Goth like Geniuses The Cure

14 February 2009

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Having sold more than 27 million albums sold, seen 12 members come and go - each contributing a different aspect to their sound - and a 33-year career, it is easy to understand why The Cure have been named Godlike Geniuses by NME magazine. Spawning a generation of black-clad, gloom-loving fans, the British group are regarded as one of the most influential acts of modern times and are still hailed as purveyors of teenage angst - despite frontman Robert Smith approaching 50 and being happily married for several years.

With his trademark messy hair and smeared red lipstick, the easily-recognisable frontman has carefully cultivated his image - once described as "pop culture's unkempt poster child of doom and gloom". Just don't mention the word Goth. "It's so pitiful when 'Goth' is still tagged onto the name The Cure," he once complained, before reflecting on how his on-stage persona is different to that which he carries into his private life. "At the time we wrote 'Disintegration' ... it's just about what I was doing really, how I felt. But I'm not like that all the time. That's the difficulty of writing songs that are a bit depressing. People think you're like that all the time, but I don't think that. I just usually write when I'm depressed."

If that is true, then Robert can have been anything but good company in the mid-1980s when he penned their seminal albums 'Pornography' and 'Disintegration'. Gloomy and introspective, the records are regarded as the band's finest work despite showcasing some of the most morose material to hit the singles charts. Yet 'The Top', 'Head On The Door' and 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me' - the three LPs released between 'Pornography' and 'Disintegration' - were more upbeat, with Robert admitting their changes in both mood and sound were deliberate. "That was always our intention, I suppose, to draw people in and then smother them," he explains. Despite their more chirpy tunes, the 'Forest' singers are always going to be associated with their downbeat material and it is this that will be the legacy carried on by those looking up to the Godlike Geniuses.

Robert may be considerably older than when he started writing material for the band back in 1973 - and arguably looks too ridiculous to carry on singing about teenage depression and misery - but The Cure continue writing and performing striving to play new material and not rely on their greatest hits to see audiences fill vast arenas. "I want the words to mean something, it's not enough that they rhyme. I find myself stopping short and thinking I've done this before, and better," he says. "I'm aware that time is moving on. I don't want The Cure to fizzle out doing 45-minute shows of greatest hits. That would be awful for our legacy." While the band don't sell anywhere near as many records as in their late 80s heyday, the group still have a devoted following and their influence on current artists is undeniable.

With artists as vast as My Chemical Romance, Mogwai and Muse crediting some of their successes to The Cure - and Robert in particular - the singer says he only recently realised how important they are in music history.

"The tipping point was a few years ago," says Robert, "when suddenly bands were coming up who weren't afraid to name check The Cure. We were unfashionable pretty much everywhere post-'Bloodflowers', but suddenly there were lots of young bands who'd grown up listening to 'Disintegration', 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me', or 'Wish' and didn't know that you weren't supposed to like us. So we kind of knew it was happening, at some point there's going to be a generation of people who are going to go and form bands who have seen The Cure."
While some cooler frontmen would sneer at their admirers, Robert has nothing but fondness for his. "I feel slightly paternal towards some of them, the Curiosa thing, when we played with Interpol, Mogwai, The Rapture and Muse was almost like me saying, 'Come here, my loves.' I felt fucking competitive on that tour, but in a really good way, like, 'Now I'll show you what I can do," he told NME magazine recently.

Just don't mention the word Goth. "It's so pitiful when 'Goth' is still tagged onto the name The CureRobert Smith

While the Smashing Pumpkins and Interpol's sound draws so heavily on The Cure their fandom is obvious, the 'Inbetween Days' rockers also have supporters in unlikely places - including laddish, fun-loving Scottish stars The View.

The 'Same Jeans' stars' guitarist Kieren Webster supports their NME accolade, saying: "They've got good songs, a career spanning a good few years. You can't just be a flash in the pan to get the Godlike Genius."

With previous winners of the prize including 'One' rockers U2, 'I Fought The Law' punks The Clash, and - most recently - iconoclastic glam-punk stars Manic Street Preachers, The Cure are certainly in good company. But are they deserving? Robert certainly thinks so. "It's very nice of NME to offer it to us," he said. "It came a bit out of the blue. Some of the people who have won it. I've got a list of the people and some of them are well deserving of that honour and some, perhaps, in my opinion, not so. Does it devalue the award? Not necessarily. Do I think we're deserving of it? Yes, probably, if anyone else is. Over the course of 30 years I've probably done enough to warrant getting an award."

With Robert the only original member of the group - and the musical and lyrical driving force - the honour is seen more as going to him than the group as a whole, and he admits he is unsure of the status it awards him.

Do I ever feel Godlike?" he wondered. "Rarely. I used to, occasionally. I think the job that I do and attaining a certain level of success, it often brings you feelings of omnipotence, hand-in-hand with taking vast amounts of drugs, but it's not a bad thing as long as you don't wake up in the morning still believing you are that person."

The Cure are set to commemorate their award with a headline show at London's O2 Arena and with 39 singles from 13 studio albums to fit in, the 'Friday I'm In Love' stars will certainly have their work cut out trying to please their legion of fans with a set combining their classic hits with current favourites. But the frontman is promising something special, saying: "We've been talking about what we're going to do at the awards, about trying to do every hit. If we can put them all in the same key and just run through, it would be really cool to do a six-minute piece that took in everything. It would be a big a**e though, because if anyone forgets just one of them, you're f***ed." However their set turns out, all of those in attendance will head home in no doubt as to exactly why the group have been named NME's Godlike Genius for 2009.

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