Your first time with The Cure

Started by dsanchez, March 23, 2006, 20:50:06

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 19 Guests are viewing this topic.

BiscuityBoyle

In 2002, aged 18, I was flicking through channels very late at night, about to go to bed, when the song playing on VH1 really caught my ear. The video showed a bunch of guys standing in the snow and I remember that while the song was not extremely catchy (I was more into pop back then, from A-HA to Saint Etienne) it struck me as being seriously good. I remember how long it was as I was waiting for it to end so I could learn what it was.

The next day I went to my favourite record shop and asked the guy who worked there - and older friend and a total musical guru - about Pictures of You by The Cure (he had mentioned them to me in the past as "one of the great alternative bands of the 80s"). He said "yeah, but it's the heavier stuff, maybe you want to listen to The Head on The Door first"? I went for Disintegration and became a massive fan!     

Lola Sunset

I first remembering hearing "10:15 saturday night" in the 90's, cause my brother owned the album "three imaginary boys", i listened alot to that song , he recorded the song on tape for me so i could listen as much as i wanted to. :smth020... a couple of months later i was watching MTV Greatest hits and saw "lullaby" and fell in love with that song but at that time you couldnt download music,I couldnt afford to buy an album. Sometime later my friend started listening  to cure and she borrowed cure album from her older brother and thats when i realised what great band it was.. my first cure cd was "Galore" bought it on a school trip to Gothenburg.
2016.10.12 Gothenburg

Felizcelestial

Fascination street video on mtv. Was a Mexican-American middle school jock living in south Texas. Had no interest in wimpy European music. Ha. I liked MC Hammer. But, there was something strong about that song. Made stuff like Duran Duran and Thompson Twins look like joke bands. Then lovesong. Then lullaby. I was intrigued. But, then a bunch of supremely unlikable kids started to bandwagon them and DM. Disintegration and 101 t-shirts were everywhere. Some kids wore those shirts who didn't even like the music! I liked it, and was ready for something new, but then I discovered Neworder. Substance was out, and ceremony was a little closer to my idea of rock music. After the t-shirts went away, I kind of backed into the cure and Depeche mode again. U2 and INXS also caught my attention. The cure was just one of the bands I liked. Then I moved near Detroit where they had an actual alternative radio station broadcast from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Got into the Jesus and Mary chain. Lemonheads. Siouxsie. Psych furs. wish came out. Achtung baby came out. I considered those albums equal for awhile. But, u2's stuff faded for me. It remained pretty good, but the cure's album had layers and layers of increasing excellence. My favorite song was high, then letter to Elise, then trust, from the edge of the deep green sea, then open. I didn't even notice to wish impossible things back then, but it's prob my favorite nowadays. I've never found music that could do that. Songs that could suddenly burst to life after years of familiarity. I've never really considered another band the cure's equal since then. Closest thing I could name would prob be led zeppelin, but they don't fit my aesthetic the same way. Sorry for rambling. I just don't really have anyone to share this sort of thing with:0)

Hardi

In late 2013, when I was watching TV and suddenly hit a music channel where Cure "Just Like Heaven" was played.

Ulrich

Quote from: Felizcelestial on June 06, 2016, 06:05:47
Sorry for rambling. I just don't really have anyone to share this sort of thing with:0)

Hey, no probs, that's what the forum and this topic are there for!
Thanks @all for sharing the "first time" stories!  :smth023
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Felizcelestial


cuneytarkin

My brother made me a mixtape of new wavey/post-punk type stuff in the '80s that had "Close to Me" on it. That was a good tape, as I recall.

SueC

Curious about how everyone here got into The Cure  (merged - :cool )

I can't resist a pun like that... :angel Anyway, I'm interested in when and how everyone present here decided they were definitely a Cure fan.  So please, fire away - extra Brownie points for extended answers!   :winking_tongue

Briefly, for me - random encounter with the Cure album Bloodflowers on my husband's iPod when working outdoors, in 2014!  For him, the song Burn when he was watching The Crow in the cinema in the 90s - it all went from there.  I'm being unusually brief here because I've been more extended about that elsewhere...  :kissing_smiling_eyes:

Maybe also name your personal favourite albums / songs, and why... I'm really interested in how people's own life stories mesh them with certain kinds of music (and art, books etc).  :)
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on October 31, 2019, 05:08:33I can't resist a pun like that...

Tut tut. ;)

Quote from: SueC on October 31, 2019, 05:08:33I'm interested in when and how everyone present here decided they were definitely a Cure fan.

Hm, "decided" - this is a different question to "how and when did you discover The Cure?"... (which many of us have answered before here in the forum, but I'd be happy to do again and again...)!

As mentioned before, I first heard "Inbetween days" in 1985 and bought the album "Head On The Door", but I don't think at that point I'd "decided" to be a "fan". I got some more albums of course, but not all of them (yet). In '87 KM KM KM was released and I was impressed by the variety of sounds & songs on it.

However, I guess it was later, in 1989, when I made sure that I was a "fan"; after "Disintegration" came out I bought more of the old albums, namely "Seventeen Seconds" and "Faith" were missing in my collection, so I got these two (on vinyl) and put them on a tape (which I listened to in the car). For me, I think this was the point where I (kind of) "decided" to be a life-long Cure fan!  :cool
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Dear @Ulrich, I have a problem with the word "discovered" because it's often used in weird ways, like "Captain Cook discovered Australia" and "Isaac Newton discovered gravity."  I don't think I've ever personally discovered The Cure, but I did at one point decide I was a fan of their music, as opposed to I just casually liked a song or two!  ;)

It seems to me that maybe the word "fan" is not amongst your favourite words?  Considering how many " " " " are clustered around it?  I suppose it's short for "fanatic" and if that's the case, I'm not a fanatic, I would call myself a consistent appreciator... :)
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on October 31, 2019, 12:48:40I have a problem with the word "discovered" because it's often used in weird ways, like "Captain Cook discovered Australia" and "Isaac Newton discovered gravity."  I don't think I've ever personally discovered The Cure, but I did at one point decide I was a fan of their music, as opposed to I just casually liked a song or two!  ;)

Well I did discover The Cure of course, without me they'd be unknowns still... :winking_tongue

I'm undecided as to when exactly I decided that, maybe in '87 already? KM KM KM was a great album to listen to back then.
On the other hand, in '89 I got myself the book "Ten Imaginary Years", which of course gave me more insight into the band and their "history" - ideal for being a "fan".

Quote from: SueC on October 31, 2019, 12:48:40It seems to me that maybe the word "fan" is not amongst your favourite words?  Considering how many " " " " are clustered around it?  I suppose it's short for "fanatic" and if that's the case, I'm not a fanatic, I would call myself a consistent appreciator... :)

Ok, we'll change the forum to "Cure apps" then...  :1f633:
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Quote from: Ulrich on October 31, 2019, 13:50:17Well I did discover The Cure of course, without me they'd be unknowns still... :winking_tongue

Well, may I thank you formally for your services to humanity?  :angel

Quote from: undefinedOk, we'll change the forum to "Cure apps" then...  :1f633:

Or Cure cons, I don't mind!  :beaming-face

...which reminds me, has anyone here ever tried to do an online search for "The Cure" and got pages and pages of stuff on cancer?  And then searched for "The Cure - Music" and got medical cures for various ailments, involving music?

We don't have KM yet, @Ulrich - or a whole swag of recent Mike Scott releases - but they're on the list.  I suppose I have things to look forward to if noone else in the world makes any decent music ever again...
SueC is time travelling

Converge241

Had heard songs before on the radio but Fascination Street and Lovesong really jumped out to a 13 year old me. I didnt fall in love until 1994 and Burn which caused me to go backwards in the catalog and then not too long became my favorite artist period which has remained to this day.

So late to the party but still!

piggymirror

My turn. :1f636:

Firstly, I have to say that my favourite band is not just The Cure.
Those are Depeche Mode, David Bowie, and The Cure.
In a particular order? Depends on how you look at it.

I must have become aware of the name "The Cure" around 1987, I guess.
That's when it definitely started appearing on the TV.
My memory gets hazy here, and I really have to dig deep, but I seem to thinly remember Why Can't I Be You? and Push. Those two songs were not absolutely unfamiliar to me on first conscious listen, but I may be confused.
I also remember seeing a Cure band photo in a magazine (I remember thinking "six! why so many people in a band?").
My next memory was watching the Lullaby video on the telly. I remember my mother hating it, and I was not particularly impressed at the time, but I found there was something intriguing about it, it was not a video like the others. The odd fella on the video looked like a horror movie Buster Keaton or something.

Then I became a Depeche Mode fan. Sorry, but that was my first true musical love.  :winking_tongue
The record that truly got me into music was Violator. More exactly, Personal Jesus.
However, I was already aware of The Cure as a band, and Cure fans, but I hadn't listened to them.

And the next memory was a friend passing me a burned tape with some songs in it.
Among those, two by The Cure - Hot Hot Hot and Never Enough. I liked them. Those were the two first Cure songs that I actually listened to.

But...

I happened to buy Entreat (not Disintegration), out of curiosity. I loved it. And there was that odd fella saying "I surrender" on the cover.
Took me a couple of listens, but I was astounded by the 6-string bass guitar. It sounded very different to Depeche, The Beatles or Pink Floyd.
Then right after I bought Mixed Up. I liked it.

However, what really turned me into a Cure fan was when I decided to buy a third cassette.
That was Concert & Curiosity. Particularly Curiosity.

In short time I got hold of the whole discography, as I had already done with Depeche Mode.

Faith and Pornography made quite an impact. Much more than Disintegration.
Disintegration, even though I adored and it definitely is one of my desert island records, felt "commercial" at the time (I didn't completely master English yet).
But, truth be told, my actual most favourite Cure recording is actually a bootleg. Paris Olympia 1982.  :1f631:  :oops: 

More or less at the same time, my grandmother was dying of cancer, and as we had no spare room at my parent's home (she had lived elsewhere), she had to sleep in my room as my younger brother was a toddler, and I had to endure all of her agony every night during months (years? memory gets hazy) until she was taken to hospital with me having the full certainty of her never coming back, and although nobody ever told me she wasn't coming back... there was no need, Although by the last weeks she and my brother had swapped rooms, as the situation was... well, not pleasant to anyone I guess.
I was left alone at home as my brother was with my other grandparents and my parents went to the hospital.
I didn't cry (not then and there). I'm not certain that I've ever fully recovered from that.
So, in a way, there was a girl in the corner (of my room).
With a Cure poster, looking in? I'm not sure it was there yet. Depending on the exact dates, that would be a certainty. Memory gets hazy.
It must have been... 1988/1989, more or less, give it or take a year. Definitely before 1992.
That is when I started to dress in black. I don't anymore, but there's still that nagging feeling that I should.

When High came out in 1992, I remember me rushing to the record shop.
Then Wish came out, and I was slightly underwhelmed, but still liked the album a lot.
And I went to see them live. That was deafening.  And cherry on top, they played "The Figurehead".

But after Wish... came other bands, and mainly Bowie, which I already liked (as a kid I sneaked into my uncle's bedroom at my other grandparents home and found Ziggy, Space Oddity and Transformer), but I truly became a Bowie fan with Outside. Still am, of course.
And also Depeche Mode too, of course.

And finally, Wild Mood Swings came, which was a letdown.

That made me not buy Bloodflowers (which I do like a lot) until much later.
Still went to see them play though.
I became reconnected with them... dunno, must have been the Trilogy? But then the next album was a disappointment.
Must have been at the news that Porl was back.

MAtT

A mystery tape that appeared then disappeared.

It was summer 1987 in England, I was in my mid teens and into pure 80s pop, when I spotted an old C90 cassette that had been left on the stairs at home. I took it up to my room and played it, finding it to be a recording of the charts on Radio One from back in 1984, a year before I'd started recording songs from the charts myself. I asked my brother and parents if they knew who the tape belonged to but no-one did. All I remember of the rest of the content was that it had The Pointer Sisters' Automatic and Phil Collins' Against All Odds, both of which I quite liked. And it also had on it this strange song with an even stranger intro by a band called The Cure: The Caterpillar.

I'd only seen the name The Cure twice before to my recollection. Once on the Now That's What I Call Music Volume 1 record we had - one of the tracks I didn't play - and also, significantly, penned on the bag of the girl I was friends with and obsessed with romantically at school, Charlotte. That was enough alone to pique my interest, I had to understand what was so good about this band.

So instead of skipping the track, every time I listened to the tape I tried to get my head around this song, and quickly it grew on me, from 'WTF?' to 'hmmm, interesting' to 'yeah, this is kinda good' to 'wow'. Next up: dig out the Now 1 album. The song was The Lovecats and it had the same effect on me immediately.

Within a few weeks I was at the record store and buying the Standing On A Beach singles and B-side compilation cassette, which of course included the dark and brooding Charlotte Sometimes, the perfect soundtrack to my unrequited love. I followed up by borrowing the Boys Don't Cry US import album at the local library, and a few weeks later buying teh Seventeen Seconds cassette. It showballed from there.

And the mystery tape? Disappeared as suddenly as it came, to who knows where and who knows when... I'd love to know!

P.s. advice to the young: one's life can become mythologized. This sounds like a story that could be misremembered and embellished over the years, or worse, it could have been true yet the now-me takes it to be mythologized. But it's not, and I know because I kept diaries in my youth. If you can, do the same. And don't be tempted to destroy them later, no matter how embarrassing they may seem in later years, as even that will fade, while the truth of who you are will not.
Cure anomalies on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/infov0y

Twitter: https://twitter.com/infovoy_v2

Blog on free will and consciousness: http://informationvoyeur.wordpress.com/