Is the Cure My Favorite Band?

Recently some good friends issued a challenge to come up with two separate lists of Cure songs. We needed to come up with 10 of their dark songs and 10 of their more pop songs. Once I started thinking about this I easily thought of several of their more pop sounding songs and how the lyrics were actually pretty dark. But, this isn’t what the real takeaway of this exercise ended up being. The truth is I think I came to the realization that the Cure is my favorite band of all time

Yes, I was as surprised as you are. Well, I was probably way more surprised than you are because you probably had no I idea what I thought. Or cared. That’s ok, but I am still going to explain myself.

For years I was in some sort of delusion that my favorite band was U2, Calexico, or The Smiths, or The Avett Brothers, The Ike Reilly Assasination or Radiohead. Truth be told, I would have told you it was U2 hands down. My love of U2 has been up front since I was very young. This is my late middle school thing when I read an article in a BMX magazine about the Boy album. That and the rise of MTV meant that I got to watch and listen to them quite a bit. On a trip to Peru to visit family in 1984 I accidentally left my cassette copy of The Unforgettable Fire. It was later replaced by the CD version and more recently I acquired another copy on vinyl from my friend Steve. That’s a funny story.

Let’s be clear though. I was lying to myself and everyone else. I was a Cure fan then and still now. It took many many years for me to get to this place, but now that I am here I think I am ok with this. Just don’t tell Bono about my revelation. Not sure how he will take this news.

Let’s start way back. What were the earliest memories of the Cure? Many of us of this certain age have fond memories of our youth and we hold on tight to these images in our head. I am no different. Across these memories the soundtrack that was playing in the background was always the Cure. My friend Jennifer and I would listen to Bauhaus, the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Cure at my house in the dark. Apologies to my parents. Jennifer has since passed tragically, but the memories will always remain.

I had a friend named Mark that I skated with pretty often. If my memory is correct, his dad was some kind of musician and he had a cool Ovation acoustic guitar that we played through a Roland JC40 or 55 or something like that. It was a smaller amp and not the big JC120. Now, I had a bit of a musical background since I played the violin since the 2nd grade, but through the Cure and Mark, I learned these 4 chords and realized I could play pretty much any Cure song. In Between Days and Just Like Heaven were early songs that I learned. Three Imaginary Boys was in there pretty early as well. I will always be thankful for Mark and his patience with me. Not sure where he is these days, but I hope he is still listening to the Cure. He was the kind of guy that would talk about different and long versions of the song A Forest. My first time hearing that song live I shed a bit of a tear.

So many more memories around the Cure. I had a couple of girlfriends in high school and college that enjoyed the band. My huge crush as a kid one day showed up unannounced at my house while I was out and while she waited for me to show up, she labeled a live cassette recording of the Cure at Dodgers Stadium that KROQ had broadcasted. Let me tell you, that was huge for 16 year old Wilt.

My memories don’t all come from 20+ years ago though. My friend (ahem, ex co-worker 🙂 ) and I can speak endlessly about the Cure and how they relate to the bands that have come after. This playlist was prompted by TJ and his brother just a month ago. I am always surprised at the diversity of ages of Cure fans that I encounter. I hope that continues.

Finally, the music really matters to me. People may have images in their head when they think of the band. Some may think of the hair, the make-up, the black clothes and some sort of goth imagery. Look and listen to the songs on the playlist I put together and you will hear many different sounds and feelings. One things that I come back to is that the Cure is a guitar band that is trying to write clever pop songs. Smith talked a bit about this during their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech. Take a listen to their catalog and the guitar work is the thread that runs from the beginning to the present. Add Simon Gallup’s bass work and you have a guitar rock band at it’s finest.

I’ve said this before, but this blog is less about trying to convince you the reader of anything and just another way for me to put my thoughts down so I don’t forget. Although, if you read this and listen to a few songs and think about them for a few minutes, then that’s pretty cool.