Robert Smith once picked the most passionate album of The Cure
Forming in 1978, The Cure quickly became titans of the post-punk scene and has remained an institution in goth and alternative music ever since. Across their 13 studio albums, the Robert Smith-fronted group have explored many genres and influences ranging from psychedelia to nu-metal. However, in Smith’s mind, one album stands out among the rest.
The Cure released their self-titled album in 2004 to a generally positive reception, both critically and commercially. Co-produced by Smith with Ross Robinson – known for working with bands such as Korn, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot – The Cure saw the band adopt a heavier sound. The Crawley-born frontman credits Robinson with this new approach, stating: “I started writing really heavy songs, because, when you’re working with Ross, he’s bound to want dark and moody”.
Although it’s unlikely anybody would accuse goth icons The Cure of not being “dark and moody” prior to Robinson’s influence over the group, the self-titled album certainly seems to contain more angst and distortion than the moody self-loathing of 1982’s Pornography, for instance. Seemingly, though, this project had been on Smith’s mind for some time before recording: “I was on the point of making the album I had been waiting to make for about fifteen years,” he said. “We [Robinson and Smith] met at the end of Coachella. I knew after the first day of sitting and talking to him that I wanted to work with him”.
Known best for producing nu-metal and post-hardcore, Robinson’s methods were intense, Smith recalls, “We had no visitors. No one was allowed in. It was quite a surreal experience […] He put us in a very confined space, right on top of each other, with eye-to-eye contact. At night, we’d face the other way, light the candles and suddenly it became very real. I would stand up and away we would go”. The result is perhaps one of the most stunningly personal Cure albums of all, even down to the cover artwork being done by Smith’s young nephews and nieces.
Despite his trust in Robinson’s methods, the eyeliner-clad national treasure still had the final say over the album’s release, revealing in a 2004 interview with Mojo that he had made the decision to leave some songs out of the final tracklist: “Three of the five being left off are the most depressing songs we’ve ever done. Ross Robinson is beside himself with anguish that I’ve left them off the album. […] The fact is, I make the decisions. He made his own album: he’s burnt his own CD called The Cure, ‘cos he thinks that I’m wrong”.
Luckily, for fans brave enough to discover the songs that the writer of ‘One Hundred Years’ called “the most depressing we’ve ever done”, these tracks have since leaked as MP3 files on the internet.
Tracklist debates aside, Smith clearly still holds the record in a very high regard, saying, “Everything we’d done before was going to culminate on this record – that was the mindset that we had when we were in the studio. And I would say that more passion went into the making of this record than all the others combined”. High praise indeed from a group that has always written with such passionate emotion.
