When MrsRobster works on a Saturday, I do the housework. How very modern of me. Once the vacuuming is done, I stick a record on to help me through the rest of it. Saturday is vinyl day, see. This past weekend, for some reason, I wanted to listen to something old that I haven't heard in a while. I chose the first Cure album 'Three Imaginary Boys'. Don't know why, but who needs a reason? It was like listening to something new - I haven't heard most of those songs for so long. I can't pretend to have bought this when it came out - I was barely 8-years-old. I recall picking it up when I worked in Our Price. I spotted it in a pile of marked-down stock and grabbed it then. It was probably a mid-price reissue rather than an original, but it did have the illustrated insert. I also realised that I had noted down the tracklist on a piece of Our Price notepaper, being that the album itself doesn't contain any song names whatsoever. Instead we get a rather pretentious set of pictures and symbols to 'inform' us of the songs. Such nonsense.
Of course, 10:15 Saturday Night remains the record's best known track for good reason, but this one went down really well during my cleaning sesh:
Here's two very different demos of the aforementioned classic for good measure. Both vary distincltly from the final album version, but the early Robert Smith solo demo is barely recognisable.
Then on Sunday, MrsRobster and I prepared fajitas for ourselves, TheMadster and TheEmster, her other 'alf. Our soundtrack was my compilation of every Cure single, though of course we didn't get through the whole lot. "I forget how much I like The Cure until I listen to them again," she told me. I've already told you that Pictures Of You is our song, but I've also long been a big fan of A Forest, a proper gloomy goth classic, worthy of being posted here in its full-length album form.
Bowie turned his back on glam as others tried to eke out as much of a living from it as they could years past its sell-by date. What he did next came as shock to many. Recording a soul album wouldn't have been at the top of many people's lists, but that's exactly what he did. His first attempt was abandoned (released as 'The Gouster' in the 2016 box set 'Who Can I Be Now?'), but the sessions eventually yielded 'Young Americans'. Critics at the time were less than complimentary, but later on, with hindsight, they've been kinder.
Which is more than I'm going to be about The Cure's take on the title track. Recorded for former alternative radio station XFM, it is pretty diabolical. Sorry, I love The Cure, but I can't excuse this mess.
Now, you probably know of my love for 'Station To Station', for me the Bowie album against which all others must be judged. I won't go on about it. In 2013, Melvins released 'Everybody Loves Sausages', an album of cover versions which included this rather loud rendition of Station To Station, featuring Aussie maverick JG Thirlwell on lead vocals. It's a faithful take in some respects, but doesn't set my pulses racing like it ought to, what with it being the Melvins and all.
The highlight of 'Station To Station' is Bowie's incredible version of Wild Is The Wind. That's the one I turn to when I need a lift. Thing is, he didn't write it - it's a cover. Johnny Mathis did it first, then Nina Simone made it her own. Countless others have also had a go. Now you can argue all you like about the best version of this, but no one's going to convince me of anything other than Bowie's version being the definitive one. THAT VOICE!
I'm more than well aware of the love many of my readers have for the late Billy McKenzie, so I'm going to be honest here. His version of Wild Is The Wind appeared on a posthumous EP of the same name, and while it can't hold a candle to Bowie's version, it does have something special about it. It's certainly the best of the bunch as far as today's songs go.
But I also think this is worthy of a mention. Birmingham blues bombshell Joanne Shaw Taylor recorded this version on her 2016 album 'Wild'. My only criticism is that I wish she'd let her voice really go on the "Don't you know you're life itself" part. But then, maybe she's trying to do something different with it. There's something about her deep, husky blues tone that seduces me whenever I hear her.
The Cure is a band I have a lot of time for, although I wouldn't class myself as a fan, not in the proper sense. Proper Cure fans are obsessives. Like, bordering on weird. Some of them actually wear their makeup and hair like Robert Smith, even on a Sunday! Anyway, most of what the band put out between 1978 and 1992 was pretty much faultless. Since then, they've only put out four albums which all contained some decent material, but they've struggled to match anything close to their peak.
That peak came in 1989 with 'Disintegration', a masterpiece of goth-pop. It wasn't an album I took to immediately. On the contrary, I didn't own it until several years after its release, and until then had only heard it a few times. I think I was discovering so much new music at the time, the Cure just didn't hit my radar in the way they perhaps ought to have. I did, however, own a few vinyl LPs that I picked up second-hand - 'The Head On The Door', 'Three Imaginary Boys' and the singles comp 'Standing On A Beach'.
Pictures Of You always stood out to me when I first heard 'Disintegration'. For me though, the reason it's included in this series is purely a personal one. MrsRobster once compiled a CD for me in response to one I did for her. She included the album version of Pictures Of You and for reasons I still can't explain it made perfect sense. This was years ago, when the sproglets were still very young, but ever since then I've attached a special meaning to this track; I kind of think of it as one of our songs. The fact it's a blinder helps, but at the end of the day, sentiment wins out and Pictures Of You makes the final list while some other equally great tunes didn't. It was also our Wedding Anniversary on Wednesday, so the timing is somewhat apt to roll this one out.
Today marks exactly 10 years that MrsRobster and I tied the knot and became a legitimate married couple. We'd already done the living together and having kids part so what the heck? May as well go the whole hog, right? Of course there was a little more to it than that, but we had lasted for 8 and a half years up to that point through thick and thin. Even so, 10 years of marriage is a decent achievement in this day and age which is why I'm shouting about it. So I dedicate these songs to MrsRobster for putting up with my nonsense for so long, and to us as a couple for successfully fighting off everything life threw at us in an attempt to break us up. Fuck you, life! Ha! I Like You - Morrissey (from 'I Am The Quarry') Primarily for the lines "Why do you think I let you get away with all the things you say to me?" and "I like you because you're not right in the head, and nor am I." If ever mere lyrics could sum up our relationship perfectly, then surely these are them. Pictures Of You - The Cure (from 'Disintegration') A fave of MrsRobster this one. She once made a compilation CD for me which included this track and ever since I always think of her whenever I hear it. The Wake-Up Bomb - R.E.M. (from 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi') R.E.M. brought us together, so it's only right I add them to the list. But which song? The year we got hitched, R.E.M. released 'Around The Sun', their worst album which contains nothing worthy of being posted on this blog. We got together in 1995 when the band was between two albums. We saw them on the 'Monster' tour, during which they recorded the bulk of 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi', so I've plumped for something from the latter. Bloody good track too. Here's to the next 10 years! (if the poor woman hasn't strangled me first...)
