By the second song my friend looked over at me and said, "Glen, it's midnight and the crows are beckoning." It was at once the most hilarious and the most accurate description of what we saw on that particular night I've ever heard.
But there was also some very interesting musical terrain being mined by the Cure onstage that night. In between all of the darker hues, you could make out some very distinctive pop hooks and even a hint of funk in the basslines. Underneath the wiry jet black hair and pasty white facial makeup, Robert Smith was also an impressive vocalist who managed to somehow make the dark detachment of his songs sound almost, well emotional.
About a year after that show, The Cure released The Head On The Door, the album many fans cite as the record which began The Cure's evolution from the goth dungeonmasters that I saw in concert that night into the worldwide pop phenomenon that produced a string of hit albums like Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and Disintegration.
And make no mistake about it, with The Head On The Door, Robert Smith was intent on broadening the musical canvas of The Cure. Coming off what was arguably The Cure's most non-commercial album ever, The Top, The Head On The Door sounds like a collection of pop singles by comparison.
The themes of darkness and isolation are still prevalent and the album still has enough minor chords to keep the black nail polish crowd happy. But there are plenty of hints here at the poppier direction to come, most notably on tracks like the leadoff "In Between Days" and the hit single "Close To Me".
On "Kyoto Song", Smith incorporates oriental brushstrokes into the mix. On the album's standout track "A Night Like This," the band mines a more familiar dark drone which is then broken up about midway through by the sort of gorgeous sounding sax solo you'd find more at home on a Supertramp record.
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Thanx for publishing this Lisa...and putting up with my cranky, whiny ass complaining. LOL...(trying to put a humorous spin on that...)
-Glen
2 - Armand
Midnight and the crows are beckoning...too funny. And too true.
3 - Alan
“years before they [Genesis] devolved into the worst formula rock band of all time under Phil Collins leadership.”
Tony Banks and Michael Rutherford were as responsible for the band’s evolution as Phil Collins. After Peter left, they want on to a string of musically explorative pieces. Well into the 80’s (and bucking the trends of disco, guitar rock, etc.) they put out very innovative stuff. Songs like Mamma, etc.
And after the time period you’re talking about, Phil played for and produced Robert Plant and Eric Clapton, put together and toured with the jazz/rock-fusion group Brand X (and contributed to several of their cd’s), released several superb solo cd’s, and toured with a 12-piece big band. At the same time, Phil was playing rock with Plant, producing blues rock with Clapton, and writing/touring the world with Genesis (all against popular trends). A rock “formula”? Not.
4 - Hung
Hear hear. Tony Banks was always the real boss of that band. That band did nothing without his permission.
5 - Glen Boyd
After Gabriel left, Genesis did put out some fine work, begining with A Trick Of The Tail and continuing right up through Duke.
But after that they became the very definition of formulaic, especially once Steve Hackett was gone. Measure albums like Selling England and the Lamb against latter day crap like "I Cant Dance" and your argument simply does not add up.
Phil Collins, who is still one of the greatest drummers ever, turned a once progressive and innovative band into a cheap top forty machine that became a shadow of it's former greatness. Period. They are even the punchline for a guy with notoriously bad taste in the film "American Psycho."
The Bad Motown ripoffs and silly MTV videos they later became known for do not even seem to have come from the same band responsible for epics like "Suppers Ready" or even "Blood On The Rooftops" in the immediate post Gabriel years.
Nope I'm sticking with my statement. Look up the word "sellout" in a dictionary and chances are you'll find one of my favorite bands of all time right next to Rod Stewart and Aerosmith. That would be Genesis with Phil Collins driving the boat.
Thanks for the comment though.
-Glen
6 - Alan
The problem with your argument is that you attribute albums like We Can't Dance to Phil Collins -- and Phil Collins only. Listen to Banks and Rutherford's other project's during the same time period. Now are you telling me that Phil's the lone culprit? No way.
Listen to Mike and the Mechanics in the early - mid 80's. All I Need is a Miracle? The Living Years? Great songs, but it's not like Phil was dragging the band there.
I'm not disputing that Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance saw them vere way away from the prog stuff. I'm simply saying that to lay that soley at Phil's feet is simply not correct.
acs
7 - Alan
Also, I believe it would be selling out, as you say, to try to continue putting out uninspired prog stuff. Heck even Peter Gabriel moved past that stuff. Following what they were passionate about, despite the press, etc. seems to be to be the opposite of selling out.
acs
8 - zingzing
phil collins is up there with rod stewart and alex chilton as the worst betrayer of talent in the music business. he was a great drummer (check out his work with eno), but he was an evil, evil man when it comes to musical integrity. the icky drek he's been releasing for the past 20+ years makes his past success seem like the exception, not the rule.
9 - Hung
But Genesis never completely abandoned their adventurous roots, either. Every album the released in the 80s on had at least one song that obviously wasn't made to fit the radio format. "We Can't Dance" actually had more than any since, say, "Duke". Fading Lights, Dreaming While You Sleep, Driving the Last Spike (which Phil penned) are all great Genesis epics.
And then you can pick up Calling All Stations, the album they made after Phil left the band, and clearly see that Mike and Tony are to "blame" as much as Phil was (for the record, I actually really like this album.)
10 - Glen Boyd
Alan,
Interesting comments. Look I'm not saying it didn't take three to tango.
Of course Tony and Mike knew full well what they were doing. What I am saying is that prior to radically changing their direction in favor of a blatantly more commercial sound, Genesis used to sell modest ammounts of records in America, which is where the real money is.
Once they did change wheels in favor of a more formuliac sound, they became a platinum selling act in this country. And it is no coincidence that this change occured shortly after Phil Collins became the first member of the band to score huge success as a solo artist with bland crap like "Hello I Must be Going". Genesis not only adopted that formula, they even went so far as to duplicate some of Collins solo material on group projects.
So they got nicer cars and we got music that was comparitively a lot less interesting and adventurous.
I'm also not real keen on the "prog" label you refer to as "uninspired". What I think actually happened could be more accurately described as the process of removing color and texture from their formerly multi-layered approach in favor of a sound scaled down to the lowest common denominator of its parts. Even when they made a hap hazard attempt to appease old fans by a "return" to what you call a "prog" sound on one of those latter day albums...I refer to the song "Home By The Sea"...it lacked the layers of depth they formally were masters of.
By that time, yes I agree they were quite inspired.
Its no coincidence that when Collins finally left, the band made one album which attempted (and failed) to recapture some of that old artistic glory only to disapear completely shortly thereafter.
Can you remember the singer who replaced Phil Collins for that one record? Nope. Me neither.
What is clear is we are both fans of Genesis...you just seem to be a bit more partial toward the latter more commercially driven period guided by Phil Collins. Fair enough. But I maintain that when Phil was driving, the quality of the ride became a far more pedestrian one.
So can we talk about The Cure now?
-Glen
11 - Glen Boyd
By that time, yes I agree they were quite inspired.
(I meant to use the word "uninspired" there just for the record)
-Glen
12 - zingzing
oh yeah, the cure...
13 - duane
There ya go, Glen. Genesis post! Genesis post!
14 - Mark Saleski
glen is historically right about Genesis, though i would argue that somewhere in the middle of Duke ("Misunderstanding", probably) they just became a completely different band.
15 - Mark Saleski
i take that back....it happened on "Follow You, Follow Me" on the previous record.
16 - duane
No argument needed, Mark. It's clear enough. Well, I might argue that something not so good happened with And Then There Were Three. Could it have had something to do with the departure of Hackett? Hmmm ... Or do I have the cause and effect backwards?
17 - Mark Saleski
dunno. the thing is i like the early "transformational" records...except that some of the poppier songs sounded out of place. for instance, i've always thought that "Misunderstanding" didn't belong on Duke.
18 - duane
That's funny, Mark. I was just thinking about "Follow You, Follow Me" on And Then There Were Three when I posted #16, only to return and see your #15. Yeah. That was a big hit. Bad news for a lot of us.
19 - Hung
"Can you remember the singer who replaced Phil Collins for that one record? Nope. Me neither."
His name is Ray Wilson, and I own two of his solo albums.
20 - Glen Boyd
I can't believe were still talking about Genesis. C'mon guys...the review was about the Cure...LOL. That was just two freaking lines about Genesis I was only using as a setup for the Cure review.
Maybe I need to do a whole article on Genesis. Anyway...couple of things...
Hung, okay yeah, Ray Wilson. I remember now.
The point is by the time he came on to basically record Genesis epitaph, the band was already done. They'd been done artistically for years and now with the Phil Collins cash cow gone off to record movie scores (and make even more money) they were done commercially as well. I actually feel for Ray Wilson because as I recall he was a decent singer, but it was already done for Genesis by that time.
And Please understand something. I take no joy in pointing out to you what is, as Saleski said, pretty much a matter of historical record.
There was a time when I loved these guys. Which is why it was so painful, for me like so many of their other longtime fans, to watch them so completely whore themselves out to banal commerciality. Yes, they made their money but those latter years tarnished an otherwise great artistic legacy. Thank God we have the live boxed set from the Gabriel years so we can remember them as they really oughtta be remembered (and Man, The Lamb on those live discs is absolutely a wonder to behold).
Lastly to Duane and Mr. Saleski...I have to confess to something. As far as their latter years go...I actually dig the song "Misunderstanding".
I think its actually a pretty damn spiffy little pop tune. Other guilty pleasures from the Collins years would include "Land Of Confusion" which I think was wrapped around a quite decent riff. But thats as far as I go...
As for the other crap? "Man On The Corner", "Invisible Touch", "I Can't Dance" and the rest of the sorry lot are currently filed in what I refer to as my "Kajagoogoo file" of similarly forgettable eighties pop hits.
So I take it that nobody wants to talk about The Cure huh?
-Glen
21 - Devil's Kitchen
Nice review. On a personal note, the song that got me into The Cure was "Kyoto Song" and it remains one of my absolute favourites: that tingly keyboard hook is irrisistible.
DK