“So much pressure”: The song that temporarily broke up The Cure
It’s not easy to write a hit single. It takes a special combination of skill and luck to create a song that resonates with the masses over the airwaves, a song so great that people will run out to record shops to spend their hard-earned money on a physical copy. It makes sense, then, that when an artist or band does achieve this feat, they look to emulate it on their next record, but The Cure resisted the temptation to fall into this trap.
For the gothic post-punk outfit, commercial success arrived in the summer of 1983 with the release of a song called ‘The Walk’. The band had already released a number of tracks that would become signatures in their catalogue, including the iconic ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and the spooky ‘A Forest’, but ‘The Walk’ took them to new heights of chart success, allowing the band to appear in the top 20 for the first time ever.
This small taste at chart success would have pushed most bands to get back in the studio, to pick up their notebook in hopes of penning another hit that would push them even closer to that number one spot. The Cure did feel an urge to take this path, as Robert Smith recalled during an interview with Rockerilla. “There was so much pressure around ‘The Walk’,” he explained, “because it went in the charts and now everyone wants another single.”
But Smith knew he and his bandmates couldn’t endure the pressure. “We must resist this temptation,” he stated, “I’m tired of being bound to the same group of people, the same music area. People don’t understand why we split up, since this would be the ideal moment to take advantage of three years of incessant touring.
“Everyone was saying that our next album would be the definitive one,” he concluded, “but we decided to call it quits without reaching our initial goals.” Interestingly, despite Smith’s proclamations about resisting the pressure to create another chart-climbing single, their next release would still outdo the success of ‘The Walk’.
Just a few months later, the band returned with ‘The Lovecats’. It had a completely different energy to its predecessor, shrugging off the synth-driven soundscapes in favour of a bouncy bass and prominent keys. The track was a far cry from the New Order-esque stylings of ‘The Walk’, but it would become a commercial success nonetheless.
While ‘The Walk’ had pushed The Cure into the top 20 for the first time, hitting number 12 on the UK charts, ‘The Lovecats’ went one step further. It shot to number seven in the UK charts, finding the band their first top ten hit. They achieved this success without bowing to the pressure to create something like ‘The Walk’, and without attempting to replicate the synthy success of their first real commercial hit.
Rather, they had found further commercial success by sticking to their guns and playing with new sounds in the studio. ‘The Lovecats’ was jazzy and peculiar, but it still endeared itself to audiences, surpassing the success of ‘The Walk’. From there, The Cure only went from strength to strength, releasing The Top in the year following and continuing to find their place in the charts.
By not giving into the pressure to recreate ‘The Walk’, The Cure maintained their creative liberties, pushing into new musical areas and audiences, while also continuing on their trajectory of commercial success.
