The Cure

**The Cure** are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex, in 1978. The band members have changed several times, and guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith is the only constant member. The band's debut album was *Three Imaginary Boys* (1979) and this, along with several early singles, placed the band in the post-punk and new wave movements that had sprung up in the United Kingdom. Beginning with their second album, *Seventeen Seconds* (1980), the band adopted a new, increasingly dark and tormented style, which, together with Smith's stage look, had a strong influence on the emerging genre of gothic rock as well as the subculture that eventually formed around the genre.

Following the release of their fourth album *Pornography* in 1982, the band's future was uncertain. Smith was keen to move past the gloomy reputation his band had acquired, introducing a greater pop sensibility into the band's music. Songs such as "Let's Go to Bed" (1982), "The Love Cats" (1983), "Inbetween Days" (1985), "Close To Me" (1985), "Just Like Heaven" (1987), "Lovesong" (1989), and "Friday I'm in Love" (1992) aided the band in receiving commercial popularity. The band have released 13 studio albums, two EPs and over 30 singles to date.

The Cure were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

The Cure were one of the first alternative bands to have chart and commercial success in an era before alternative rock had broken into the mainstream. In 1992, *NME* declared the Cure had, during the 1980s, become "a goth hit machine (19 to date), an international phenomenon and, yet, the most successful alternative band that ever shuffled disconsolately about the earth". As a leading figure of gothic rock, *NME* made Smith the cover artist in their 2004 edition, *Originals: Goth*.

Interpol lead singer Paul Banks was quoted as saying, "the Cure is the band that all of us in Interpol can say influenced us. When I was younger I listened to them a lot. Carlos as well. Actually, he took a straight influence from this band on the way he played the bass and the keys. To me, Robert Smith is also one of these examples: you can't be Robert Smith if you're not Robert Smith. It's one of the bands with the deepest influence on Interpol, because we all like them. They're legendary." The Cure were also a formative influence on the Smashing Pumpkins. Frontman Billy Corgan has named the Cure as a primary influence,' and drummer Mike Byrne described himself as a "huge Cure fan."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame chose the Cure for induction in its Class of 2019. Although the Cure had been eligible for the Hall of Fame since 2004, they were only nominated once previously, in 2012. The formal induction ceremony was held 29 Mar 2019 at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York. The members named by the Rock Hall for induction as part of the band are Bamonte, Cooper, Dempsey, Gabrels, Gallup, O'Donnell, Smith, Thompson, Tolhurst and Williams. Gabrels was initially not included in the induction, but was added in February 2019. At the Hall of Fame ceremony on 29 March 2019, the Cure were inducted by Trent Reznor and performed five tracks.

The Cure are often identified with the gothic rock genre, and are viewed as one of the form's definitive bands. However, the band has routinely rejected classification, particularly as a gothic rock band. Robert Smith said in 2006, "It's so pitiful when 'goth' is still tagged onto the name the Cure", and added, "We're not categorisable. I suppose we were post-punk when we came out, but in total it's impossible [...] I just play Cure music, whatever that is." While typically viewed as producers of dark and gloomy music, the Cure have also yielded a number of upbeat songs and been part of the new wave movement. *Spin* has said "the Cure have always been an either/or sort of band: either [...] Robert Smith is wallowing in gothic sadness or he's licking sticky-sweet cotton-candy pop off his lipstick-stained fingers."

The Cure's primary musical traits have been listed as "dominant, melodic bass lines; whiny, strangulated vocals; and a lyric obsession with existential, almost literary despair." Most Cure songs start with Smith and Gallup writing the drum parts and bass lines. Both record demos at home and then bring them into the studio for fine-tuning. Smith said in 1992, "I think when people talk about the 'Cure sound', they mean songs based on six-string bass, acoustic guitar and my voice, plus the string sound from the Solina." On top of this foundation is laid "towering layers of guitars and synthesisers". Keyboards have been a component of the band's sound since *Seventeen Seconds*, and their importance increased with the instrument's extensive use on *Disintegration*.

The band's early music videos have been described as "dreadful affairs" and have been maligned for their poor quality, particularly by the band itself. Tolhurst said, "Those videos were unmitigated disasters; we weren't actors and our personalities weren't coming across." The video for "Let's Go to Bed" was their first collaboration with Tim Pope. The director added a playful element to the band's videos; the director insisted in a 1987 *Spin* interview, "I think that side of them was always there, but was never brought out."

Pope would go on to direct the majority of the Cure's videos, which became synonymous with the band, and expanded their audience during the 1980s. Pope explained the appeal of working with the Cure by saying, "the Cure is the ultimate band for a filmmaker to work with because Robert Smith really understands the camera. His songs are so cinematic. I mean on one level there's this stupidity and humour, right, but beneath that there are all [Smith's] psychological obsessions and claustrophobia."