Shallow Rewards Shallow Rewards

On the Cure’s definitive 1987 double album, the death rattle of punk guilt, and the coronation of Robert Smith as a pop culture icon.

On the shaky start to the Cure’s Imperial era, their ascension to alternative rock royalty, and the concessions required to right Robert Smith’s foundering career in the mid 1980s.

Bringing the Shallow Rewards Cure podcasts up to date, this episode covers the last twenty years of the band: the 2004 self-titled LP, 4:13 Dream and my first impressions of the material likely to feature on the forthcoming Songs of a Lost World.

On the unexpectedly estimable Bloodflowers, Robert Smith’s legacy-saving last gasp as a songwriter; its tragically dated brick wall + Pro Tools production; and Smith’s egotistical severing of ties with everyone who’d helped fashion the Cure in its glory days.

On the tragic collapse of the Cure following the career-topping Wish, the various distractions that beset Wild Mood Swings, and how the persistent obstinance Robert Smith had relied on for so long finally failed him.Here’s the Vox article I reference in the last third of the show.

On the Cure’s surfeit of activity between Disintegration and Wish; the 1992 smash album’s highs and lows; and how for many fans, Wish remains a disappointment when set against the material that preceded it. Further to the podcast, please enjoy an essay I wrote on the subject, and an attendant remix of Wish, from 2011.