The Cover Uncovered: The Cure and new album artwork for ‘Songs of a Lost World’
Recently, The Cure released their 14th studio album, Songs of a Lost World. It was a huge moment for fans of the band as it marked their first studio album in over ten years, and they didn’t disappoint. It’s one of the most serene albums they’ve ever put out, and Robert Smith admits that it focuses on the negative aspects of life more than anything else that the band has previously made.
It’s not unusual for The Cure to inject a bit of gloom into their music, but the new album, Songs of a Lost World, takes it to another level. As he sings, “I’m outside in the dark, wondering how I got so old,” the harrowing nature of the lyrics and the sadness intertwined in every single beat on the record is undeniable.
Far Out highlighted Smith’s previous records with a glum tone in a four-star review of the new album. “Smith has been the torchbearer architect of beautiful, doomy mystery since 1979’s Three Imaginary Boys,” it wrote, “Crafting the complexities of scorned romance and hallowed hearts in their richly delicate world.”
Despite the negative atmosphere established on the record, though, there is no escaping the fact that this is some of The Cure’s best work, and despite being a band on the go for decades, they are still very much in their musical prime. The ambience present throughout the album and the dynamic nature of Smith’s lyrics are completely undeniable.
“Songs Of A Lost World has a vibrancy that echoes eras gone by,” wrote Far Out, “Matching The Cure’s signature motifs without neglecting the album’s broader message. What more is there to say about the record’s intrinsic theme of the beginning of the end?”
Adding to the brooding nature of the album is the striking cover art. Given Smith previously said that the album was shaped by his “Experience of life’s darker side,” those feelings are certainly invoked when you look at the cover. An interesting stone or sculpture, one where you can’t tell if it’s half finished or is beginning to scrape away. But what does it mean?
So, what does the Songs Of A Lost World cover mean?
Like many album covers, The Cure’s new artwork doesn’t mean anything; rather, it’s an image that matches the record’s tone. Smith wrote an album that focused on themes of death and the intrinsic nature of beginnings and ends, so having a sculpture that looks like it’s in the process of being made and also deteriorating seems to match that theme beautifully. The story doesn’t lie in the meaning of the cover art but rather in how Smith came to know about the sculpture.
He was once given a book by a sculptor named Janez Pirnat. The book remained closed until he looked inside by chance one day and saw the image. It almost felt as though that was the piece of the album that was missing.
“I saw this of this head, it’s kind of like it’s emerging from rock, and there’s something about it. I was like, ‘That’s it, that’s the album cover’. It struck me,” said Smith. “Things like that sort of happen: ‘That’s the image I want, I don’t know why’. I thought, ‘I’d better find it if he’d let me use it’.”
Upon researching the sculptor, Smith was met with some shocking news. “I opened the [laptop] lid up, looked him up online, and he’d died that day. Janez Pirnat had actually died the day I looked him up!” Given the album’s themes, the sad news about Pirnat made using the sculpture seem like fate. “I don’t normally buy into this, ‘Oh, it was meant to be’ – but it was a very strange coincidence, which cemented the idea that this has got to be the album cover.”
Smith contacted Pirnat’s widow, who not only let him use the image of the sculpture but also gave it to him. “I actually have it at home,” he said, “It’s a fantastic sculpture.”
He continued, “People that see it and hear the album think it works as well. There’s this connection. I think it’s because it’s ‘The Lost World’. It’s done by hand, it’s taken a lot of care, a lot of work, and a lot of thought. It’s a beautiful object and just resonates with me.”
