We’re now entering a period of time where my accumulation of music was probably at its height, during my university years – actually I should qualify that: music that was both contemporary and also on this list – I'd already amassed a fairly sizeable collection of mainly Seventies music by this point. This album is one of those that I was exposed to at the time, and I remember really liking it. But when I looked at the track listing, it was only really Lullaby, plus a smattering of lines from Pictures Of You and Fascination Street that came back to me.
Music and memory are a funny thing though, aren't they? As soon as the dramatic opening synth-strings of Plainsong came on, I was back in a student flat in Bristol. And yes, as soon as Lovesong came on I realised that this is one of the more likely Cure songs to get airplay (after, of course, Love Cats and Friday I’m In Love – all the “love” songs).
Robert Smith is back in purest goth mode, songs that are both dark and gloomy and also soaring and ethereal, the music of an 18th century poet dying of consumption. Or in this case, Smith treating his depression with LSD and dreading the onset of his thirties. The combination of psychotropics and mental illness probably underlie the memorable but disturbing imagery of Lullaby, the lurking “spider-man” crawling out of the darkness to slowly devour his victims. This song is for me the high-water mark of the album, the staccato beat overlaid with ominous strings, Smith’s almost whispered delivery of the vocals all create a great sinister tone replete with night terrors.
As with Kim Deal on the last Pixies album, a lot of the work here is set up by the bass player Simon Gallup (always rely on a Simon...), laying down a thrilling start to tracks like Fascination Street so that we the listener feel like we’re about to be taken somewhere dark yet exciting. Towards the end of the album the tracks tend to merge into the same kind of drifting gothy sound, and it took me on a side thought that now that the CD seems to be the dominant format, albums are getting longer.
A CD can comfortably fit an hour of music, 70-minutes at a squeeze, whereas with vinyl the physical limitations meant that 45-minutes was more the norm (Todd Rundgren’s attempt to squeeze 60 minutes onto a single vinyl record was beset with problems in playback). In some ways, though, having those limitations made albums tighter. Like modern (streaming) TV isn’t limited by having to fit into a scheduled time slot, episodes can vary wildly in length (and often end up bloated), so too have some of the more recent albums felt like they’re a bit padded. Or perhaps I’ve become so trained in a 45-minute attention span that the extra 15-minutes leads to my brain starting to zone out, I don’t know. Quite a few recently I’ve listened to as one “side” per sitting (and fewer are listed as having an A and B side).
Was it good to return to this album though? Yes, it was, but I know why some of the later half didn’t stick with me as much as the first; the first is much more solid, I think.
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