From Stereogum:
Robert Smith Talks Chappell Roan, Brat Summer, His Viral 2019 Rock Hall Interview
By Tom Breihan
Two months ago, the Cure returned with Songs Of A Lost World, their first new album in 16 years. It’s fucking awesome. Part of the record’s magic is the idea that a record like this, a vintage Cure record that absolutely envelops you, can exist as part of the current pop landscape. It seems like it’s been beamed in from another time, and it doesn’t work in conversation with anything that’s being made today. So it’s a trip to hear Robert Smith talking about his present-day pop contemporaries.
Robert Smith hasn’t done much conventional press to promote Songs Of A Lost World, but he’s a guest on the latest episode of Sidetracked, a BBC podcast about music. Sidetracked isn’t an interview show; it’s a regular conversation about music-related stuff that doesn’t always include guests. On this episode, Smith just joins the flow of conversation, insisting that he’s not really part of the current pop landscape but still describing how he fits into it. It’s wild just to hear him say the word “TikTok.”
On the episode, Smith says that he’s “not knowingly” made a TikTok, but he does address a moment that’s recently gone viral. When the Cure were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2019, Smith did a red-carpet interview. When the fired-up host asked if he’s as excited as her, Smith deadpans, “By the sounds of it, no… It’s a bit early, innit?”
On Sidetracked, Smith says, “I felt bad about that… If I’m honest, I didn’t realize that I was being filmed. It’s probably why. We’d just come from quite a serious conversation in our dressing room about what we were doing there, and this wave of enthusiasm was sort of like…”
Smith says that he’s “dimly aware” of the currently-dominant class of pop stars, including those, like Charli XCX and Chappell Roan, who have said nice things about the Cure. He says that he still consumes music by buying records: “I don’t stream music on principle and never have. I’ve only got one connection in the house to the internet. It’s a laptop. I lift the lid, and I do what I do, and I close it. So I don’t really see it as an entrance to music. I listen to the radio, actually, so I’m kind of old-fashioned in that way, as well.”
When asked about Charli XCX’s Brat, Smith goes into a charming riff on his listening habits, younger pop stars, and the presumably-online criticism that they face:
I think it’s great, the way that it took over. It’s hard because the music itself isn’t really something that I would naturally listen to. If I want to listen to stuff and maybe I’ve had a couple of beers, I’ve got such a catalog of music that means something to me, from an age — like ’70s disco, let’s say, Donna Summer or Chic or Sister Sledge, all that kind of stuff. If I’m getting into that headspace, where I’m thinking “yeah, help me up,” it would be that.
I’ve got playlists, iPods. I’ve got loads and loads of different iPods with stickers on them so I know in the dark which one’s gonna play which. They’ve all got stuff on them which suits my mood. There’s so much music I’ve got — not in a nostalgic way, but stuff that I can not just move about to but also means something to me, reminds me of the times and people. So really, it’s kind of unfair, and it would be disingenuous of me to think I’ve bought into Brat Summer or Chappell Roan because it’s not aimed at me. It would be a bit weird if I was like, “Yeah, it’s my favorite.”
I think what they did as artists is really fantastic. I think that I’d be dishonest if I said it’s what I listen to at home. So yes, I’ve been aware of [Charli] for a long, long time. Chappell Roan, although she’s been doing it for a while as well, has only really emerged into wider consciousness over the past year. But anyone that really gets out and does something, I just think it’s great. I really do. I hate people just sitting there and being critical.
When I was younger, you have to develop an ability to ride that kind of criticism. My way of doing it was thinking I’d much rather wake up as me than wake up as anybody else. As long as you think that, criticism does tend to just wash over you. And also, people who criticize you have never done it. It’s invalid. Criticism in general, I take with a pinch of salt. With the stuff that we’re doing, when we’re getting five-star reviews, I was intrigued because I was thinking, “What did we do before that wasn’t five-star?”
Answering a question about Chappell Roan drawing boundaries with fans, Smith had this to say:
It’s a tricky one because it’s a complicated subject. I think what you’re doing as an artist, you want people to feel like they’re engaging with you. But it is a modern-world phenomenon that there’s a sense of entitlement that didn’t used to be there amongst fans. When we started out, it was kind of enough that we did what we did. As a consumer, I didn’t expect something more. It was enough to see Alex Harvey or to see David Bowie. I didn’t expect to hang out with them or get to know them, whereas now it seems almost like that is part of the deal.
As the Cure became more popular, we obviously have experienced quite a lot of obsessive fan behavior down the years, and it can feel quite threatening, honestly. If you have people sleeping outside your front door, it can get very weird. It never bothered me as much as it bothered people around me, but when it comes to your front door and people are there and they feel like somehow the cosmos has fated — you’re dealing with people who perhaps aren’t quite right all the time. How do you respond to this? It’s impossible, really.
The thing that most people don’t think about is when you arrive to a position of celebrity or success over a reasonably fast period of time, it is more difficult to deal with things because you’re not grounded at a lower level. It took us years and years and years of touring, going around the world and doing stuff, until by the time we’d started to get properly famous, I kind of knew how to respond. I’d already developed that as part of who I was. But being famous, if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, I can’t imagine many worse ways of living. It’s horrible being gawked at all the time and prodded and poked and people expecting more of you.
