![]() Reflecting on the life journeys of the past decade, it doesn't deny the follies and passions of youth, but absorbs them, dignifies them, sums them up and lays them aside, without too much regret. ![]() I don't know if it's their best album, but it's certainly their most mature: the last of the 80s, and the last of their classic period. And by and large, this is all true Disintegration however, is the exception. They've written some brilliant songs that mean a great deal to a large number of people, but at the same time they're seen as a band that you grow out of. There's something a little bit gauche and adolescent about The Cure. As good as they are, there's still a whiff of patchouli about Seventeen Seconds and Faith that stops them being in quite the same league as, say, Unknown Pleasures or Metal Box. I see no shame in this, as you may have gathered but it's The Cure's undeniable gothiness, their melodrama and purple passages, all that hair and lipstick, that means they can never quite be taken seriously. Robert Smith's drum machine-driven, instrumental demo of 'Prayers for Rain', which opens disc two here, could almost be a retroactive blueprint for the whole genre certainly, you could lay a Siouxsie Sioux or an Andrew Eldritch vocal over the top without either artist leaving their comfort zone. Some people say that the Cure aren't a goth band. all broke up or suddenly seemed incapable of making a decent record once the decade that defined them was over. Neither were any of their peers, for that matter The Banshees, The Sisters, The Cult, The Mission. Whatever, after 1989, The Cure weren't the same, and neither were we. After the sprawling, multi-faceted Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Disintegration was the kiss-off the last swim in those deep dark waters before we too fragmented, took on responsibilities and families, or didn't, and lost ourselves in the swirling undercurrents as drugs and drink and mental illness ceased to be our playthings and took control instead. But first, there was one last album one last great record of the gothic age. Actually, there were shit jobs and dole queues for all of us, eventually. For some of us there would be new friends in a new town, and new bands to be listened to as we realised that describing yourself as a Cure fan marked you out as the most narrowly and naively provincial of first year students for others there were shit jobs and dole queues. It was the end of the 80s, the end of our youth. ![]() Bands that knew about glamour, knew that dressing up and painting your face, primping your hair and striking a pose, were as valid a reaction to the futility of everything as close-cropped, serious sobriety or a drunken nervous breakdown. We had been goths, if you like certainly, we had grown up listening to The Cure, and bands like them, bands that wore black and sang songs about existential dread that you could dance to, swoon to, drink to, fuck to. It was the end of the 80s, and the end of our youth. "I knew I would leave you with babies and everything." – 'Disintegration'. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |