The Cure

Formed 1976, Crawley, UK as Malice, later Easy Cure, becoming The Cure in 1978: Robert Smith – vocals, guitar; Mick Dempsey – guitar, bass; Lol Tolhurst – drums. This line-up recorded début album Three Imaginary Boys (1979, #44) and early singles including Killing An Arab and Boys Don’t Cry. By 1980 Dempsey had left and been replaced by Simon Gallup (bass) and Matthieu Hartley (keyboards) in the first of countless line-up changes. The dawn of the eighties saw the band crack the top forty with A Forest from the album Seventeen Seconds (1980, #20); further top forty success over the next few years was sporadic although the band released successful albums Faith (1981, #14) and Pornography (1982, #8). Reduced to a duo of Smith and Tolhurst, a concerted effort to release more commercial singles began with 1982’s Let’s Go To Bed but it was the follow-up The Walk which finally took The Cure into the top twenty in 1983. Next single The Lovecats broke the top ten and established the band as a major act; the three singles from this era were collected on the mini-album Japanese Whispers (1983, #26). While this was going on Robert Smith had joined forces with Siouxsie & The Banshees bassist Steve Severin to form The Glove (their one-off album Blue Sunshine reached #35) and had also assumed guitar duties with the Banshees on a temporary basis, playing on their biggest hit Dear Prudence.

As Smith returned to The Cure full time, further albums The Top and The Head On The Door maintained their top ten success and spawned hits such as The Caterpillar (1984, #14), In Between Days (1985, #15) and Close To Me (1985, #24). A remix of Boys Don’t Cry with new vocals heralded the band’s first best-of album Standing On A Beach – The Singles (1986, #4) followed a year later by the double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987, #6). The double set included some of the band’s most memorable singles, yet Why Can’t I Be You?, Catch and Just Like Heaven all failed to crack the top twenty. Nevertheless, The Cure had started to attract attention on the other side of the Atlantic and 1989’s Disintegration quickly became their biggest success to date, reaching number 3 in the UK and number 12 in the US. Despite its unsettling video and subject matter, first single Lullaby reached number 5 in the UK, while Lovesong surprised everyone by climbing as high as number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

After the stopgap remix album Mixed Up in 1990, promoted by a remix of Close To Me which reached #13, the band’s 1992 album Wish became their only UK chart-topper, bearing the top ten singles High and Friday I’m In Love. Since then the band’s commercial success has faded somewhat, with only 1996’s Wild Mood Swings and a self-titled 2004 album reaching the top ten. While band members such as Lol Tolhurst and Porl Thompson come, go and then return as if stuck in a revolving door, The Cure continues to survive and Robert Smith remains one of alternative music’s most iconic figures.