2017 - November 11 - Like Cockatoos

So for a third song it became really difficult. There are so many songs on Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me that I love, and listening to it again really is making it even more difficult, as I am remembering more and more, singing along more and more, and experiencing all the emotions music brings me (and that is pretty much all of them). However, I have to choose one, and Like Cockatoos has always drawn me in partly based on the rhythm, and partly based on the bass line. When I lived in Bergen, I was a very frequent house guest at my very good friends Jørund and Anne Grete's apartment, and Jørund had a keyboard that could program tracks. Playing around with the different percussive sounds, I built the drum pattern, then added the bass track. I used headphones, making me a recluse in their company (which may not have been a bad thing for them either considering how often I was there), but at the same time protecting them from the racket as I was developing this pattern.

2017 - November 10 - Catch

With an album that repeats one phrase (kiss me) three times in the title, I think it is appropriate to play three songs in a row. At least it makes for a heck of a great excuse to stay with the album for another couple of days. And today's song really follows the track order of the album. The song Catch also made it as a single with an accompanying video - The Cure had used Tim Pope to make a lot of their videos, and Catch is no exception. Tim Pope was a very prolific music video director, particularly in the mid to late 80s, and his vision really helped frame The Cure's quirky image - and took them out of the dark shadows of early goth into a much more playful mode, which sometimes contrasted with the songs.

Robert Smith's lyrical genius also shows up here - I have always been drawn to the phrase "And I used to sometimes try to catch her, but I never even caught her name." There is an uplifting melancholy to the song that I think is pretty unique to The Cure. Catch!

2017 - November 9 - The Kiss

My last post - from last week - was Southern Gothic. And then I started reading the book The Night of the Moths by Riccardo Bruni (one of this month's selections for Kindle First, where Amazon Prime members can get a book for free every month - before the publishing date). And there was a reference to The Cure and the Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me album. And knowing how The Cure was seen as a goth band (that's the connection to Southern Gothic), I thought it would be nice to play a song from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me - and then I realized that it's 30 years old this year. 1987 was when it was released, and that was right around the time I was introduced to them as well. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was my gateway drug to The Cure, and I still find it to be a most excellent album. I like albums that sprawl and don't confine themselves to one style (just listen to Demon Box by Motorpsycho, and you will know what I mean), and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me does not disappoint. From longer, epic sounding songs to short, catchy pop tunes with an underlying melancholy, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is to me a masterpiece - and I like it better than Disintegration, the follow up album that really launched them to massive world wide success and often is referred to as their crowning moment.

The Quietus, which is an excellent online magazine with great articles about the arts, has a really nice review of that can be found at http://thequietus.com/articles/22262-the-cure-kiss-me-kiss-me-kiss-me-review-anniversary - and inspired by that, I chose my song for the day. It is the closest thing to a title track - and it is also the song that really got me completely turned on to The Cure. I remember teenage days with curtains completely drawn so no light would come into my room, and The Kiss on the stereo. For your own sake, play it loudly and let guitars wash over you until you drown in the sound. It is such an amazing sonic experience to me to listen to this song - and I can do it over and over and over again.

February 17 - Lovesong

Not much to say today. Christine is undergoing surgery - double mastectomy and reconstruction. I have a simple message from The Cure (today it is the best band name possible) delivered in the form of Lovesong from Disintegration.