based upon a 1970 J.G. Ballard collection of short stories of the same name, which imagines a name-changing protagonist who creates surrealistic fantasies about celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and President Ronald Reagan.
One of the first times in recorded music (long before bands like R.E.M. made a regular practice of this) where I can recall band members swapping instruments; guitarist Bernard Sumner plays bass on the track, bassist Peter Hook "plays" guitar (it's basically one long, wobbly noise scribble).
Super disturbing. I'm always amazed that the band could even pull off a live performance of it. Impossibly influential; you can hear the outline of the Cure's "Pornography," the Swans' catalogue, and much of whatever became to be called "tribal" in the DNA of this track.
Sep 22, 2024
A Problem With The Cure is that the production on albums like "Disintegration" can feel overbearingly reverb'd/synth'd-out to many contemporary ears, obscuring Robert Smith's pure pop-songwriting genius. Therefore their most accessible (and IMO best) album is this compilation of mostly-acoustic versions of their tunes, recorded in 2001 in London, originally included as the 2nd CD in the Japanese version of their Greatest Hits album but later reissued for (I think) Record Store Day in 2017. It's still hard to find in the streaming-verse so here are some youtube links:
The Cure - Complete A Side [ Acoustic Hits Picture LP ] (youtube.com)
The Cure - Complete B Side [ Acoustic Hits Picture LP ] (youtube.com)
The Cure - Complete C Side [ Acoustic Hits Picture LP ] (youtube.com)
The Cure - Complete D Side [ Acoustic Hits Picture LP ] (youtube.com)
Apr 21, 2024
The early days of "gothic rock" Cure, from the 1980 "Seventeen Seconds" LP (still a favorite of mine). The whole album was recorded for something like 3000 GBP and the band worked 16-17 hours a day to finish it on budget.
One of the first times I can remember hearing flanger and phase applied to guitar (all of the guitarists I knew, me included, went out and bought these pedals immediately).
I just saw them in Mountain View on the last tour, what a magical night: https://magnetmagazine.com/2023/06/01/live-review-the-cure-mountain-view-ca-may-29-2023/
Apr 21, 2024
Top Recs from @rabidwell
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I don’t believe in ranking things- restaurants, albums, books, movies, athletes anything, top x lists whatever. I think it’s a waste of time honestly. Even with a completely objective criterion what’s the point. Would rather listen to and read people just talk about their favorite things and why they are special and meaningful to them- everyone has their own, interesting reasons. And this is a great place to do that!
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