4Tour
| The Cure | |
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The Cure performing in Singapore in 2007. Left to right: Porl Thompson, Jason Cooper (back), Robert Smith, Simon Gallup.
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Crawley, West Sussex, England |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Labels | |
| Associated acts | |
| Website | thecure |
| Members | |
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member. Their debut single "Killing an Arab" in December 1978 on the Small Wonder label, and debut album Three Imaginary Boys in May 1979, placed the band as part of the post-punk and new wave movements that developed in the wake of the punk rock scene in the United Kingdom. During the early 1980s, the band's increasingly dark and tormented music was a staple of the emerging gothic rock genre.
After the release of Pornography in 1982, the band's future was uncertain. Smith was keen to move past the gloomy reputation his band had acquired, so began to place a pop sensibility into the band's music; songs like "Let's Go to Bed" (1982), "Just Like Heaven" (1987), "Lovesong" (1989), and "Friday I'm in Love" (1992), helped the Cure to a global success which lasted until the mid 1990s.
The band is estimated to have sold 27 million records as of 2004[update] and have released thirteen studio albums, ten EPs and over thirty singles during their career. The 1989 album Disintegration is regarded as the band's commercial and critical peak.
The founding members of the Cure were school friends at Notre Dame Middle School in Crawley, West Sussex, whose first public performance was at an end-of-year show in April 1973 as members of a one-off school band called the Obelisk. That band consisted of Robert Smith on piano, Michael "Mick" Dempsey on guitar, Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst on percussion, Marc Ceccagno on lead guitar and Alan Hill on bass guitar. In January 1976 while at St. Wilfrid's Comprehensive School Ceccagno formed a 5-piece rock band with Smith on guitar and Dempsey on bass, along with two other school friends. They called themselves Malice and rehearsed David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Alex Harvey songs in a local church hall. By late April 1976, Ceccagno and the other two school friends had left, and Tolhurst (drums), Martin Creasy (vocals), and Porl Thompson (guitar) had joined the band. This lineup played all three of Malice's only documented live shows during December 1976. In January 1977, following Martin Creasy's departure, and increasingly influenced by the emergence of punk rock, Malice's remaining members became known as Easy Cure after a song written by drummer Laurence Tolhurst. Both Malice and Easy Cure auditioned several vocalists before Smith assumed the role of Easy Cure's frontman in September 1977.
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