#15 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — The Cure
Songs Of A Lost World by The Cure
The first time my ears were exposed to The Cure, the goth rock gods here at #15, was when I first heard “Lullaby,” from their genre-defining 1989 album Disintegration. The 45 had been added to the jukebox at the Pizza Hut I worked at (at the request of my coworker and friend, Matt Leland) when I was 16 years old (so therefore this was likely sometime in the summer of 1990 — 34+ years ago), in rural Oklahoma. The internet wasn’t yet available, and I didn’t have cable (aka no MTV), so in my own defense as to why I came to The Cure so late: I had no legitimate way to hear any music outside of what limited music was being played for me on classic rock station KMOD 97.5 FM. By introducing me to The Cure in this way, at this impressionable time of my life, my friend Matt had inadvertently shifted the course of time my musical tastes forever.
That fall (November 1990) I purchased Mixed Up, a collection of remixes, acting as a “greatest hits” and opening for me the door to The Cure’s extended back catalog of wonderful songs. From that point I was hooked. In the following 18 years, the band released only five new albums, to ever-middling results, never able to match the majesty of Disintegration or anything from the seven albums that preceded it. I don’t know that I ever listened to 2008’s 4:13 Dream, the last album they released until the unbelievably good Songs of a Lost World came out a full 16 years later.
I could have happily listened to The Cure’s 1979-1990 catalog (plus a few singles from the later years) for the rest of my life. I didn’t need or expect any new music from the band in 2024, and I certainly didn’t expect that it would be this great. But great it is, and there’s word that even more is coming (a companion album has been hinted to come out later this year, before the band embarks on another world tour in support of it).
Songs of a Lost World evokes the same feelings the 16 year old me felt back in 1990, listening to Disintegration. The albums are very similar, and that connection is definitely intentional, despite the 35 years that have passed between them. Hit play on the video above, “A Fragile Thing (Radio 2 In Concert),” and you’ll hear that Smith’s voice and the band’s sound has not aged a day – to great effect. (The same cannot be said for Smith’s appearance – the man looks like a bloated Mrs. Potato Head that’s been bleached white from sitting atop the dump pile for far too long). When the album launched on November 1 (intentionally on the day after Halloween, at lead singer / songwriter Robert Smith’s insistence), the band performed and broadcast a three-hour live stream for all to see. They came out on London’s Troxy stage to the sounds of a dreary thunderous rainstorm, played all eight songs from the new album, took a short break and then returned to play 23 more songs from the rest of their catalog. They’ve released those first eight songs of the performance as a live album, Songs of a Live World: Troxy London MMXXIV. It is a tour de force.
Songs of a Lost World marks the first album since 1985’s The Head on the Door that was composed solely by Smith. His voice, his guitar, his orchestration, his songs – The Cure is Robert Smith, but he did not play all the instruments. Smith is the only original member of the band, but note that bassist Simon Gallup has only missed inclusion on two of their 14 studio albums. The current band lineup, as represented on the album and in the stage band, is Smith, Gallup, Reeves Gabrels on second guitar (since 2012), Roger O’Donnell on keyboards (since 1987), Perry Bamonte on keyboards (since 1990), and Jason Cooper on drums (since 1995). That’s a lot of old dudes making great music.
My head keeps wanting to draw a parallel to any other band that has enjoyed the history The Cure has. Songs came out 45 years after The Cure’s 1979 debut, Three Imaginary Boys. When The Rolling Stones, for instance, released their 2005 album, A Bigger Bang, which would have been 41 years after their debut self-titled 1964 album, was the reception as big for it by fans of the entire Stones catalog as was the reception for The Cure? I have no real frame of reference, no way to know for sure.
But it does feel as though this feat Smith and band have pulled off feels unreal. Maybe that’s how he wanted it. Maybe we’ve all been asleep for the 35 years that have passed since Disintegration came out. That was one crazy dream we had between 1989 and 2024, wasn’t it?
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