The first artist Robert Smith felt belonged to him
Robert Smith, the iconic lead singer of the post-punk legends The Cure, has always been open about his deep respect for the legendary David Bowie. Bowie, renowned for his ever-evolving career and multiple persona shifts that catapulted him to the pinnacle of popular music, left a lasting mark on Smith’s musical perspective.
Although The Cure is unquestionably a band that gravitates toward darker themes in their earlier work, Smith made a deliberate choice to infuse a brighter, more prominent pop sensibility into the band’s sound. This creative direction led to the creation of chart-toppers like ‘The Lovecats’, ‘Friday I’m In Love’ and ‘Lovesong’.
Like many artists, Bowie significantly influenced Smith’s concept of music and played a pivotal role in shaping the kind of music he aimed to create with his band. For Smith, discovering the artistic prowess of Bowie was something that happened early on, and at that moment, something clicked.
As Smith once put it when discussing how Bowie had influenced his approach to music: “I listened to music before Bowie, obviously. I have an older brother and he played me Hendrix, Cream and Captain Beefheart… all that type of stuff from the 1960s but David Bowie was probably the first artist that I felt was mine. He was singing to me.”
He added: “He was the first album I ever bought, Ziggy Stardust was the first vinyl album I ever bought. I always loved how he did things as much as what he did. I love that idea of being an outsider and creating characters.” When comparing Bowie’s work to Smith’s within The Cure, he admitted that he notices some musical choices that appear as “echoes of some of Bowie’s stuff.”
Smith ended up crossing paths with Bowie when he invited him to sing with him at his 50th birthday event in New York. “That was a fantastic night,” Smith said, “unreal actually, for something like that to happen.” The idea of performing on stage with a musical luminary like Bowie evidently felt like a dream come true for Smith, who had admired him since way before The Cure had their breakthrough.
Some of The Cure’s most enduring hits are the ones that dabbled more in experimentalism, all while maintaining the band’s signature aura of dark and gloomy. Bowie was known for being a boundary-pusher when it came to both image and musical choices, and the same could be said of Smith himself. Smith effectively spearheaded an entire post-punk genre, inspiring many others to follow suit. Only talents matched to Bowie’s are capable of such a monumental achievement.
