How The Cure endeared themselves to America: “As far as I could”
In the early years, The Cure reached a level of success that most British bands merely dream of: post-punk pioneers with enough of a mainstream hook to sustain beyond the initial hype.
However, over in America, exposure was virtually nonexistent, that is, unless you were digging into the world music corners of record stores or listening to niche radio stations. Now, America recognises The Cure as one of the most significant rock bands in history, but there was once a time when the name itself meant absolutely nothing, and they were just a lesser-known UK gem that had yet to crack the code and emerge overseas.
It wasn’t until the release of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me in 1987 that they finally had their breakthrough moment, and songs like ‘Just Like Heaven’ started playing in several spaces on heavy rotation. With all of the typical elements that made them popular in the UK to begin with, along with a shift towards a more diverse sound, The Cure reinvented themselves by acknowledging all of their strongest qualities and mastering what they knew worked well.
At the time, Robert Smith was more interested in looking back than looking forward, which meant “reimmersing” himself in the “moods and styles” that they’d become known for and making them even better. “I didn’t think I’d carried through as far as I could,” he said, adding that most of it was them trying to “sum up what the group’s done in the past”.
As such, Smith perfected these elements, refining the more intricate parts of their artistry while simultaneously repackaging it for a more global audience. A lot of this came down to variety – Kiss Me didn’t just focus on one part of The Cure’s appeal, it morphed into a whistle-stop tour of everything they were known for, with just as many gritty rock edges as upbeat, R&B-inspired soundscapes.
Setting the stage for their career-defining masterpiece, Disintegration, Kiss Me also came at the perfect time for the band, when audiences had a particular appetite for boundary-pushing, pop-adjacent masterpieces that didn’t care much to fit into any specific box, so long as it was good and worth returning to.
Later, Lol Tolhurst recalled how much of a special moment the release was for the band, not just with how much success they achieved at the time, but with establishing themselves as rock stalwarts in the “big three”. As he explained to the Observer, one of the biggest selling points was that they appealed to people all over, no matter where they came from.
In his mind, that was the secret to their success across the Atlantic: their ability to appeal universally while also resonating with people in smaller communities, who found comfort in music that felt designed especially for them, and them only.
“People ask me why it is that out of all the bands from the ’80s, the three bands that are still huge in America are The Cure, Depeche Mode and The Smiths,” said Tolhurst.
He continued, “It’s because we came from the same kind of place, so it doesn’t matter if it’s suburbia in South London or suburbia in Southern California; it means the same thing to people and that the thing that we were able to express, and people understood that. That’s why it kept going, that and we played an awful lot and went on very, very long tours.”
Driven by the timeless, dizzying love ballad ‘Just Like Heaven’, Kiss Me also felt like a defining moment in a broader sense, with increased exposure across radio and MTV that felt like something you wanted to be a part of. The extensive touring was also a major push, but the quality of the music – and that there was something for everyone – made American audiences realise that this wasn’t just a great band, but one that was leading an entire moment, one that somehow felt close to home.
