The Cure - Trilogy of melancholy

"I know, I know ... the record release was planned for spring 1999" Robert Smith explained on the official Cure-website in october. "But then, as ever, things took longer than expected...". And that´s the reason why "Bloodflowers", the latest Cure-studio-album won´t be released until february 2000 - four years after the last regular studio album "Wild Mood Swings". The rumours going hand in hand with this release were the same as ever, too: "Bloodflowers" would be the last Cure album - after it they´d split up. In fact, Robert Smith told after every album since "Pornography" in 1982, that this record would be the last one. He did the same after the long world tour with "Disintegration" in 1989: Robert told then that the Cure would never tour again. At that time, the Cure had a hit single ("Lullaby"), that even caused "Bravo" (a german teen magazine) to explain the gothic phenomenon. They quoted Robert like this: "It´s no longer practicable, that I get drunk a whole week, as we do usually, and that I don´t sleep three nights a week. I´m too old and too tired."

"Disintegration" marked the time around Robert´s 30th birthday. In 1999 he got 40 and so it was said that the definite last Cure album would be released in spring 1999 just before his birthday in april to mark a definite end of the 20-year-career of the band. Eventually the distance between the album releases had grown - while the band recorded an album almost every year during the 80´s, the distance had grown more and more in the 90´s: there were three years between "Disintegration" and "Wish", four years between "Wish" and "Wild Mood Swings". And in fact, both albums didn´t fulfill the expectations, The Cure had built up with the gloomy, mighty power of "Disintegration". In october 1999 there were rumours on the internet, that The Cure had told that this would be the definite end of the band on a press conference in New York. Was Robert really too old and too tired now?

He wasn´t and isn´t. You can say that without a doubt after listening to "Bloodflowers". This time, The Cure have just staged their own myth a bit more intensive than before. Of course nobody can say how the career of the band will turn out in the next millennium. Neither can Robert, who I met at the beginning of november in Hamburg to come to know more about the new record. Unfortunately, we´re not allowed to post any details of the interview by now - band and record company asked us to wait until the official record release. But they hadn´t had objections to a record report in advance and so we were able to put the Cure on the Cover of our jubilee-issue, an idea that pleased Robert as well. "I´ve got the very first issue of Zillo at home" he told me to my surprise. "Just because it had such a funny size, I can still remember it." By now, we want to tell just one single point of the interview: According to Robert, the end of the band isn´t to come in the near future - neither are any further plans to see. So it´s the same thing as ever: Even if the last two albums didn´t fulfill the standard of "Disintegration", there was one thing you can´t reproach the Cure with: to be boring or to do the obvious.

...(I won´t translate the middle part of the article because it´s quite long and features just the history of the Cure which I think we've all read a thousand times. - Martin)

During the time Robert recorded "World In My Eyes" and "More Than This" the first new songs arised: "Bloodflowers" took its beginning. In an interview Smith gave to the Boston Globe in 1997 he said that the new album would be the third part of a trilogy after "Pornography" and "Disintegration": "The songs are much heavier than the stuff I wrote in the last five years. Not gloomier, but with more power. They are more uncompromising." "Wrong Number" with its heavy using of effects and Roberts squeezed vocals didn´t seem to set the direction for "Bloodflowers".

Bloodflowers In early summer 1998 the first demorecordings took place in Parkgatestudios, Sussex: Paul Corkett was the Co-Producer next to Robert. Then the band took a short break again: First, there was the soccer world championship, which the band wanted to see, followed by some festival gigs in Europe, among others the Zillo festival. "The festivals helped to losen us up and they reminded us how to play as a band" Robert said on The Cure´s official Homepage. "But they took their toll in other ways." The old story: touring, traveling, partying - even if Smith & Co attended to be home again on monday after each weekend with two gigs.

In september the "real" recordings started. As they did for the "WMS" recordings the Cure settled down to St. Catherine´s Court. Robert did a few demos with guitar and vocals before, which served as a guiding line for Simon and Jason to do the rhythmparts for the new material. After that, Roger and Perry added keyboards and guitars. Roberts songwriting had developed decisively: he designed the songs more careful than he did at the beginning of his career; the first popsingles at the beginning were done very fast but then there was the first big crisis.

"Within a few years I went down and had a really horrible time" he said in the american music magazine Billboard. "There was this whole seperation with what you are, what you are doing. I wrote about those things. But when you grow older and ostensible wiser, people expect that you find the answers to these questions. But I think the fewest people do that. Today I´m engaged in many more subjects. I don´t need a little breakdown to write a song anymore. With growing age, I´m interested in more different things and my mind is much more open than it has been in the past. There are more colors on the palette."

Nevertheless "Bloodflowers" got a certain theme that fits very well with Robert´s formerly mentioned fears about getting older and tired - Age and , going on with it, death. But no longer as mystified as in times of "Faith" and the "Funeral Party". At the time of "WMS" Robert already said: "I´ve lost the romantic conception that death is somewhat dignified. In former times I thought, I had got down and coped with this, but I absolutely hadn´t. If you think about death when you´re younger it seems so far away that you can deal with it, but in a different way. You believe that it won´t happen to you."

One of the themes of this album is that it nevertheless happens after all. One subject is the own death, the thought of the death of a beloved person is another. "If you die, you said, so will I, you said" Smith sings in "There Is No If", one of the slower and poppier tracks on "Bloodflowers" (if you can say that about any of them). He goes on with: "But it ends the day you see how it is - there is no always forever, just this."

The desperation of "Pornography" and "Disintegration" is gonna be continued on "Bloodflowers" indeed, but in a quite different way: While the main persons on the former albums were living the loneliness and the coldness just at these moments, the starting point on many of the Bloodflowers-songs is much happier. It´s the fear that this condition will end, that nothing will be eternal, that nothing will last, that is dominating most of the songs. "Out of this world" - a track that is also acoustical connected with "Plainsong" of "Disintegration" with its delayed beginning - sets the melancholic keynote right at the beginning: If we think of this time in the future, Smith asks himself, will we be able to remember how it felt to be that much alive as we are now? "Watching me fall", the second song - with its length of more than 11 minutes an epic rockmonster that (unusual for The Cure) even features guitar solos - takes the same thematical path as "The 13th": seduction and the next morning after a One Night Stand. But this time the translation is different - Tokyo in winter, the symbolic colors red as blood, white as snow, black as ebony and the splitted personality - it´s not that playful, but more like a horrortrip into one´s very own self. The ballad "Where the birds always sing" takes on the death theme once again. It´s not enough to live on in other people´s minds and dreams, there must be something more to this, a world where nobody dies. Smith doesn´t get any comfort on this album, even if the opposite number in the title track, that concludes the album, tries to give him hope: "This dream never ends, you said ... these flowers will never fade". But at the end of the song he turns around this ray of hope: "always fade, always die" are the last lyrics.

There´s not just a lyrical resamblance to the first two parts of this unplanned trilogy: The hollow electric drums of "Bloodflowers" remind of both "Cold" or "Closedown", the heavy structure reminds of the dense atmosphere of "Disintegration" and is definetely a departure from the lose song compilations of the last two albums. Musically, there isn´t a trace of tiredness, even if Robert pretends in "39" that the fire has nearly gone out. With the power of "Watching me fall" or the gloomy swirl of "Bloodflowers" (which is definetely the best Cure-title-track since "Faith"), with the aggressiveness of "39" or the contemplativeness of "The Loudest Sound", The Cure prove once again that their sound´s got more than enough substance for the next millennium."

Zillo will also give away three signed cards (Robert only) in a competition. And Robert congratulated Zillo for their 10 year anniversary... on a piece of paper which is printed inside the magazine.

(Thanks Martin and Dennis)

"There's a website called Hollywood Stock Exchange that is a fake entertainment stock market. When you sign up, you get free money that you can use to buy shares in your favorite artists or movies. I was just poking around there and saw that there will be an IPO on the Cure this Friday, December 3rd. The Cure will be trading under the symbol CURE"

(Thanks Megan)

"You've seen that rockumentary The Decline Of Western Civilisation Part II - The Metal Years where a bunch of Max Factor-plastered fat Robert Smith-lookalike Hanoi Rocks wannabes with electrocuted poodle hair simper pathetically about how they're gonna make it big time, yeah? "

(Thanks Matt)

"The december issue of the german music magazine "Zillo" features quite a big report about The Cure. The author of this report (Kirsten Borchardt) met Robert at the beginning of November to do an interview which will be featured in the february issue of "Zillo". At the moment they aren´t allowed to post many details from the interview, but they were allowed to report some facts about the forthcoming album. So here are the items they were allowed to mention:

1. Robert doesn´t think that the Cure will split after "Bloodflowers".

2. "In "There Is No If", which is the poppiest track on "Bloodflowers" (if you can say that about any of the songs) Smith sings "If you die, you said, so will I, you said" and goes on with "But it ends the day you see how it is - there is no always forever, just this". The desperation of "Pornography" and "Disintegration" is gonna be continued on "Bloodflowers", but in quite a different way: While the main persons on the former albums were living the loneliness and the coldness just at these moments, the starting point on many of the Bloodflowers-songs is much happier. It´s the fear that this condition will end, that nothing will be eternal, that nothing will last, that is dominating most of the songs."

3. ""Watching me fall" takes the thematical path as "The 13th": seduction and the next morning after a One Night Stand. But this time it´s not that playful, but more like a horror trip into one´s very own self."

4. "The ballad "Where the birds always sing" takes on the death theme once again. It´s not enough to live on in other people´s minds and dreams, there must be something more, a world where nobody dies. Smith doesn´t get any comfort on this album, even if the opposite number in the title track tries to give him hope: "This dream never ends, you said ... these flowers will never fade". But at the end of the song he turns away from this ray of hope: "always fade, always die"."

5. "There´s not just a lyrical resemblance to the first two parts of the trilogy: The hollow electric drums of "Bloodflowers" remind of "Cold" or "Closedown", the heavy structure reminds of the dense atmosphere of "Disintegration" and is definetely a departure from the lose song compilations of the last two albums. Musically, there isn´t a trace of tiredness, even if Robert pretends in "39" that the fire has gone out. With the power of "Watching me fall" or the gloomy swirl of "Bloodflowers" (which is definetely the best Cure-title-track since "Faith"), with the aggressiveness of "39" or the contemplativeness of "The Loudest Sound", The Cure prove once again that their sound´s got more than enough substance for the next millennium."

There is more to the article which we hope to have soon.

(Thanks Martin)

(Thanks Jennifer & Jennifer)

"I found this in 'Pulse' magazine, November 1999. The web address for the magazine is www.towerrecords.com :

Anyway, Trent Reznor' article is the cover story entitled "Plan NIN From Outer Space", by Bill Forman. The mention of the Cure is made when asked about early influences he drew upon:

Of course, like most other artists early on in their careers, Reznor drew upon obvious influences. "I never really sat down and consciously said 'I'm going to take X, Y, and Z and then add this to it,' but that's what I did," he admits. So what were X, Y, and Z? …

…"Another part of it was the bleakness of the Cure, the coldness of Depeche Mode when they were at their best, or like Telekon by Gary Numan."….

…"And then I liked the lyrical nature of the Smiths and the Cure, and add to that XTC's songwriting. The musicality of XTC appealed to me, although it really wasn't apparent in my other stuff. But it all kind of seeped in."

A sidebar in the article lists some of Trent Reznor's early influencial favorites, one of the albums mentioned is 'Pornography'. "

(Thanks Scotty-Dog)

"In the new issue of Mighty Magazine, vocalist Jonas Renkse of Katatonia comments that "they don't like to appear on tributes, but if they should it would be a with a cover of The Cure's "Same Deep Water As You".

(Thanks Peter)

"The Cure Fan Club "Want!" presents

T h e C u r e K a r a o k e p a r t y

Saturday 4th December, 1999

PM 4:00-8:00 at Shibuya Karaoke Club

Would you like to sing out The Cure's songs ? Well, actually, it is not quite Karaoke because we are going to sing along with Robert! Please come and sing with us. You will love it!

Email us (cure_club@gol.com) for more detail. Fusae, Maki and Tsukamop

The Cure Fan Club "Want!" http://www2.gol.com/users/fusae/cureclub/want.html "

"CURIOSITY plays The CURE will play live again on friday the 26th november IN "Le Cap Vert" (12 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, 4600 VISE - Belgium) "

(Thanks Vincent)

"Morangos Mofados, a Brazilian band, will be performing a Cure cover on 26th November (Friday coming) in a place called The Bloody Coven, a new gothic pub in Campinas. The complete address is Rua Dna. Rosa de Gusmao, 82 - Campinas - SP - Brazil.

Morangos Mofados is participating of the Pink Project with "The Same Deep Water as You". "

(Thanks Márcio)

"Hello, I'm Vince from Italy; I've this Cure spotting to relate about: yesterday morning (19/11/99) at 13:30 (local time) during the National TV News (Channel: RAI2) in occasion of the promotion of Anna Falchi's (italian showgirl) 2000 Calendar, they used bits of "Why can't I be you?" and "Friday I'm in love" as musical background in her interview and preview of her pictures: really really cool!"

(Thanks Vince)

"I was lucky enough to hear two of the new songs so far. I may get to hear some others from my source soon. i'll give you a little info on two of the songs. If you don't want to know anything about them and want to be surprised when you buy the cd on Feb. 14 or 15th...stop reading now. Otherwise keep reading and gain a little more info on two of the songs.

First some general information. I've been told that album is fairly consistent in its mood, with the lyrics conveying somewhat depressing thoughts of failed relationships and growing older, etc. There is also an acoustic song on the album. From the two songs i've heard, I would compare them to somewhat of a cross between Disintegration and Wish musically. They like to have musical lead ins before getting to the vocals (which instantly reminded me of disintegration). Now on to the two songs i'v heard.

The opening song of the album is called "Out of this World" and is 6:43 long. Robert pulls out the good old 12 string for this song. This song is mainly performed with guitars. Piano is introduced 4 minutes into the song with a little bit of echo effect. According to Universal, this song will be the first single.

The other song I had the pleasure of hearing is "The last day of summer" which is track 5 and runs for 5:34. Again this song is primarily guitar and too has some 12 string guitar on it. It has as 2 minute intro before getting into the vocals. The lyrical content follows the depressing nature of the other song. This has become one of my favorite Cure songs now. Its REALLY good.

Well, there you have it. If I get any more info on any of the songs...i'll pass along the info to all of you. From what i've heard so far...sounds like this is going to be a GREAT album."

I had to delete some of this e-mail for reasons I am about to explain. Last week I mentioned having items that I wanted to post, but couldn't. Those items were the info about the Feb. promo shows, and the lyrics to 'Bloodflowers'. At that time, we only had lyrics to 'OOTW', 'LDOS' and 'BF', however we have all of the lyrics now. The unfortunate part of this is that we have been asked not to post the lyrics on the website, and since we respect the wishes of the band, we have decided not to put them up. And that is the part that had to be edited out of this e-mail, the lyrics to the 2 songs.

I'll probably have some comments about the lyrics next week, but overall I'd say they are pretty strong (a little too much of the "I said, you said" though ). The album seems to be about loss. The loss of time, life, love, one's self, youth, etc.

Judging on lyrics alone, my favorite songs are 'There Is No If...', 'The Loudest Sound' and 'Where the Birds Always Sing'. And from the Hard Rock Live taping, I already loved 'OOTW', 'LDOS', and 'BF'. I guess the only songs I was somewhat disappointed in were 'Watching Me Fall' and '39', but I want to hear them before making any kind of judgement.

"I was just browsing www.shockwave.com and came across, in the South Park section, a shockwave game called Mecha-Smash in which you can play Robert Smith (in monster form) and defeat the evils of Barbara Streisand which can't be a bad thing."

(Thanks Rob & Yan)

"tomorrow (11/20/99), in Brussels at les pyramides, place Rogier, is the second record fair that is dedicated to The Cure, Dm, the sisters of mercy...

I went there last year, and I must admit that I only found...disappointed cure fans, as there were almost nothing interesting to buy....

So, it will probably be like this this year, but I wanted to submit the info though."

(Thanks Candide)

"on Belgian television (VRT) in last week's broadcast of the very popular and funny 'De XII werken van Van Oudenhove' ('The twelve works of Van Oudenhove'), the compere (i.e. Rob Van Oudenhove) was given the task to make his studio guest (Bert Anciaux, a rather emotional Belgian politician) cry. As an intro when Anciaux entered the studio, they played 'Boys don't cry'."

(Thanks Jerre)

"in the current issue of guitar world (the one with tom morello of rage against the machine...ugh), robert is metioned as being the "famous taurus" of the month. also, in the current issue of metal maniacs, the review for the new katatonia album makes a connection between that bands singing style and roberts, and later mentions that if they were to do a cover song, they would do a cure cover."

(Thanks ~Schatten~)

"Official sources have confirmed that the BloodFlowers tour will be in Spain between april and may.

Robert Smith's favourite album of 1999 was "Come On Die Young" by MOGWAI .

This week in Cure-Nius I commented on "Out of This World" like this: The song begins with soft drums and an acoustic guitar like "Bare"...but soon changes with a decadent and repetitive riff and a beautiful guitar that reminds me of the guitar of "Plainsong"...in the middle of the song starts a piano that reminds me of the piano of "Just Like Heaven". The voice of Smith is soft like "Plainsong" but without echo. The melody of the song is like "Ocean" but without chords... Next week I´ll comment on "Watching Me Fall".

(Thanks to Manuel of "Cure Nius")

"Just Like Heaven is being used in the promo for a film called "Juda's Kiss".

(Thanks Davide)

"I heard the Cure mentioned while watching an MTV segment called "Music Myths and Mysteries." Tim Burton said that he noticed a synchronous relationship between a Cure song and Godizilla, much like the famed synchronicity between The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz. The specific song was not mentioned."

(Thanks Emmanuelle, Bryan and Maelton)

"While shopping with my 5 year old (cure fan) daughter, she said, "Mommy, it's the Cure!" I wasn't paying attention to the droning of 'store muzak', but lo and behold, she was right!! They were playing "Love Song". We were amazed. Weeks later (guess we shop there alot) my now attentive ears picked up another Cure melody and I said, "Hey listen Em, what song is that?". She smiled and replied, "Letter To Elise"!! That was a proud-parent moment!!"

(Thanks Katherine)

"You can call him the Gothfather, the melancholy guru of death, the doom and gloom bloke or the messiah of "mope rock," but The Cure's frontman Robert Smith is definitely master of his musical domain.

For two decades, Smith has taken us on a hypnotic journey through his contradicting mind by offering us haunting melodies, pulsating pop, spellbinding Goth and playful dance. But even at age 40, he's not about to slow down. A new album reportedly titled Blood Flowers is set for release February 2, 2000 and will reflect Smith's thoughts on aging and death. Welcome back to the darkness! Insiders describe the upcoming album as the last of a trilogy that began with 1982's Pornography and followed with 1989's Disintegration. It is also rumored that Blood Flowers will be The Cure's darkest album ever.

In a recent interview with Alternative Press, Smith says, "There aren't any real Cure pop songs on this record. Lyrically the songs are about despair, loss, lack of faith - those subjects."

Those dark and dreary subjects became a staple for the band in the eighties, but Smith's musical journey began at age 16, when he formed Easy Cure with two chums from school Lol Tolhurst and Michael Dempsey. "Killing an Arab" released in December 1978, was one of their first demos. It showed up again in May 1979 on their first album Three Imaginary Boys, a mixture of post-punk minimalism and buoyant pop.

Intensive touring followed as well as two more albums, the eerie and atmospheric Seventeen Seconds and the deeply hypnotic Faith, which spawned the hauntingly beautiful single "Charlotte Sometimes." Both albums hit the top 20 on the UK album charts.

In 1982, The Cure sealed their reputation as Gothic geniuses with Pornography, which began with the opening line "It doesn't matter if we all die." It was a morbid masterpiece.

Around this time, Smith's trademark spidery black hair appeared. Not soon after Cure fans cloned themselves to look like their favorite artist. Many were dismayed when Smith lopped off his locks for a brief period in 1986. Is he bothered when he looks out into the audience and sees young pale faces, red lips and stand-up hair? Actually he's come to like it. In 1989, he told Rolling Stone, "They can recognize each other in the street - these kids know another Cure fan. When they're standing at the bar and they look a certain way, they go over and talk to them, and they're really friendly. It's like a big gang. It's quite good."

In 1983 Smith collaborated with Siouxise and The Banshees and came out of the darkness with the release of Japanese Whispers. "Love Cats", a jazzy bebop romp that reached number seven on the UK charts, became their biggest hit to date. It wasn't until 1985's Head On The Door's "Close To Me" that the band was able to creep its way into the US Billboard chats.

Not long after, the US was finally able to catch up on what they had been missing for seven years with Standing on a Beach: The Singles. The Singles was a collection of The Cure's biggest hits and highlights as well as B-sides. The double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me churned out four singles: "Catch", "Just Like Heaven", "Hot, Hot, Hot", and the bouncy, horn-laden "Why Can't I Be You", which received heavy rotation on US alternative radio stations.

The Cure reached the pinnacle of melancholy bliss with their next album Disintegration. Its mesmerizing, seductive, and emotional theme caused their popularity to peak at number two on the US Billboard charts. The LP took the listener on a pilgrimage through Smith's moods from the aching "Pictures of You" to the charming "Love Song" and from the crawling "Lullaby" to the pulsating "Fascination Street".

The boys slowed down a little in the nineties with only two albums and another compilation. 1992's Wish was considered the best Cure album by critics and the single "Friday I'm In Love" became an instant radio-friendly tune. Fans waited four years in anticipation until Wild Mood Swings was released, and they received instant gratification with the usual mix of dismay and desire as well as a vast array of emotions as the title suggests. Both LPs resulted in massive world tours and performances on US late-night television.

In 1997, The Cure decided to give another compilation a try by beginning where Standing on a Beach left off. Galore, a dizzying expedition through a decade of music, restated the fact the The Cure was one of the most influential alternative bands in the last two decades.

And in all this time Smith has been pegged down and stereotyped into a depressed, tortured soul who doesn't know happiness if it was staring him in the face. But in reality he is a very well balanced man who has good and bad days. Would someone who is supposedly obsessed with death and doom list Disney movies, such as Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and Toy Story as some of his favorite films? Or would a man enveloped in gloomy thoughts allow himself to be animated in an episode of South Park to defeat the evil Mecha-Streisand?

Another misconception about the band is that in the last decade it has been rumored that each new album would be their last. But The Cure has managed to sustain its longevity to make it to their 20th Anniversary.

So will Smith and The Cure be performing until the time of his death? Not even he knows. But to further prove that he is a man with a sense of humor, when asked by Rolling Stone what his epitaph will read, he responded by saying he would have tombstone with a screen. And what would the screen show? "Imaginary scenes from my life acted out by someone else." Any volunteers?"

(Thanks to Scott for typing it up)

"In today's New York Daily News, on page 19, there is a brief mention of the Cure. Here's the exact text:

"ROBERT SMITH and other Cure bandmates partied into the wee hours on $800 worth of wine at San Domenico the other night.."

San Domenico is a very, very nice Italian restaurant located on Central Park South, between Broadway and 7th Avenue - Manhattan. "

(Thanks Van)

Visit the KROQ website for more info.

(Thanks Kam)

(spin) "There are rumors of you directing Mike Myers in a film adaptation of his Saturday Night Live "Sprockets" bit. Is that going to happen?"

(tim burton) "I met with Mike Myers. He's funny. I liked him. But I don't know if that will happen. Part of my problem is that the movie I'm working on always feels like it's the last movie I'll even do, and I can't really think ahead. It's like what you hear about the Cure, how it's always going to be their last tour [laughs]."

and...

(spin) "What sort of music do you listen to?"

(tim burton) "All sorts of stuff. I mean, I think that you have an era in your life that's sort of your era as far as music goes. For me, like, the late '70s/early '80s. I was really into punk, still am. I love the Ramones, the Cure, Wall of Voodoo. ..."

(Thanks Jewel)

"There are only 2 songs left for grabs:

- a chain of flowers

- the weedy burton

To those of you who e-mailed us with requests, thanks a lot for the fast response and interest in the project ... hope you're having fun doing the covers :)

(Small update: the artwork & presentation are coming out very well ... it will be a really cool set :-)

For more info and the complete list of received/reserved/available songs :

http://usuarios.interar.com.ar/german/pinkpig/home.htm

The News Section:

http://usuarios.interar.com.ar/german/pinkpig/website/news.html

We'll keep in touch

Love Flor, German & Juan Jose"

(Thanks Craig)

(Thanks Torr)

"Counting Crows started out as a Cure cover band. A talent scout heard them play at a club (if I remember correctly, they were playing Fascination Street) He reportedly liked what he heard and suggested that they start writing their own songs. That information was mentioned on 104 KRBE in Houston to promote their last album, "Recovering the Satellites". "

(Thanks Desperately Seeking Charlotte)

(Thanks Ronny)

"The book is hungarian language, and tells the history of the band from Robert's early years until 1992, the Cure's highest popularity. The book is limited, and will not be available again it seems. The book has a very kind sense of humour and feautered a lot of interesting lies and thoughts of the band members said to the "pop press" during the years. It is available/order now. More info: gallup1@freemail.hu

"(In the Dec. issue of Seventeen magazine) Gavin Rossedale from Bush gives his five alternative must haves for anyone's collection. He chose the Cure's "Mixed Up" as one of his favorites of all time."

(Thanks Allyson & Gina)

"I've almost completed my training at the Police Academy. Another five weeks to go. But during our second or third week we had to watch some cheesy training videos and I was suprised to hear Fascination Street was used in some of these videos. Talk about weird, but it was cool. "

(Thanks Jim)

"Tonight I was watching VH-1's new show "The List" and the topic was "Band or Artist with Most Influential Fashion Statement". Hosted by Kevin Bacon. Guests included: Danny Masterson (That 70's Show), Vanilla Ice, Doug Fieger (The Knack), and Debra Wilson (Mad TV). -- They were running through photos of influential people and they flashed Robert's face in the montage!"

(Thanks Daryl)

"I was watching The List on VH1, and the subject was most underrated bands, and best live band. Although they didn't make it on the actual list the group was mentioned as an example of an underrated band. Also before the show that was for best live performer, there was footage of them playing but it was very short in length. Again nothing major, it just interesting to see them two shows in a row."

(Thanks SAECOBoy)

"I spotted two pictures of Robert on VH1. On the show The List (the episode of the best frontmen, which he was never mentioned) two really quick video shots from Wrong Number are used in a montage in the first couple of minutes. If you see the episode, don't blink or you'll miss them.

Also, while I was at a mall with my girlfriend, we heard Just Like Heaven being played at DEB (a lady's clothing store)."

(Thanks Jeff)

"Counting Crows have just released their new record "This Desert Life" and Robert Smith is named in the "Thanks" section of the album. His name appears among lots of other names I have never heard of. I guess many of you may wonder what could be the connection between Counting Crows and The Cure... Well, the only clue I have is that Counting Crows once covered "Six Different Ways" on stage. You can hear this cover version by going to the sounds archive of Lisa's counting crows shrine at : http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/4110/

(Thanks Sylvain)

"I found a mention of The Cure in a David Bowie interview for a spanish magazine.

Q: You organized a competition on your website asking people to write a verse for "What's Really Happening"

A: I asked Bowienet members to send their own words for that song. We got thousands of replies and we choose one. Some of them were from The Cure, who didn't win, although it doesn't say anything about their literary abilities. "

(Thanks Albert)

"Last night (Nov. 7th) I went to the Detroit Redwings- Tampa Bay Lightning game in Tampa, they had a band called Brother 2 Brother in the stadium playing songs during breaks. During the second period they played "Just Like Heaven." It sounded like crap, but just about everything does when compared to Robert and the boys."

(Thanks Scott)

This is a fun but difficult time for us right now. We are getting lots of info about the new album and tour, but we have to check and double check with sources and the band to find out what we are allowed to post, get confirmations, etc. We currently have 2 things that we would like to post, one of which we may get the go ahead for tomorrow (keep your fingers crossed!). The other is more difficult and we are debating about whether to post it or not.  I know that probably makes you quite curious as to what it could be, but we have to wait for clearance before posting it.
Anyway, we just want to let everyone know that we should have some important announcements over the next couple of days, hopefully starting tomorrow.

Cure 'Bloodflowers' Picks Off Where Disintegration Left  Off

 (11/11/99, 12 p.m. ET) - The forthcoming album by the Cure, Bloodflowers, is the third part of a trilogy that started with Pornography in 1982 and continued with Disintegration in 1989,  according to a spokesperson for the band.

 Robert Smith tells LAUNCH that he's grown since Pornography and Disintegration. "It's almost been five different groups for me," Smith  says. "I'm the one constant I suppose, the one person that's been there through it all. But even I'm not the same person. I'd be horrified if I was the same person that I was then."

 Bloodflowers will be released Feb. 15, 2000. Here's the album's tracklisting: "Out Of This
 World," "Watching Me Fall," "Where The Birds Always Sing," "Maybe Someday," "The Last Day Of Summer," "There Is No If...," "The Loudest Sound," "39," and "Bloodflowers."

 The band recently taped a segment for VH1's Hard Rock Live performance at Sony Studios in New York. The producers of the show are will pull from a performances from that included "Out of this World," "Wait," "Club America," "Fascination Street," "Just Like Heaven," "Last Days of Summer," "In Between Days," "From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea," "100 Years," "Boys Don't Cry," "BloodFlowers," and "Wrong Number." The episode will air sometime in the early spring.

 Look for a Cure feature on LAUNCH.com soon.

-- Darren Davis, New York

(Thanks Jennifer)

(Thanks Dennis)  

And on a related note, there are few bands that I love as much as The Cure, but one of them is All About Eve. They broke up back in 1993, but have just decided to get back together to be the support band for 3 of The Mission's UK shows (Nov. 23rd - London, Nov. 24th - Nottingham and Nov. 25th - Manchester) and maybe play a few shows on their own.  So if any one is going to those shows, please bring along a recorder and contact me as soon as you get back. : )

(Thanks Dennis) 

(Thanks Martin, Mark & Gallup-Leslie)

"I have just received my Pornography lp today.  The quality of sound (better than the cd and the japanese lp) is worth the price.  I hope they will release other Cure albums on 180gram lp.  If you haven't bought it yet, don't wait because I think it's a limited edition."

(Thanks Jean-Francois)

"This evening (11/9/99) on ESPN at 6:00 Central/7:00 Eastern, they introduced the "Bam Slam Jam" show with The Cure's "The Three Sisters" (from Lost Wishes)! Very strange."

(Thanks Desperately Seeking Charlotte)

(If anyone e-mailed us between yesterday evening and this afternoon, please send it again. We have had trouble with the Cserve mail server over the last 24 hours and all mail is lost.)

"Some people from Universal want The Cure to split, but Robert doesn't want to. He's very happy now in The Cure....and happy with Bloodflowers

"Out of This World" is not confirmed as the 1st single yet.

"There is no if..." was written in 1983 and the refrain is one of the most beautiful of the album "If you die..you said, so do I...you said"

The sound of the album is between: From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea..End...100 Years...Pictures of You... Ocean...Burn......

It is not a Disintegration or Pornography sound: it is a Bloodflowers sound. (And sounds perfect)

Is difficult to find singles in the album.

(Maybe the song that you have listed as "Side by Side" is "The Loudest Sound" because the lyric repeats "Side by Side in Silence" four or five times.)

If you compare "The 13th" with any Bloodflowers song, you're laughing for a hundred thousand million days......

I'll comment on the songs of Bloodflowers (one by one) starting next week.

I´ll hope to tell you more in a few days."

(Thanks to Manuel of CURE-NIUS)

(Thanks Dennis and Thomas)

PINK PIG - LIST OF NEW AVAILABLE SONGS ... check it out!

Hello ...

A short note to let you know that the second follow up round is over. We want to thank all of you who submitted / are working on covers and got back to us. According to the Pink Pig rules, those who haven't answered lost their reservations. As a consequence of this, the songs listed bellow became available for grabs again. So for those who have been sending emails asking for the list, here it is (finally!). To reserve a song, just e-mail us to pinkpigers@yahoo.com

We'll update the site in the next couple of days, so keep an eye on it for more news and the complete list of received/reserved/available songs :

http://usuarios.interar.com.ar/german/pinkpig/home.htm

The News Section:

http://usuarios.interar.com.ar/german/pinkpig/website/news.html

We're closer and closer ... hopefully, this will be the last list of "new available songs" (which means the last opportunity to get involved inthe project). It is a lot of work, but we're very enthusiastic and can't wait to get the set done and have it in our hands. We hope that this last bunch of songs will be taken care of by more Cure loving and caring hearts, throats and fingers :)

The boys have to start off their tour with a Pink Pig set as part of their luggage .... :-)

Anyway, here goes the list

Thanks a lot .... again and again and again :)

Love Flor, German & Juan Jose

"Recently while visiting a Hot Topic store out here in detroit I was thumbing through a magazine the manager had called "Ghastley" It had a nice article about the cure. Talks a little of the new album and says that its the darkest yet from our great Band. I have never heard of this magazine. Its this months issue so you might want to rush out and Get it before its gone. The magazine had a neat purple vine border with a pale ghastley man on the front. It was a good article though."

(Thanks Robert)

(Thanks Manuel)

"ten years later, the cure would straddle the world like a backcombed colossus, but in 1982 they were still a moody teenager refusing to come out of their bedroom. the punk pop of killing an arab and a forest had given way to a black mood inded. pictured as halloween-style ghouls on the sleeve and drowning in apocalyptic torment within ("sharing the world with slaughtered pigs"), robert smith and pals created something uniquely, irresistibly nasty here (a number 8 hit, astonishingly). it certainly made sense of the abject horror of those mock A levels."

Best tracks : one hundred years, a short term affect, a strange day.

Most gothic moment : the church organ on cold, guaranteed to bring a chill to any bone ("your name like ice into my heart")

Also, the 'cash for questions' interview with Robert will come out in the february issue according to the magazine (p.11). It should go on sale around Jan 1st.

(Thanks Steven)

"On Nov. 6th at 11:30 p.m. comes The Cure in the "POP 2000 - Juppie meets Gruftie" episode.

POP 2000 is a series about the history of music.The Cure as an inalienable part of it, will be shown in the 1983-1989 episode. "German showbiz stars" talk about how Cure (and other bands) changed their live, style and thinking at this time. I realy don't know how big the cure part is, but i think they show fragments of videos, interviews and live stuff. (I hope so) "

(Thanks Ronny)

"Not really worldshocking news and also too late, but when I turned on my television yesterday on the VERONICA channel (the Netherlands) I saw The Cure playing live Boys don't cry and Why can't I be you in the TV-show Countdown. Ofcourse it was not a new recording, but a rebroadcast from two performances they gave for Countdown in 1986 and probably 1988. I have never seen Robert, dressed in a simple shirt and jeans (He looked like he was going to play soccer or so after the gig), sing so easily Boys don't cry! By the way: the infomation pop-ups they showed during the songs were up to date, but, suprise, surpise, told nothing new for us Cure fans. They mentioned the upcoming Bloodflowers release and told that the band is still very populair in Holland though."

(Thanks Patrick)

"Hi. I am e-mailing from greece. I read a couple of weeks ago in a very realiable newspaper ("to vima"), that a month ago the british people voted something like the " music awards of the millenium ". Among other things, it said that among the best 20 songs of the century is " A Forest". The thing is that I have lost the beginning of the article (torn newspaper!!!!) so I don't know which english newspaper, magazine or radio station did the poll. I have to say though that it was presented as something big and quite official and not like a poll done by a small paper , magazine etc.

The exacts words of the article are ( i will do my best to translate an expression we use. I hope you understand.): " Among the 20 best songs of the millenium are " Smells like teen spirit" by Nirvana , "Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive Attack and " A Forest " by The Cure , pointing out that the voters had a speciliazed opinion , a music backround" Can you confirm this story?? "

If you know anything about this, please let us know.

And finally, I would like to thank everyone who has written in and expressed their support for the new design. Nadine & I really appreciate it. After testing the site on various computers, monitors, screen resolutions, etc. we feel confident that most of you will be able to view the site the way we planned. If you are using 640 x 480, then this site looks "off". The 15", 17" debate really doesn't matter, because we viewed the site on our 15" at 800 x 600 and it looked perfect (we didn't have the proper fonts, so we have to try that too). 15" with 640 x 480 was another matter ( the format was all wrong, again without the proper fonts). If you are running at 1024 x 768 or above, the site is even better, but the fonts are pretty hard to read. So we are going to keep it the way it is for now, but we want everyone to know that all of the news, reviews, interviews, etc. WILL stay in "normal" fonts. And we will make the Harrington, Script MT Bold, and other fonts available for download by this weekend for those who have asked us for them. Give them a try, see how they look to you, and then decide if you want to use them or not. Thanks again to everyone for your congratulations, criticisms, questions and comments. Things are going to get very exciting and very hectic over the next few months, and you can rest assured that we will be covering all of it, just as we have in the past.

Well, here it is, what do you think? I know I upset a lot of people with yesterday's post, and that was not my intention. I did say it was the end of the OLD site, and I didn't want to mention the redesign because I wanted it to be a surprise. We were very surprised when we went to upload the site at 11:30 last night and had 40 or so e-mails waiting for us, asking why we were taking the site down, some very emotional. I have to admit that it was very moving to read how much the site has meant to some of you, and I want to apologize to those who misunderstood what was happening. Anyway, reading all of those e-mails made us even more nervous about changing the site. Nadine & I have worked very hard the past 5 days on all of the changes and we hope you like them or at least grow to tolerate them. If not, we still have the old site backed up and it can be uploaded within 30 minutes. : )

I'd like to talk about some of the changes that we've made:

The fonts - We knew going in that some of you would hate them (too small, hard to read) or not even have the fonts on your computer, making the site look rather bland. We redesigned the site with 17' monitors (800 x 600 resolution) in mind. The fonts look great on our computer, but if you have a smaller monitor, you are probably straining your eyes. We may do something about this depending upon the feedback we get.

The images - Yes there are more images on this site (which means more loading time) than there were on the old one, but not by much. I think this is something we can live with. And the images will be changing as we get new photos from the "Bloodflowers" era. Consider the current ones "placeholders".

The content - This is one area that everyone should still be happy with, as the content has remained intact. the news is still the same and no changes will be made to it. The news archives have been made easier to get to (and the 96 & 97 files have been restored after having been down for a few weeks), the setlist/tour info has been condensed and simplified, we have restored all of the chat logs that were on this site at one time or another, Last Dance has received a nice makeover (still working on that though), and everything else has been cleaned up and we hope we've made it easier to get around.

Basically, we just wanted to "clean up" the site (feeling that the old site was a bit cluttered) and make it tighter and more streamlined. I think the redesign has made it much easier to get around and explore the entire site. But that's on our computer. We realize that everyone has a different setup and therefore your experience may be vastly different then ours. So for now, give it a chance. We will be working on it and tweaking those things that are causing problems. Please let us know what you like or don't like, whether you encounter any broken links or images that don't load, or anything else you feel like mentioning to us. So far I'd say response has been about 50/50. Anyway, I hope you still enjoy the site.

Thanks for the concern & support, Craig.

And on a slightly sad note, this is the last day for the old Chain of Flowers site. Thank you to everyone who has contributed over the past 3 years. This site will disappear sometime tonight.