2023-09-28
Everything you need to know about the goth-rock pioneers and pop hit-makers.
Founded in the late 1970s, the Cure cannily blended gloom and psychedelia—and eventually developed a knack for overtly upbeat tunes like “Friday I’m in Love” and “Just Like Heaven.” British music journalist Price’s comprehensive guide to the band is earthbound, upbeat, well researched, and largely devoid of fanboy chatter. There are requisite fact-stuffed entries on the band’s members, albums, and major singles, alongside scads of details that might be too much for even the hard-core fan: How did their 2000 album, Bloodflowers, do in Denmark? What was front man Robert Smith’s first car? What is guitarist Pearl Thompson’s drink of choice? However, chapters on broader themes make the book enjoyable beyond settling bar arguments and relating discographical arcana. Price riffs on the meaning of goth, sex, religion, poetry, and more in relation to the band, and he goes fairly deep into the band’s darker moments in entries on “alcohol” and “bullying.” (Often at the center of such stories is keyboardist Lol Tolhurst, who was fired by the band in 1989 and launched a failed retaliatory lawsuit.) Framing the band’s history in encyclopedia form allows Price to sidestep one fact that would sink a conventional bio: Not having released a studio album since 2008, the band is now mainly a much-loved global touring act. The author dedicates one entry to the long-awaited 14th album, another to the band’s recent efforts to battle onerous Ticketmaster fees. For all of the book’s range—from its 1980 single “A Forest” to zoology—the narrative is effectively the story of Robert Smith, and for all the details it delivers about him, from drug use to sneaker preferences to sleep patterns, he remains intriguingly, appealingly enigmatic.
Handy for fans of the band and British rock history in general.
