Friday, December 20, 2024
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Robert on 4:13 Dream
From NME:
Robert Smith on why he dislikes The Cure’s ‘4:13 Dream’: “It was nowhere near what I wanted it to be”
By Liberty Dunworth
Robert Smith has opened up about his relationship with The Cure‘s ‘4:13 Dream’, saying that he isn’t a fan of how it turned out.
The frontman looked back at the 2008 record during a new interview with Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw, in which he celebrated the release of the band’s latest LP, ‘Songs Of A Lost World’.
Reflecting on his relationship with ‘4:13 Dream’ nearly 16 years on, Smith revealed that the finished product didn’t match the initial vision he had, partly because he wanted it to be much longer.
“If I’m really honest I was trying to make an album in 2008 which was a double album and it was really odd,” he began. “It had all kinds of stuff on it, instrumental stuff – and I was pressured into reducing it all down into a single album… I have never felt happy about it. “
He continued, suggesting that he has been tempted to resume work on the album to help finally capture the vision he initially had “I bristle a little bit about it. At some point, before I fall over, I’m determined…” he said.
“There are 13 songs from those sessions that never got released. It was a double album and the whole idea of ‘4:13 Dream’ was that it was like a fever dream. As it turned out, it wasn’t. It was nowhere near what I wanted it to be.
“I learnt a lesson [from that], and maybe that’s why we didn’t make another album for such a long time! I hated the idea of delivering it to the deadline. It was my own fault. I should’ve just ignored everyone. I was so sickened by the process of [being] commodified, and it really did upset me a lot.”
Robert on Chappell Roan, Brat Summer, His Viral 2019 Rock Hall Interview
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.
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Songs of a Lost World on Top Albums of 2024 lists
BBC - #6
The Guardian - #11
KEXP listeners - #2
Brooklyn Vegan - #8
God is in the TV - #1
AV Club - #3
Rolling Stone UK - Top 24
Drowned in Sound - #1
Pop Matters - #12
Record Collector - #1
Yardbarker - #9
DIY - #11
Classic Rock - #11
Stereogum Readers Poll - #8
Alternative Press - Top 50
Vive Le Rock - #2
Line of Best Fit - #47
Vulture - #1
Alternative Press Readers Poll - #3
Pitchfork Readers Poll - #10
NME - #6
New York Times - #9
Louder Than War - #2
NPR - One of their top 50, but not in their top 13
Glide - One of their top 20
Rolling Stone - #48
Paste - #11
Stereogum - #29
Consequence - #20
The Quietus - #62
The Independent - #8
Time Out - #5
Rough Trade - #23
MOJO - #31
Uncut - #69
Monday, December 16, 2024
Sunday, December 15, 2024
Robert on Absolute Radio tonight
Another interview with Robert tonight. 8pm in the UK with Danielle Perry on Absolute Radio.
US start times are 3pm eastern, 2pm central, 1pm mountain, noon pacific and 10am in Hawaii.
Saturday, December 14, 2024
What's next?
From Radio X:
The Cure's Robert Smith teases "companion piece" to Songs Of A Lost World with the "saddest" song of all
By Jenny Mensah
The Cure frontman has revealed what to expect from the band's next effort and said it will hopefully be out "next summer".
Robert Smith says The Cure's next album could be "heavier" than their last.
The Cure frontman spoke to Radio X's John Kennedy this week as part of a special X-Posure track by track playback of the band's new Songs Of A Lost World album, where he revealed there's a breadth of work left over, which could very well see itself on the next record.
"There's 32 unreleased songs at the moment sitting in my house," he revealed. "There are another two eight track albums if we wanted. But I think that the next one will be probably 10 songs. I'm finishing the next one. I just can't decide on the running order. It's always which ones fit together best."
Smith also revealed there's so much more material he'd created through the years that he never considered revisiting before, but the response Songs Of A Lost World - which gave them their first UK No. 1 album in 32 years - had him rethinking waiting so long before issuing their next effort.
"We always had about 14, 15 songs left over from the 4:13 Dream sessions as well [from 2008]", the 65-year-old musician added. "So there's an awful lot of stuff that's unreleased and I never thought I'd bother revisiting it. But actually with the way this album has been received, I think maybe it's the right time for me just to go back over stuff and get it out there. Like, finish singing stuff and finish mixing it."
Sharing more details about the next record in particular, the Alone singer added: "The companion piece to Songs Of A Lost World, which will be out hopefully before next summer, is what I'm currently finishing. I just need to mix it. It's not as dark in some ways, although it actually has probably the saddest song of all of them on it."
He went on: "It has a couple of songs that we were playing live which didn't make it onto Songs Of A Lost World and it has some completely new stuff that no one's ever heard [...] There's three songs on it, which are slower than pretty much anything on this album. So I don't know, it may well end up being heavier than this one."
Continuing to talk about some of the tracks on what would be their 15th studio album, Smith revealed that although it's a long way from being "upbeat" in terms of its lyrics, it could include a track the band has been playing for some time which has transformed from a piece about bereavement to a "powerful live song".
"Lyrically, it's a very long way from being an upbeat album," he mused. "It has one song of grief on it which didn't make it onto this album, which is a very, very old song which we've been playing for a long, long time called It Can Never Be the Same. And I think that this next album will have that song on because I think it's about time. It used to be called Christmas Without You.
"When I first wrote it, it was about my mum dying, but it's mutated over the years and that's actually turned into a really powerful live song. That would probably make it on.
"Another song called A Boy I Never Knew - we've redone that. I think that would probably make it on. That's a sad song, but in a completely different way. That's me singing about a boy that died a million years ago. About the death of humanity before it started, I think... or something."
The expansive conversation, which was part of an X-Posure track by track playback of The Cure's Songs Of A Lost World album, saw the frontman discuss the inspiration behind the songs on the record, the encouragement he had from his elder brother to pursue music full-time, his thoughts on mortality and the process of ageing as well as the secret to preserving his voice over the years.
From The Cure's humble beginnings practicing in his parents' extension to the best piece of advice his father ever gave him, the much-loved alternative rock icon seems to leave no stone unturned in this memorable chat, which will be available to listen to this Saturday (14th December) from 11pm.
Robert on Radio X today/tonight
Reminder for Robert Smith's interview on Radio X today/tonight.
US start times are 6pm eastern, 5pm central, 4pm mountain, 3pm pacific and 1pm in Hawaii.
Listen on the Global Player app, online, and more. Info on how to listen here.
Friday, December 13, 2024
Heads-up from Robert
From Robert on Twitter:
IT APPEARS THERE ARE QUITE A FEW 'SIGNED GUITARS' POPPING UP ONLINE?A HEADS UP:UNLESS IT IS ONE OF MY SCHECTER MODELS, YOU CAN BE 99.999% SURE A 'SIGNED GUITAR' HAS NOT BEEN SIGNED BY ME (AND IF THE SALE IS NOT BENEFITTING CHARITY,YOU SHOULDN'T BUY IT ANYWAY!) ...ONWARDS X
Have The Cure written the feel-bad holiday hit of the year?
From Louder:
“I think I just need to stick some Christmas words on it and get it out there!” Have The Cure written the feel-bad holiday hit of the year?
By Matt Mills
Robert Smith claims he’s written a “really catchy” pop song, and it could be the next Christmas chart-topper?
The Cure’s Robert Smith may have inadvertently written a Christmas banger.
During an interview with Radio X this week, the wild-haired frontman says he has a “really catchy” pop song in the vault, and that he may stick some festive lyrics on it for a release around the holiday season.
Smith discusses new album Songs Of A Lost World in-depth during the chat, highlighting the record’s glum mood by saying his days of writing pop hits “have kind of gone a little bit” (via NME).
He immediately adds a caveat to that sentiment, however: “Although I have written a really catchy pop song!”
Smith says he’s struggling to find a way to release this pop track, but adds that a recent visit to “town” (possibly Brighton, located in his longtime home county of Sussex) offered some inspiration.
“Having been up in town all day, the amount of times I’ve heard [Wham!’s] Last Christmas… I think I just need to stick some Christmas words on it and get it out there!” he continues.
It’s far from the first time Smith has spoken about new music recently. During the build-up to Songs Of A Lost World, The Cure’s first studio album in 16 years, he revealed that another record has been “virtually finished” and that a third new release is in the works as well.
We recorded three albums in 2019; that’s always been the problem,” Smith said in an interview uploaded to The Cure’s Youtube channel. “I’ve tried to get three albums completed. After waiting this long, I was like, ‘Let’s just throw out Cure albums every few months!’ Everything with hindsight, you think, ‘Really? I could have done that a lot better.’”
He added, “It will work out this time. Having finished this one, the second one is virtually finished as well. The third one is a bit more difficult because, well if we get that far… Talking about the third album, you see what I mean? I just can’t help myself.”
Songs Of A Lost World was released on November 1 to critical acclaim. The same day, The Cure played the album in full during an intimate concert at The Troxy in London. The audio of that performance came out today (December 13) as the live album Songs Of A Live World.
Louder’s Matt Mills attended the Troxy show, where the band also played two hours of greatest hits, and awarded it a perfect five stars.
“The Cure aren’t calling it a day – at least if their leader is to be believed about what’s on the horizon,” Mills wrote. “But if they were, this would have been the perfect bow out: an inventive reminder of both their gloomiest and happiest highlights, played to the loyalest of loyalists, just up the road from where the band formed in West Sussex.”
Robert's Radio Schedule
Schedule for Robert Smith's upcoming radio interviews:
Dec. 14th with John Kennedy on Radio X 11pm
Dec. 15th with Danielle Perry on Absolute Radio at 8pm
Dec. 23rd with Daniel P Carter on BBC Radio 1 at 10pm
New Cure documentary on ARTE
From TCDB:
A new documentary on The Cure, titled "Disintegration - An Album. A Band. A Generation.", is set to premiere next Friday on the German-French television network ARTE. Directed by Tim Evers, the 52-minute film serves as a homage to The Cure, chronicling the 1978–1990 period of the band's career.
"Disintegration" includes exclusive interviews with former manager and Fiction Records founder Chris Parry, Pornography producer and former bassist Phil Thornalley, Disintegration producer Dave M. Allen, Mogwai singer-songwriter Stuart Braithwaite, Curepedia writer Simon Price, and devoted fans Jeremy Wulc and Sandro Standhaft.
The film will be available in German and French on the ARTE media library beginning December 20, 2024, and will air on ARTE television on January 17, 2025.
Songs of a Live World out today
From The Cure:
SONGS OF A LIVE WORLD: TROXY LONDON l MMXXlV OUT NOW ON VINYL, CD & CASSETTE
ALL CURE RECORD ROYALTIES FROM THIS LIVE RELEASE WILL BE DONATED @WARCHILDUK
LISTEN/ORDER AT thecure.lnk.to/TroxyLiveAlbum
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Doom Dogs play Ithaca on Dec. 18th
GIG ALERT -- I play Weds, Dec 18th in Ithaca NY. DOOM DOGS is a genre-free improv trio: Reeves Gabrels of The Cure on guitars, Jonathan Kane on drums, Jair-Rohm Parker Wells on basses. Venue is The Downstairs. Doors 7pm. $15. Adam Arritola & Caleb Crittenden open.
Tickets here.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Monday, December 9, 2024
More Robert on the radio this weekend
Sat. from 10pm with John Kennedy on Radio X.
Sun. from 8pm with Danielle Perry on Absolute Radio.
From the email they sent out today.
