Tag Archives: 2000s

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 5: the Deluxe Editions II

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The second wave of Deluxe Editions surfaced a year and a half later in early August 2006 with 1984’s The Top, 1985’s The Head on the Door and 1987’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. This was the peak of their original 80s fame, when they’d finally broken through that indie barrier (with partial help from the 1986 singles collection Standing On a Beach). But it wasn’t a sudden rise to fame, however…they still had a few ghosts in their closet that needed purging.

I’ve always felt The Top was their psychedelic album, written and recorded deep in their mid-80s booze and drug haze. It’s certainly a head trip and full of high weirdness like the freaky opener “Shake Dog Shake” and the odd “Piggy in the Mirror”, not to mention the Salinger-influenced “Bananafishbones” and the hazy folk of the lone single “The Caterpillar”. Even the darker moments are unsettling, like the mental breakdown of “The Empty World” and the dissociation of “The Top”. It’s not the easiest listen — it’s a band barely holding itself together. Most of the extras on the deluxe edition are demos and a few live tracks, but it also includes a few great outtakes that would become bootleg favorites, “Ariel” and “Forever”.

The Head On the Door, on the other hand, is a much cleaner and stronger Cure with a revived lineup and a focus on shorter and tighter songs. The original album clocks in at just over a tight half hour of ten songs, nearly all of which could have easily been singles or radio hits. The first single “In Between Days” is brisk and swinging and fits Robert Smith’s playful side that he’d too often hide in the past. Follow-up single “Close to Me” is just as fun, trading the energy of “Days” with a light jazz (similar to “The Lovecats”, come to think of it). It helped that both tracks were made into irresistible oddball videos by director Tim Pope, who seemed to instinctively know how to capture the true spirit of the band. There are also wonderful deep cuts here as well, like the freeing “Push” or the dramatic “A Night Like This”. About the only old-school Cure track here is the closer “Sinking”. The deluxe edition features nearly all demos including several tracks that would end up as b-sides.

The double-album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me — the title taken from the first line of the first song, the epic noisefest “The Kiss” — is intriguing as it takes elements of both albums and melds it into a very kaleidoscopic record. For each pop song like “Just Like Heaven” and “The Perfect Girl” there are psychedelic moments like “The Snakepit” and “Like Cockatoos”. There are even literary moments like the Baudelaire influenced “How Beautiful You Are”, and utterly silly moments like the singles “Why Can’t I Be You?” and “Hot Hot Hot!!!” It’s a glorious mess but it’s a clean mess unlike The Top. They’re having fun with this record instead of being hedonistic with it. The deluxe edition also contains more demos and live tracks.

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Next up: A new album (and several false rumors about more)!

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 4: the Deluxe Editions I

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After the promotion of The Cure and the Curiosa Festival had come and gone, the next phase was about to begin: a massive reissue of their early catalog. While this may not have been all that important in the UK where they’d stayed on the Fiction label for years, in the US they’d appeared on several: the indie PVC, A&M, Sire, and eventually an extended stay (complete with minor reissues) on Elektra. This would finally bring the majority of their discography together on one label, with its original packaging.

The new reissues of their back catalog began of course with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in late 2004. Most Americans knew most of its tracks from the US collection Boys Don’t Cry or via the import. [I’d bought the original version at Al Bum’s in Amherst probably in early 1987 and much preferred this one. It flows much better and the band’s early gloom is much more prevalent here.

The bonus disc of this reissue would of course include the singles “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”, both post-album stand-alone singles, though surprisingly it did not contain their debut single “Killing an Arab”, though that was most likely due to its questionable source material. Still, it did contain several demos and outtakes that are quite fascinating to hear.

The next three album reissues would appear all on the same day: Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography, in late spring 2005. The first two had been released at different times in the US, including as a double-disc two-fer called Happily Ever After, which I owned on cassette.

Seventeen Seconds expanded on their post-punk sound and added a pastoral feel to their sound, thanks to the melodic bass lines of new members Simon Gallup and the keyboards of Matthieu Hartley. This album definitely feels like something you’d listen to alone, on headphones, sometime around 2am. It was a huge inspiration to my writing in the late 80s and got a ton of play late at night. The extra tracks on this reissue are more focused on live recordings, some of which would show up on the cassette version of the live album Concert.

Faith, on the other hand, was a much darker affair. It too is perfect late night listening, but it leans more towards isolation and loneliness. There are two faces here: the anger and tension of songs like “Primary” and “Doubt”, and the atmospheric fog of “All Cats Are Grey” and the title track. The original cassette had included the twenty-seven minute (!!) instrumental track “Carnage Visors”, which they’d recorded for an animated film that would play before their live shows. This epic is included on this reissue, along with several studio outtakes and live tracks, as well as the non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes”.

Pornography, on the other hand…is not an easy album to listen to. Hartley had left, leaving the band as a barebones trio that only added to the album’s sparseness. They took several steps further down into the bitterly cold abyss, well past the darkness of Faith. Depression, desolation and entropy abound on this record. Is it any wonder that this was in super heavy rotation on my Walkman in the late 80s, then? While it’s not as violently dismal as, say, The Downward Spiral, it could probably be seen as its goth equivalent. Interestingly enough, its closing title track (like “Hurt”, come to think of it) hints at a sense of strained hope. This too features a lot of studio demos and live tracks.

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Are these reissues that you must have in your collection? Well, if you’re a huge fan like I am, then yes, definitely. The remastered tracks sound great, and the extras are all sorts of fun to listen to. For completists they are missing a few things here and there, such as a few single-only b-sides (which, to be fair, were easily available on the Join the Dots box set), but it’s worth checking out.

Coming Up Next: the final three reissues of the decade

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 3: the self-titled album

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Interestingly, this album hardly gets any notice or play on the radio nowadays. Most commercial stations stick with “Love Song” or “Pictures of You” or “Just Like Heaven”, all released during their 80s heights. At the time, however, it was a long-awaited and extremely welcome return for a much-loved alternative band that was now picking up new generations of fans.

The slow-build track “Lost” sets the tone and the sound for the album: somewhat dissonant, a bit uncomfortable, and a lot heavier in sound. Where Robert Smith usually emotes a feeling of detached misery in his older works, this track is more of a primal scream, something he hadn’t really let himself reach since perhaps Pornography (and even then, that album was more a deliberate loss of sanity than the fear of losing it).

A few tracks later with the single “The End of the World”, he embraces that alterna-poppy catchiness the band perfected with 1992’s Wish. While the track seems upbeat and fun, there’s a darker edge to it, both sonically and lyrically. Even the video for it is of two minds: fanciful and nightmarish. This track got considerable play in the summer of 2004 on alternative radio.

The next track, “Anniversary”, is my favorite from this album, and it’s a perfect example of The Darker Cure Sound: a nightmarish crawling through Smith’s gloomier lyrics, driven not by a slow build but by the irritation it causes. You want to know where it leads, whether there will be a major lift in the song, yet it never quite gets there, on purpose.

The next single, “alt.end”, is similar to “The End of the World” in that it’s catchy as hell…and just as dark. It too sounds like something off of Wish, working that light/dark dichotomy as far as it can go.

Oh, and remember that Dragon Hunters song I mentioned in the previous entry? Here’s the original song it was based off of, released in the UK as the alternate to the “alt.end” single. While it’s not nearly as catchy, it’s a solid track that works well.

All told, the album is one of their strongest, and also one of their most unique sounding, considering that they’d chosen Ross Robinson as a co-producer — he’s more known for producing alt-metal bands like Korn, Slipknot and At the Drive In. While the band is no stranger to heaviness (Pornography) or widescreen theatrics (Disintegration), this is the only one that sounds so bare-bones and yet so sonically intense.

They promoted this album via a massive touring festival called Curiosa, a multi-stage, multi-band day long experience that included several other bands influenced by (or were favorites of) The Cure: Mogwai, Interpol, The Rapture, Muse, The Cooper Temple Clause, and more. I got to see their stop at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield MA (still known as Great Woods back then), with a perfect seat just in front of the lawn area. I loved pretty much every single band I saw that day, even ones like Cooper Temple Clause who I’d never heard of (and bought their CD right after their performance). I of course didn’t quite stay for the entirety of the Cure performance as it was getting late and getting out of their parking lot is a nightmare (not to mention it’s an hour-plus drive back to central MA), but by then I was exhausted yet extremely pleased.

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Next up: The Deluxe Editions

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 2: Hits, Dots, and One-Offs

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While Bloodflowers was a great album, it wasn’t my favorite of their latter years. I think part of it was that it came out at a time when my time at the record store was coming to a close, but it was also that it simply just didn’t resonate with me as deeply as some past albums had. Still, this sparked off a slow but steady stream of increased visibility. They were constantly on tour at the start of the decade, and followed it up with a number of collections and appearances.

The band released the Greatest Hits collection in late 2001 as a contractual obligation to the Fiction label. It features many of their best known tracks, chosen by Robert Smith himself, and also two new tracks: the poppy “Cut Here” (the title an anagram of the band name) and the perky “Just Say Yes” featuring Saffron from Republica. It’s by no means a must-have collection, but it’s a good place to start, and also a good mix for those not interested in a discography deep dive. The expanded version features a second album’s worth of the same songs, this time recorded acoustically.

Smith kept himself busy by appearing on a few albums, many of which are definitely worth checking out. He provided vocals on the great track “Perfect Blue Sky” on Junkie XL’s Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin — an expansive two-cd collection of upbeat radio-friendly electronic tracks and expanded house instrumentals. This album is one of my favorites of 2003 and also features vocals from Saffron, Dave Gahan, Gary Numan, Chuck D, Terry Hall, and more. It also features the groovy reimagining of Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” which had showed up in 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven. It’s a record worth picking up.

Also in 2003, he featured on…a Blink-182 album?? Sure, why not? The punk pop trio called The Cure one of their influences, and he features on the track “All of This”.

Then in spring of 2004, he featured on the second album by tweaker, drummer Chris Vrenna’s collective project. The album 2am wakeup call is about Vrenna’s wife’s insomnia so much of the record is dark and moody…but not necessarily gloomy. I listened to this album incessantly for most of that year, not just in the Belfry during my writing sessions (I was writing The Balance of Light at the time) but during my commutes to work. I highly recommend checking this record out.

Backing up a few months, The Cure also released the box set Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001. It’s a four-disc collection that proves that these oddities weren’t just throwaways or one-offs. Their b-sides, like “Just One Kiss”, “Breathe” and “The Big Hand”, could be just as amazing and memorable as their album tracks and singles, and even their soundtrack and compilation offerings like “Burn” (from The Crow soundtrack) and the cover of Depeche Mode’s “World in My Eyes” (from For the Masses) are great. It’s worth checking these out.

But wait! There’s one more thing! One that often gets overlooked!

They also did the theme song for the French animated series Dragon Hunters by taking their track “Taking Off” (which would show up soon on their next record) and repurposing it into this fun and boppy theme. This one doesn’t show up on any greatest hits, reissues or box sets (at least not yet anyway), but it’s easy to find online.

Coming up: finally, another new album!

Listening to 2000’s era Cure, Pt 1: Bloodflowers

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I stopped listening to The Cure so much probably about the time 1996’s Wild Mood Swings came out, and for a few reasons: one, I’d long grown out of my penchant for sinking into a depressive spiral with Pornography and Disintegration as its soundtrack, and two, WMS was just not a Cure album I could sink my teeth into no matter how much I tried. [In hindsight, I think it was a mix of it being too long and it feeling a bit too overproduced.]

So when 2000’s Bloodflowers was announced — and billed as a spiritual link to those two classic dark and gloomy albums I just mentioned — I looked forward to hearing it. It was released in my final year working at HMV, so as you can well imagine, it got a lot of play in the back office where I worked, as well as in the Belfry where I was just about to embark on writing the Bridgetown Trilogy. To me, Bloodflowers was a long-awaited return to form that I’d missed.

It’s an album that was purposely written to be listened to as a full album, and there were no official singles released from it, although the meandering “Out of This World” and the catchy “Maybe Someday” were both provided with promotional edits for radio play. The latter got significant play on WFNX at the time.

And thankfully, the rest of the album features some absolutely lovely deep cuts that became favorites, like the song “There Is No If…” which Robert Smith had written during his late teens but never tried recording, fearing that it was too cheesy, until he delivered a devastatingly desperate version here.

There’s also the other rarity here: Smith singing about getting older. “39” was written about him slowly approaching his forties. Would he continue down this road of writing his patented doom and gloom, or write something uplifting and trite? There’s also a little bit of concern here: he’s honestly surprised he’s lasted this long, given his drug and alcohol infused past.

I remember the critical response to this album being mixed: some were absolutely thrilled that they’d returned somewhat to form, while some felt a bit like they’d heard this many times before. I can definitely feel its similarity to Disintegration — minus the reverb-drenched echoes on everything — in that it felt like something coming to a close. Whether it was youth, bacchanalia, or goth gloom, it definitely felt like closure.

It would be another four years before their next album, although they would spend most of that time going on extended tours and releasing a greatest hits album with two new songs and a box set of b-sides and rarities.

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Coming up next: The Cure and the Curiosa Tour

Twenty Years On: 2001, Part III

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Summer 2001 stretches on, with hot days and cool evenings. I’d started picking up a guitar again after ignoring it for far too long — I hadn’t written any new music in years, and it felt right to get back into that. Went to my first science fiction convention, Readercon 13, getting the feel of cons and what they offered for fans and writers. Saw a lot of movies as well. Really leaning hard on finding new inspirations and influences for my creativity.

The Chameleons UK, released 2 July 2001. Like Love Tractor, this British rock band resurfaced out of nowhere with a stellar comeback featuring their signature dreamlike post-rock sound. This one got a lot of play during the cool summer evenings down in the Belfry.

Tricky, Blowback, released 2 July 2001. This isn’t everyone’s favorite Tricky record — Tricky himself isn’t the biggest fan, having recorded it “for the money ’cause I was broke” — and it’s not nearly as experimental or weird as his usual records, but despite that it contains a lot of great tunes. “Evolution Revolution Love” is definitely an earworm and features Live’s Ed Kowalczyk (he would return the favor by popping up on their V album a few months later on “Simple Creed”).

L’arc~en~Ciel, “Spirit Dreams Inside” from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within soundtrack, released 3 July 2001. I actually loved this movie, despite its flaws! (I’m still of the mindset that gamers familiar with the FF universe had much higher expectations than I did, which led to its panning.) This was also the first L’arc~en~Ciel song I’d ever heard, and instantly became a huge fan of the highly regarded Japanese rock band.

Ivy, Long Distance, released 10 July 2001. I loved the late 90s/early 00s chillwave movement! It wasn’t just about laid back electronica or lazy dance beats, it was also the sound of relaxing alt-rock grooves like this band. Just the perfect thing to listen to while staying up far too late at night on the weekend working on my novel.

Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American, released 24 July 2001. The happiest emo band ever, this was such a brilliant, fun and energetic album you couldn’t help but love all every track and blast them at top volume. You still hear “The Middle” and “Sweetness” on the radio to this day.

New Order, Get Ready, released 27 August 2001. Their first record in eight (!!) years following 1993’s Republic, this was definitely a welcome return. It felt like they’d finally shed a bit of their Ibiza hedonism from the last couple of records (and countless remix singles) and got back to the gritty four piece.

Explosions in the Sky, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever, released 27 August 2001. Alongside Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai, I’d caught up with the post-rock movement and fell in love with its soundscape experimentalism — I mean, what better music to listen to while writing a science fiction trilogy? This was the one that started it for me, and I’ve been a fan of the style ever since.

Puddle of Mudd, Come Clean, released 28 August 2001. Say what you will about this band and its ties to Limp Bizkit (Fred Durst helped them secure a major label deal and rebuild the band), this was a surprisingly tight and extremely melodic record with some amazing songs on it! “Blurry” is still one of my favorite 2001 tracks.

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More to come!

The Official Eden Cycle Soundtrack

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Or: Albums Wot I Listened to Incessantly While Writing the Trilogy in the Belfry, 1996-2004. It’s by no means a complete list, as I’ve left out a ton of albums that didn’t get nearly as much play but may have shown up in heavy rotation for a shorter time. I also didn’t list the albums that popped up during the revision years, which would probably be another long list in itself.

I’ve put them in semi-chronological order of release. These are still some of my favorite albums; I would highly suggest checking many of them out, perhaps finding a copy or two for your collection if you don’t have them already. It’s a wide mix; there’s electronica, alternative metal, alternative rock, and even a classical album or two. A lot of these albums still pop up on rotation when I’m working.

To be honest, it does feel kind of odd to finally be listening to a different style of music for my latest project. [Meet the Lidwells! is full of power-pop goodness, so there’s a lot of Matthew Sweet and Fountains of Wayne involved, and a lot of listening to The Power Pop Show on KSCU.]  But I highly doubt I’ll stop listening to Fantastic Planet or Sea Change any time soon…

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