Guest author Matt Fish of the superb "Best Music of All Time" newsletter joins Chart Chat this week to talk about The Cure's final Modern Rock Tracks #1 hit
The people that dismissed the Cure as some sort of "gloom band" missed out on quite a few fun, poppy songs along the way. There's no universe I know of where "Love Cats" is gloomy, or where "Why Can't I Be You," or "In Between Days" don't qualify as pure pop gold.
My entire lived experience of The Cure growing up was pop-centric. I didn't realize they had a gloomy/goth aesthetic associated with them until much later in life.
I'm willing to bet that a whole lot of rockers liked The Cure more than they'd be willing to admit, and a whole lot of goths/alterative crowd like mainstream music the same way. I mean, I'm going off of a fuzzy memory here, but I'm pretty sure "Just Like Heaven" was played at my prom, and no one seemed to balk.
The people that dismissed the Cure as some sort of "gloom band" missed out on quite a few fun, poppy songs along the way. There's no universe I know of where "Love Cats" is gloomy, or where "Why Can't I Be You," or "In Between Days" don't qualify as pure pop gold.
My entire lived experience of The Cure growing up was pop-centric. I didn't realize they had a gloomy/goth aesthetic associated with them until much later in life.
I'm willing to bet that a whole lot of rockers liked The Cure more than they'd be willing to admit, and a whole lot of goths/alterative crowd like mainstream music the same way. I mean, I'm going off of a fuzzy memory here, but I'm pretty sure "Just Like Heaven" was played at my prom, and no one seemed to balk.
I wish the DJ at my prom had taste as good as that tbh 😅😇