Being the impressionable 21-year old, I'm always keen to find new music to add to my collection or taste. But sometimes it helps to go back a few years as well.... A couple of years ago, if you'd have asked me to name a couple of Cure songs, I'd have said "what?" and the closest I'd be able to come is say "isn't their lead singer a bit 'eccentric' for an old man?"....
However, upon a visit to the iTunes store and typing in 'The Cure', I recognised the first 6 songs on offer. How is that so? Well, I thought maybe it would be because Robert Smith & co have been doing rather well off royalty money from adverts/theme tunes/backing music in recent year.....no, it's because they've produced music that has stood the test of time and is just as good now as it was then. It's music that still gets played in rock nightclubs, radio stations, TV channels and maybe it does get the odd bit of 'extra' airtime. (E.g. "Close To Me" being on a BBC Three programme...it's name escapes me, but it may have been the 'Smoking Room'? Answers on a postcard...)
Their 'greatest hits' album, released in 2001 through Fiction Records and only done so on the basis that Smith could choose the tracks himself is 19 tracks that show a chronological tale of the band and their music through the years. (Although two of the tracks are brand new!)
Opening track "Boys Don't Cry" was released in June 1979, eight years before I was born. Yet with it's instantly recognisable guitar riff it's something that the countless bands since then that have idolised and 'taken influence' from the Cure could take the rest of time to improve on. I believe the saying is along the lines of put some monkeys in a room with a typewriter for long enough and they'll produce Shakespeare...
Coincidentally, the 6 tracks I recognised are all on the album. "Boys Don't Cry", "The Lovecats", "Friday I'm In Love", "In Between Days", "Close To Me" and "Lullaby". All 6 are songs that the aged-old Cure fan will recognise perhaps as 'obvious' choices. But for those who are new to the band, they are absolute must-have's if you want to know what they sound like at their best. The pulsating baseline of The Lovecats to the fast-paced acoustic guitars on In Between Days are musical brilliance and must be heard by anyone who's ever appreciated a rock band, or by any 'young adult' who likes anything that the NME has even given more than 3 stars to.
Of course, there are a couple of tracks I now skip over when I play it back. In my opinion, tracks early on in the album such as "A Forest" and "Let's Go To Bed" sound a little bit more 'aged' and from a bygone age where Adam and the Ants were popular (no offence to any fans out there!) than some of their bigger hits that have aged superbly.
But on top of the odd track that hasn't aged well, there are still tracks that were new to me that I instantly appreciated. "Why Can't I Be You?", which Wikipedia tells me was released just a month after I was born, is a prime example. "Just Like Heaven" and "High" also fit this bracket perfectly. Therefore, although the ardent fan will have nothing new to expect from this album, this is a perfect taster for anyone wanting to get into the band like me.
It's available on the cheap from Amazon for less than a fiver at the moment. So do what I did, have a listen to 30-second clips on iTunes, wonder where you've heard them before, realise it's because it's great music, and then go and buy it. In the meantime, all those generic NME band's have only just figured out how to use the typewriter.......
As Greatest Hits--and particularly the busking pavement jazz of "Lovecats"--reminds us, ... more
the best Cure singles were very often tangential exercises; halcyon playtime divergences offering a Goth-free contrast to some of the weightier studiousness of some...
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AsGreatest Hits--and particularly the busking pavement jazz of "Lovecats"--reminds us, the ... more
best Cure singles were very often tangential exercises; halcyon playtime divergences offering a Goth-free contrast to some of the weightier studiousness of some ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Good example of the Cure at their most uplifting, an excellent offering for the unfamiliar Disadvantages: Key tracks are not present, will not satisfy the avid fan. Previous compilations give a better feel of the band.
Advantages: Good example of the Cure at their most uplifting, an excellent offering for the unfamiliar Disadvantages: Key tracks are not present, will not satisfy the avid fan. Previous compilations give a better feel of the band.
Advantages: All the band most accessible songs on one CD, Some of the finest singles of the last twenty years, An excellent new song and a free bonus disc of acoustic versions Disadvantages: Misses out whole albums of the bands history, A few curious ommissions, 'Mint car'
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