Nominee for 2012 Induction

 

More black eyeliner has been spilt to the music of the Cure than any band in rock history.  With pale, droopy-haired frontman-guitarist Robert Smith as their dark, brilliant tune-smith and unlikely sex-symbol, along with Lol Tolhurst and later Roger O’Donnell on keyboards,  Porl Thompson on guitar, Simon Gallup on bass and  Boris Williams on drums, they’ve challenged conventions while influencing two generations of emo and goth bands.  Forming in Crawley, England during the New Wave late ‘70s, the band quickly developed a unique sound, mixing the skeletal punk of Wire and the darkest of the Doors to create alluring, textural art-pop.  As the ‘80s progressed, Smith’s writing brightened as his craft sharpened and the Cure developed into one of the greatest singles bands of the decade with brilliant songs like “Let’s Go To Bed” and “Lovecats.”  In the late ‘80s, they jumped from clubs to arenas and stadiums, winning the radio play they’d long deserved with 1987’s “Just Like Heaven,” (which took an “alternative” sound to the mainstream before people were even using the term alternative) and their 1992 smash “Friday I’m In Love.”  They’ve had some hiatuses over the years and a changing line-up, but they always return to prove the durability of their sound and image.  Not only is it impossible to imagine artists like Marilyn Manson or bands like My Chemical Romance without their example, it is hard to see how goth-tinged phenomena like the Twilight movies could have an audience if Robert Smith had not stamped his black-fingernailed imprint on rock and roll and pop culture.