The hit-making group Robert Smith labelled “a comedy band”
While he may have plenty to celebrate in his career, Robert Smith has always been known as having something of a dour personality. Then again, being an icon of gothic rock means you can’t really be seen to be enjoying yourself too much, and the morose attitude he always presents in his music has often seeped through into his general day-to-day vibe.
That’s not to say that The Cure frontman is so clouded by doom and gloom that he becomes completely unpersonable, and even just a cursory listen to some of the band’s biggest hits, such as ‘Lullaby’ and ‘A Forest’ really amps up the inner bleakness. The Cure were considered to be at the forefront of the goth movement during the peak of their success in the 1980s, and have maintained their fanbase up to the present day, releasing their acclaimed 14th album, Songs of a Lost World, last year.
However, while a darkness has always loomed over the Cure’s music, they’ve also been pretty prolific when it comes to writing in a more new wave-adjacent style, showing off their versatility by performing in a decidedly upbeat manner. Songs such as ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and ‘Friday I’m in Love’ demonstrate this Jekyll and Hyde aspect of the band, with them clearly being just as proficient as writers of pop songs as they are moody gothic rock and post-punk.
By 2004, their output had slowed down a considerable amount since their heyday, but that didn’t mean that the always discerning Smith wasn’t keeping tabs on contemporary music after the turn of the century. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he made nods to post-hardcore outfit At The Drive-In and even surprisingly listed nu-metal pioneers Korn as some of his favourites at the time.
Despite supposedly admiring all things dark, Smith was quick to deride The Darkness as being a band who he had absolutely no time for. The Lowestoft glam rock revivalists, fronted by Justin Hawkins, were rising rapidly in the UK around this time, with singles such as ‘Growing on Me’ and ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ reaching the top end of the charts in 2003. Glad in glittery leotards and spangly flares, the Darkness are almost the antithesis of everything The Cure stood for – a borderline ridiculous imitation of glam and hard rock tropes that, while technically proficient, were unabashedly unserious about their presentation.
When asked by Rolling Stone what he thought of the group, Smith chose not to hold back in his derision, all while being critical of the first wave of theatrical glam rock. “I never liked Queen,” Smith began. “I can honestly say I hated Queen and everything that they did. To have that rehashed and reheated for a second time around is pretty weird. So, no, I don’t like the Darkness at all. I think they’re a comedy band.”
Smith certainly wasn’t pulling any punches with this statement, but then again, it’s hard to imagine that The Darkness were ever plumping for his attention in the first place. However, calling them a comedy band isn’t exactly inaccurate on Smith’s part – there’s more than a hint of irony about everything the Darkness did, and their often comically smutty lyrics and song titles are a proof of this.
