“It’s really hard to keep hold of your younger self. When you’ve been writing about it, it’s like a diary when you’re writing songs, and you’re kind of thinking, ‘F*** me, was i This sad when I was so young? I had no idea.”
So said Robert Smith on the opening night of The Cure’s sold-out three-show series at the 17,500-seat Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, addressing a crowd. worshiping generation who grew up – and aged – listening to his anguished and anguished confessionals. over the past four decades. During each nearly three-hour evening, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted the post-punk band’s darker selections (especially “A Thousand Hours,” with its opening punch, “To how long can I howl in this wind / How long can I cry like this?”) certainly hit differently in 2023. But these are the six unreleased songs from Cure’s long-delayed and highly anticipated 14th studio album. , Songs from a Lost World (which will be their first LP since 2008 4:13 Dream), which were particularly dark — even by Cure standards — as Smith, now 64, grappled with his mortality in ways he simply couldn’t in his 20s and 30s.
“I experienced more of the dark side of life, for real. Before, I wrote about things that I thought I understood. NOW I know I understand it. The lyrics I wrote for this album, for me personally, are truer,” Smith told the British magazine. NME in 2019, when he first announced plans for the new record. “They are more honest. That’s probably why the album itself is a bit more downbeat. I feel like I want to do something that expresses the darker side of what I’ve been through for the past few years, but in a way that will engage people. That same year, Smith told the Los Angeles Times This Songs from a Lost World would be “very much on the darker side of the spectrum.” I lost my mom, dad, and brother recently, and that obviously had an effect on me. … It is worth waiting for. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done, but I’d say that. A lot of songs are difficult to sing, and that’s why it took me a long time.
Smith, one of the most instantly identifiable voices in rock, actually sounded flawless as he dug deep into the new material. Launch of a new Songs from a Lost World track, “Another (Happy) Birthday”, he cried: “And your birthday is the worst day / I sing for a ghost / ‘Happy birthday’… I forget how it goes.” Although the origins of this song date back to 1997, Smith could have sung it for his musician parents or for his late brother, Richard. Richard, who was affectionately known as “The Guru” and was 13 years Robert’s senior, had a huge influence on The Cure, teaching Robert how to play the basic guitar and introducing Robert to his extensive record collection early on. from the 70s.
“I Can Never Say Goodbye” was billed each night as being specifically about Richard, and included the heartbreaking chorus: “Something wicked comes this way / From the cruel and treacherous night / Something wicked comes this way way / To steal my brother’s life.” Every night is different Songs from a Lost World the singles were “Alone”, “A Fragile Thing”, “And Nothing Is Forever”, and the even closer pre-titled “Endsong”, in which Robert sang: “And I’m outside in the dark/Staring at the blood -red moon/Remembering the hopes and dreams I had/All I had to do/And wondering what happened to that boy/And the world he called his own/ And I’m out in the dark/I wonder how I got so old.”
The Cure’s music is actually ageless, and their Shows of a Lost World tour wasn’t all death and despair. As one of the most changeable bands of all time, their nightly setlists have veered from the spartan punk-pop of Three imaginary boysto the effervescent Eurodisco of “Let’s Go to Bed” and “The Walk”, to the psychedelia of Altamont of High“Shake Dog Shake” from “Shake Dog Shake” 120 minutes-classics from the time of head on the door And Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me… then back to the dirges of the two albums that seem to have the most in common with the future Songs from a Lost World1982 Pornography and the years 1989 Disintegration.
Smith cries wolf and says each album will be The Cure’s last since the release of Disintegrationthat many fans (including the South Park kids!) and critics consider the high point of the band’s career. (Ironically, Smith wrote that it was claustrophobic and depressing with the intent of making it “commercial suicide,” as he once explained to Yahoo Entertainment, but it ended up being the biggest release ever. The Cure, selling 3 million copies and producing a hit single, “Lovesong,” which went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was later covered by 311, Adele and at least two american idol competitors.) However, it seems that Songs from a Lost World could really be Smith’s final and defining statement.
In 2020, keyboardist Roger O’Donnell said classic pop that he had advised Smith: “’We have to make another record. It has to be the most intense, saddest, most dramatic and emotional record we’ve ever made, and then we can just walk away from it. He accepted. Listening to the demos, he East This folder. A year later, Smith himself told the UK Sunday time“New [album] is very emotional. It’s 10 years of life distilled into a few hours of intense stuff. I can’t think we’ll ever do anything else. I definitely can’t do it again.
But no matter what the future holds for The Cure, the lyrics to new song “And Nothing Is Forever” resonated deeply this week with the band’s loyal fans in Los Angeles, many of whom had attended all three nights of the run. of the Cure’s Hollywood Bowl. “My world has grown old/But it really don’t matter/If you say we’ll be together,” Smith pleaded. “Promise you’ll be with me at the end…You’ll remember me tonight.”
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