a simple matter of taste, or what?

the cure. in young years i had some good time with their first album with the lamp on the cover, its rough charms, similar to the go-betweens‘ debut album which sounded like recorded in an old garage with two, three songs that were a promise „before hollywood“ if you understand the joke. then one day i heard a song from the cure‘s second album, „seventeen seconds“, and it blew me away like most of the album, its floating atmospheres, two or three stand-out tracks, and ingeborg schober‘s words in zuendfunk & sueddeutsche zeitung were exactly what i felt.

but afterwards everything from the cure (at least what i heard) made me look for the quickest way out, in stark opposition to good aquaintancies, friends and lovers with their wows and smart words. years and years ago i looked, a gesture of good will, at what was regarded as one of their biggest achievements, „pornography“, and i gave it a listen, deeply relaxed at the beginning, the ears wide open, and i failed, i i couldn’t wait for the curtain to fall, words like pompous and pathetic crossed my mind (just idiosyncratic responses, no expertise) – the cure and i were done.

now amongst the flowworkers and some of our readers there are for sure real cure lovers with their wows and memories and returnings. and, well, well, there‘s a new cure album out now, and its praise is sung up to the skies, with wows and telling insights (the cover of „songs of a lost world“, i have to smile, reminds me a bit of nils petter molvaer‘s masterpiece khmer).

so sing your praise in prose, bold letters, uplifting one-liners, tell me about surrender, the magic of old red-haired robert, like smart alex petridis does in his, what else, 5-star-review („…their best album since disintegration…“), and i will bravely follow that ubiquitious enthusiasm with a sense of wonder, a quantum of empathy. a simple matter of taste, or what? any chances to enter this „lost world“ with an unexpected wow, a shiver or two running down my spine? (michael e.)