Musica
(June 17th, 2004)

"Who'll save music? Robert Smith, the Cure voice (they're coming to Italy and are about to release a new record),
proposes his own infallible prescription. That passes through the net."

London. Cure will never split up, because, after all, they're only one man, Robert Smith. Do you care who's in the
line-up? Robert could make a solo record and release it with "The Cure" name, and nobody would get mad. On
june 25th, after four years of absence, their new CD is coming out, "The Cure", that Smith's band will preview to
italian audiences in their two apparitions at Heineken Jammin' Festival and at the Neapolis festival, respectively
on the 19th and 20th of june. On july and august, the band will be embarking on an extended american tour called
"Curiosa", that will see them on the same stage as some of the bands Smith likes the most: Rapture, mogwai
,Copper Temple Clause, Cursive, Head Automatica, Thursday. For Smith, 45 years old, The Cure is the
resurrection disc, and the choice of a producer who worked also with Korn and Slipknot shows that the artist
doesn't want to lose, also towards the new generation, his carisma that for 25 years has changed him into the
"prince of dark". "I'm not a boy anymore, I've got an age in which one needs to relax. You find yourself 40, you
look around and you realize you hadn't done anything but working. And when one starts to feel music as a job,
something just doesn't work", says perplexed. "This record has been conceived in less than a year. I had given
myself deadlines: if inspiration doesn't come, i give up and go home. then, last december, the miracle happened: i
wrote 20 songs in a month". Unfaithful for a choice even to the group that made him legend, Smith has
always been inclined to flee away. In 1983 he worked with the Banshees for Hyaena and formed The Glove with
the band's bassist, Steven Severin. But the big numbers still had to come. In early 90s, Cure went to top spots in
the charts both in USA and Europe. "The pressure we had during Wish, in 92, would be unbearable today. It was
a terrible year. to catch up with myself again, i had to stay 18 months far from the group. They'd say to me: it'll be
a commercial suicide. But I didn't wanted to resign to see the Cure as a company employing hyndreds of people,
like Esso or Bp. I wanted to make music, and  wanted hat someone would listen to that music also in 40-50 yers.
Isn't this what is called art?"

The Cure is a wonderful record where Smith neither betrays his inspiration nor his hard-core fans. "There are
some recurring themes in the Cure production, and there are others instead that are all new for me. on one side,
nostalgia, time passing, growing old. on the other the struggle i do to accept myself. reflections due to the typical
mid-age crisis i'm into.I've discovered, and this uneases me a bit, that there isn't just one Robert Smith. There
are different, and they want different things. One would like to stay sittingin his garden reading a book, one would
like to make the whole world aware that a new cure album is coming. Inside me i'm frantically trying to reconcile
the most disparate wishes, and to be able to do it i use a fantastic formula: shame on you, i say to myself, you're
in a privileged position, you can do all you want, you should live with more enthusiasm and not make too much
"mental masturbations" (this is a really strange idiomatic (and funny imho) italian way to say "thinking to
something which hasn't any incidence with reality"). The mask is the same as always: heavy make-up with lipstick
eyeliner under the eyes, black cottoned hair. A sort of Liz Taylor in Halloween dress. "I'm also trying to concile
these two sides of Robert Smith, the mask and the man without lipstick and eyeliner. And I've come to the
conclusion that also the make-up is part of me. To use make-up only means that in a few moments I'm going on
stage. It's a push, a stimulus, a way to leave in the dressing room the private and to give oneself to the others.

The rock world is full of masks but those who could join to the greatness of the character the one of the music are
not so many. "Bowie has been my first master, he claims. "But since i had elder brothers and sisters, also Beatles,
Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and all the psychedelic bands of the sixties. at 7 i knew
by heart the whole repertoire of Jagger & Richards and Lennon & McCartney. at 13 i discovered glam rock:
Sweet, Slave,Mark Bolan, and T. Rex which i secretly loved because my brother considered that music to be for
women. But it was with punk that I discovered my call and my voice. In a week i saw the concerts of Stranglers
and Buzzcocks and i suddenly realized it was what i was waiting for. I've never been a punk in the true sense of
the world, but their style has been a huge push, i love that make-by-youself which is till today the base of my indie
attitude".

Smith is a nordic, introverted. He used to talk with the hand in front of(before?) his mouth, as if he was afraid of
saying an enormity (?) and was ashamed. Now he looks more confident, even smiling. "I've discovered my
mediterranean soul in Italy. I understood that the nordic lifestyle people used to identify me with wasn't made for
me. How beautiful it is to sit in the veranda on a sunny afternoon with a bowl of olives and a glass of wine. I'll
never forget venice and the Dear Prudence video we shot there with Siouxsie and the Banshees. Severin and i
really became italians for a few days". He's married, without children, lives south of london, near the sea. And
scarcely sees the old friends. Also the inseparable severin is not so close. "He sometimes comes to our concerts.
We've also talked of another record together. But the problem is i'm a different person today, while severin has
basically remained the one he was at the times. And this is a gap that makes a new collaboration impossible. But
who knows, one day, when we'll be older, we may grab the thread of memories and be able to communicate again.
He was my best friend, the heart friend (?). I feel more in touch (line) with the younger bands, like interpol and
rapture. i love mogwai, which today are the best band of the planet. I like thursday, cursive and elbow. The new
cd of cooper temple clause, kick out the fire, and let the flames break loose, is great. No, no: i don't like
radiohead. I stopped listening to them. the bends was their last album i liked. the new morrissey? i've done
everything i could not to listen to him."

"The music business is in a crisis: we must dare something, challenge the market. I'm thinking of an almost
illegal experiment. I tell you it's gonna be something people talk about. Now to download a song you pay 99
cents, sometimes up to 2,99 dollars. It's crazy. This encourages people to illegal download, because if you want
to put 40 thousand songs in your iPod, you must pay over 40 thousand dollars. If we really want to encourage
people to download legally, the price for each download should be no more than 5 cents. Record labels are so
stupid to think they can compete with Internet. It's an unequal match. I come from a generation that bought vinyl
records. I miss the long-playing, and this last Cure album will be available also in vynil. I'm sure next year I will
have to go to court, because I refuse to be a piracied artist and, at the same time, to be represented by a music
industry that doesn't know how to react. The public wants immediacy, that's why concerts are always sold out
and records sell less and less. Majors' filter has become unbearable. And Internet will change the situation and
bring back spontaneity in music."

(Thanks to Pietro for the translation and for typing it all up!)
 

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