Heh, heh...it's 4:13

See, when I was a youngun, there were New Order and the Smiths and I liked both, in different ways, so there was no Beatles/Stones loggerheads to contend with. On a lower tier of favoriteness was the Cure, cos to be a...what did we call it then? Punk? Not alternative, nor indie...well, whatever, to like "modern rock" you just sort of had to like the Cure. I loved The Walk ep (ooh! I should listen to "The Upstairs Room", yes. Well, no, that's more of an early summer song. And it's not quite bleak November enough just yet for "100 Years" from Pornography...hmm) and I brought a 12" of "Inbetweendays" back from England when I was 16, etc, but I never could really commit to the Cure whole-heartedly, particularly after Disintegration, which, while admittedly stellar, was so damn long I found it prohibitive. And that was 20 years ago! Almost.

So, I have no reason to expect that 4:13 Dream, their new 13th record, to be anything great, given that I only liked one song on their last self-titled record and Bob Smith is pushing 50 and probably to most kids just looks like maybe he's that asshole from Tokio Hotel's dad or something. And yet I must gush that this record flat-out knocked me over. Shocked! That the Cure can still put out such hooky, melodramatic teen angst rock (and they are relentlessly hetero, it just occurred to me today: so many songs that are paeans to a lost or unattainable "her"! ) even though M. Smith's back must be killing him by now, the two non-Porl Thompson guys in the band look like Chris Gaines, etc, must be commended!