English Dance Rock: The Cure's Faith [Remastered]

The Cure could transverse lines of genre, cultural groups, ideologies, nations, economics, and inhibitions. If the Cure couldn’t cross those boundaries, a shy, sheltered, white, Christian kid from the Midwest wouldn’t have been able to find such a vast connection with this music that hinted at a dark world of funeral, scorned love, experimenting, freedom, streets, England, sex, and men wearing makeup.

I didn’t know anything about Goth in the 80’s, but I listened to the Cure, the original Goths as it were. I listened to their imitators, Dead or Alive. I even later listened to Nine Inch Nails before I became aware that there was a macabre, black-clad world of Goths. The Gothic tones led my friend, Jessica, to dye her hair black in 7th grade, an outrageous, rebellious act in the suburbs, but it only made me love her more. The Cure made the darkness come alive with possibilities rather than just shame-filled alleys.

I knew Boy George clearly had sexual issues, but somehow Robert Smith seemed less flamboyant. It doesn’t make much sense, but because the Cure’s sound resonated with me so much, Smith didn’t get stuck in some homo-erotic camp. Much like my love for the Smiths, embracing the Cure could’ve easily led to other teens making assumptions about my predilections. For a self-conscious boy, this may have proved too much, but instead, in 8th grade I let my bangs grow out and spiked them with a full can of hair spray in fine Smith fashion.

The ways in which the Cure could have remained completely other to me were actually invisible. Listening to the Cure simply made sense. With Rhino Records reissuing the Cure’s first albums (Imaginary Boys back in December, and now Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography), the music has taken me back to those days when the confusion of junior high met the Cure’s words and music which brought a confused clarity to the emotions and experiences.


More than a personal reminiscence, though, the reissues could actually make new history for many Cure fans. For those of us who were too young to catch the Cure on their rise, 1986’s Staring at the Sea – The Singles hit just in time for us to have on one cassette the most powerful songs in the Cure’s discography. Unlike many throw-away greatest hits collections which served to bastardize the concept of an album, collections like Staring at the Sea were so strongly crafted that they became like an album themselves. (Echo & the Bunnymen’s Songs to Learn & Sing worked in this same way). Arranged in chronological order, Staring at the Sea became the only Cure album many of my friends owned. Yet, there was no question to the fact that we were wholly dedicated to the Cure.

Now, with Faith reissued, I can see why “Primary” and “Other Voices” were the singles released from the album. By far, they are the strongest songs. However, while Staring at the Sea gave the listener glimpses of each stage of the early career, letting you hear the flow and growth of the sound from track to track, Faith is only represented by “Primary” and “Other Voices” (and in some respect “Charlotte Sometimes,” a non-album single released during this time). Staring at the Sea, then, “quickly changes the tune,” shifting into the much-more tribal sound of “The Hanging Garden” from Pornography.

By going back to listen to Faith, you realize that “Primary” and “Other Voices” represent an entire feel from that album. Certainly, echoes of the singles are in the other tracks; you could almost start singing “Primary” alongside “Doubt.” More than showing a band who had only written two songs three times over to make an album, it shows a band intent on creating the feel, sound, and atmosphere as a complete work. Approaching the album in this mindset, “The Holy Hour” sets the stage, “Primary” and “Other Voices” present the drama, and the rest of the songs rework, revisit, and reimagine that drama.

As an aside, predating Angelo Badalamenti’s soundtrack to the TV series, Twin Peaks, the Cure’s “The Funeral Party” certainly could have been the inspiration. The feel of the song would resurface again on “Plainsong” to lead off 1989’s Disintegration.

These reissues are all 2-CD sets which then include outtakes, live versions, and demos. The second disc for Faith, “Rarities 1980-1981,” includes the aforementioned “Charlotte Sometimes,” definitely a strong cut from this era. Well worth the deluxe purchase are the live tracks, especially “Other Voices,” “The Drowning Man,” and “Forever.”

The “Rarities” disc also gives you an insight into why some songs didn’t make it onto the album. “Going Home Time” and “The Violin Song” are studio outtakes that, while actually quite solid songs, do not lend the same timbre that the band was striving for on Faith. Another outtake “A Normal Story” sounds like the early Smiths in the studio four years too early.

The outtake version of “Primary” shows how much a transformation may take place in the growth of a song. This version is sluggish and overly happy with reverb/echo effect on the vocals. It is surprising to hear just how far the song was from being worthy of the album, let alone worthy of being released as a single.

The sixth track on Faith is “Doubt,” part of the section of the album that reimagines the drama laid out in “Primary” and “Other Voices.” The “Rarities” disc finds Robert Smith at home with drum machine and guitar producing an early demo of “Doubt,” laying out a guitar funeral march. Go back to the album version, the same guitar march is double-timed, a frantic run alongside the hearse as it peels out and races towards the dead end street. The Rhino reissue gives the listener the chance to hear how a stray hummed tune could become a murderous rant, strained with all the emotion that was always contained in what Smith was writing quietly at home.

Thanks to The Cure and Rhino Records for the review copy.