A MARTÃNEZ, HOST:
In the 1980s and '90s, The Cure helped bring a bit of gothic post-punk to the pop charts.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE")
THE CURE: (Singing) Thursday, never looking back. It's Friday. I'm in love.
MARTÃNEZ: This century, though, the band's output slowed from a crawl to a complete stop. They haven't released a new studio album in 16 years until today. Stephen Thompson of NPR Music talked with The Cure's frontman, Robert Smith, about his long-awaited return.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: "Songs Of A Lost World" is only eight songs long, and it's thematically dark. But it's also rich and inviting, with many moments that recall the sweeping beauty of The Cure's 1989 classic "Disintegration." Robert Smith says it's just the beginning. There's a vast archive of unreleased Cure music, maybe as many as a hundred songs.
ROBERT SMITH: I do write a lot, but I never wanted to turn into someone who just did this for a living. For 15 years, obviously, I haven't had that desire. The only thing that stops us releasing two albums a year is I have to write the words. And as I grow older, I find it very, very difficult to write words that I can sing honestly or sing emotionally.
THOMPSON: Robert Smith is known for always wearing black to match his black eyeliner and frantic shock of black hair, and he's often written dark lyrics to match. Song topics range from the loss of childhood innocence to the pitiful state of the world to mourning the death of his older brother.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN NEVER SAY GOODBYE")
THE CURE: (Singing) I'm down on my knees, empty inside. Something wicked this way comes from out the cruel and treacherous high. Something wicked this way comes to steal away my brother's life. Something wicked this way comes. I can never say goodbye.
THOMPSON: Smith warned fans years ago that this record would be, quote, "very doom and gloom."
SMITH: Even up to six months ago, I played what I considered to be the 13 kind of doomiest and gloomiest songs altogether in a running order for someone whose judgment I trust implicitly. And they just looked at me like I was insane. They said, like, no one will listen to that twice because it's just too much. So I reduced it down. And I actually - I mean, the two saddest songs aren't even on the album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ENDSONG")
THE CURE: (Singing) I'm outside in the dark, wondering how I got so old. It's all gone.
SMITH: I feel that having concluded this album and half of the next one, I do feel more confident about my abilities again. I think I had a bit of a crisis of confidence actually through the last decade. I sort of thought I'd written everything I had to write, but as it turns out, I haven't.
THOMPSON: Robert Smith just mentioned having written half of the next one. He intends for this new album to be the first of three - perhaps the final Cure albums.
SMITH: It's a transitional record, I think, the next one. And then leave the third record for something that's very much more light and upbeat. That's my intention. Whether I get there or not is another thing entirely.
THOMPSON: Given how much your music reflects on loss and endings, like, have you given thought to what you would want your final musical statement to be?
SMITH: Good grief. This is...
THOMPSON: (Laughter) Sorry.
SMITH: This is a bit bleak, isn't it?
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
Robert Smith just called my question bleak, which is a little like interviewing the Pope and having him ask, this is a bit Catholic, isn't it?
SMITH: I'm never really worried about legacy and posterity. I think that what I do, it's just there and how it will end is how it will end.
THOMPSON: One part of Robert Smith's legacy outside of the music itself has been the way he's been challenging the way tickets to Cure concerts are sold. In this country, think Ticketmaster.
SMITH: I was expressing my frustration with a system that tries to monetize everything and ruins everything in the process.
THOMPSON: The Cure once proposed charging $25 for a seat. Ticketmaster charged fans 51 - filled with mystery fees. Robert Smith wanted answers.
SMITH: Where's the other $26 going? 'Cause the band aren't getting it, so who's getting it? You know, I was kind of talked to like I should, you know, run along, sonny, and shut up. And it was - for one moment, I was back at school thinking, you can't talk to me like that.
THOMPSON: Robert Smith won that battle, and fees were returned to ticket buyers, though fans of other artists haven't gotten the same relief. Smith has been in the public eye for more than four decades to the point where it's easy to forget that he's got a normal side. Even if people who only know his gothic onstage image might imagine him rising from a coffin to begin each day. I asked him what would surprise Cure fans about Robert Smith's life.
SMITH: I've got sheep. There you go. I've got sheep that are all named, and I attend to them when they're sick. There you go. You'd never have guessed that, would you?
THOMPSON: Robert Smith, sheep doctor.
SMITH: Yeah. Shepherd.
THOMPSON: Shepherd.
SMITH: Shepherd. Yeah, yeah.
THOMPSON: And now, after 16 years, Robert Smith has finally shepherded a new Cure album.
Stephen Thompson, NPR Music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A FRAGILE THING")
THE CURE: (Singing) Every time you kiss me, I could...
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