The first “professional” album by The Cure, according to Robert Smith
Emerging from the shadows in the late 1970s, The Cure cast its spell over a distinctively sombre realm within the post-punk landscape. While their debut album of 1979, Three Imaginary Boys, hinted at macabre evolution, it served as a mixed bundle of energetic punk compositions. It even brandished a raw cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’.
Only with the arrival of the so-called ‘Dark Trilogy’ did The Cure find its true sonic identity. Beginning with Seventeen Seconds, which featured the timeless classic ‘A Forest’, the trilogy plunged to progressively deeper levels of despair, culminating in the bleak, critically acclaimed masterpiece Pornography in 1982. This album heard The Cure at the peak of their creative prowess, embracing a gothic aesthetic devoid of conventional pop tracks, except the stand-alone single, ‘The Hanging Garden’.
Despite the artistic success of Pornography, it arrived during a notably rough period for the band. “I had two choices at the time, which were either completely giving in or making a record of it and getting it out of me,” Smith said in Never Enough: The Story of The Cure. “I really thought that was it for the group. I had every intention of signing off. I wanted to make the ultimate ‘fuck off’ record and then sign off.”
As it happens, the album was a turning point in the band’s history. Following a series of spats within the band, bassist Simon Gallup was temporarily dismissed, leading to a hiatus during which Robert Smith joined Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“There is a certain type of Cure fan who would hold Pornography in greater esteem than anything else we’ve ever done, but, at the time, most people hated it,” Smith admitted. “They’re the only songs we’ve ever played where people would walk out or throw things. But then we probably were not that good on stage [laughs].”
“I don’t have particularly fond memories of Pornography, but I think it’s one of the best things we’ve ever done, and it would have never got made if we hadn’t taken things to excess,” he added. “People have often said, ‘Nothing you’ve done has had the same kind of intensity or passion.’ But I don’t think you can make too many albums like that because you wouldn’t be alive.”
During The Cure’s hiatus in the early 1980s, Smith and drummer Lol Tolhurst recorded several interim tracks for a compilation album and follow-up to Pornography titled Japanese Whispers. Far removed from the ‘Dark Trilogy’ tone, this LP contained more upbeat radio-friendly tracks, including the popular singles, ‘Let’s Go to Bed’, ‘The Walk’ and ‘The Love Cats’.
The first post-Pornography single, ‘Let’s Go to Bed’, was seen as career suicide by some Fiction Records executives. However, alienating The Cure’s cult following was just what Smith had in mind. “It took me a few weeks to recuperate in the bedroom I had grown up in because I was like totally gone. And I decided to be a pop star [laughs],” Smith reflected on The Cure’s mid-80s comeback.
“When I took ‘Let’s Go to Bed’ to Fiction and played it to them, it was like silence,” he continued. “They looked at me, like, ‘This is it. He’s really lost it.’ They said, ‘You can’t be serious. Your fans are gonna hate it.’ I understood that, but I wanted to get rid of all that. I didn’t want that side of life anymore; I wanted to do something that’s really kind of cheerful. I thought, ‘This isn’t going to work. No one’s ever gonna buy into this. It’s so ludicrous that I’m gonna go from goth idol to pop star in three easy lessons.'”
Smith kept to his word, embracing a more radio-conscious sound throughout the 1980s. While performing with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Smith worked on material for the first comeback studio album, The Top. With a psychedelic and somewhat upbeat tone, the 1984 album is best remembered for its lead single, The Caterpillar.
The Top was followed a year later by the first masterpiece of the new chapter, The Head on the Door. Home to beloved songs like ‘In Between Days’, ‘Six Different Ways’, ‘Close to Me’ and ‘A Night Like This’, the album saw The Cure’s bow turn to tides of stadium tour eminence.
During a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Smith reflected on The Head on the Door, The Cure’s first “professional” studio release. While some of the Pornography sessions saw the band dropping acid and recording in the studio toilets, The Head on the Door came to fruition in a cosy studio with spider diagrams pinned to the wall and a pencil on the ear. “For the first time, we were creating sounds as well as songs,” Smith reflected.
Later in the decade, The Cure scaled to even headier highs with the critically and commercially meteoric album Disintegration, paving the way for a lucrative run in the 1990s.
Listen to ‘A Night Like This’ from The Head on the Door below.
