“I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been”: Robert Smith in 2024
PLUS! ALAN SPARHAWK, THURSTON MOORE, J MASCIS and more on their favourite Cure albums!
SEPTEMBER 12, 2024 and Robert Smith is at Abbey Road Studios. Smith has spent time here recently, listening to the Atmos mix of Songs Of A Lost World – the first new Cure album for 16 years. Today, however, Smith can be found in Studio 3, where in a rare and revealing new interview he will dig deep not just into this new album, but also the past and future of one of British rock’s most enduring and fascinating musical institutions. The interview forms part of a small amount of promotional activity to support the album: The Cure will also play two shows at the BBC Radio Theatre on October 29, to be broadcast two days later on Radio 2 and Radio 6 Music, and another concert where the band will perform Songs Of A Lost World in full. Opting for a less-is-more strategy, Smith has clearly decided to let this new music speak for itself.
As it transpires, Songs Of A Lost World is a deeply personal record, full of heartfelt songs about love, loss and ageing, that is as dramatic and emotional as the best music from The Cure’s imperial phase. There are songs that address knotty philosophical questions, others that take umbrage with the invasive nature of the modern world and even one that is inspired by the Apollo 11 Moon landing. These inquisitive qualities underscore the depth and breadth of Smith’s creative vision, yet two songs on the new album hit closer to home: on “And Nothing Is Forever” Smith reconciles a promise he broke to a dying friend, while “I Can Never Say Goodbye” is about the unexpected death of Smith’s older brother, Richard.
“Even though most of the songs are very personal, they’re not exclusive, they’re not things that only happened to me,” Smith explains.
Although it has been such a long time since The Cure’s last album 4:13 Dream, Smith has hardly been a recluse. During that time, he oversaw the final reissues from The Cure’s back catalogue, collaborated with artists as diverse as Gorillaz, CHVRCHES, Deftones and Noel Gallagher, became patron of Heart Research UK and even found time to curate the lineup for the Meltdown festival. But while The Cure have played over 250 concerts in the years since the release of 4:13 Dream, these mammoth, three-hour live sets have felt like extended celebrations of a singular legacy – until last year, that is, when Smith began to incorporate into their setlists new material destined for Songs Of A Lost World.
As we discover, this newa lengthy gestation. In 2017, he envisaged an album that was explicitly linked to The Cure’s 40th anniversary the following year. But things never quite worked out as Smith intended. At one point, as The Cure approached their 40th anniversary, Smith even contemplated calling time on the band he’d formed as a 19-year-old in Crawley, West Sussex. But fortunately, wisdom prevailed. Instead, in 2019, Smith began working on a separate batch of songs that eventually yielded . As with The Cure’s best work, is thematically cohesive and richly atmospheric – a monumental and immersive experience on a par with their 1989 masterpiece , where Smith wrestles with regret, loss, confusion and anxiety as friends, family and a world he once knew slip away from him.
