Is the end here for the Cure?

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by eggwheat » Tue Aug 24, 2021 5:30 am

burpgun wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:32 am
Here's the thing with men and hair and age: It sucks going bald, at least it does for most. But if it's happening, it's happening, and starting some sort of engineering process to cover it up is always futile. I'm finally hitting the age where mine is going. Tried growing it out a while ago and saw it was going to be a failure, so I realized that door had closed. I'm not sure what the "dignified" approach would be for Robert Smith, who I greatly admire for his past work, but building up some rat's nest to keep yourself looking like you once did is never going to look great and folks are going to notice. Maybe he should look to whatever is going on with Porl, who is bald and dresses pretty wild but it seems like it fits him.
I thought RS looked fine with cropped hair, like Cure in Orange style....Bowie is one of his heroes..so I'm surprised he never took a leaf out of his book with image changes..also Bowie was a fit and healthy guy.

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by cestlamort » Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:31 am

The Cure were – if maybe not my favorite band – on the short list of favorite bands for years. (And why I got my first Jazzmaster and VI, thanks to the spine of the In Orange VHS)

That said, everything thing after Disintegration has been a mixed bag at best. Bloodflowers is not embarrassing, the rest though: sigh. s/t = unlistenable. 4:13 = unlistenable. Wish is ... okay. (and if someone happens to feel differently about Wish, it was almost certainly their first Cure album)

As far as I'm concerned, they've been past their pull-by date since the 90s. I finally saw them in 2009 and they were ... okay. Saw them again in Vancouver in 2016 and they were listless, tired, slow and boring. They had long surpassed the point of risking that any songs played would affect my idea of the songs in a negative way. (Or as Ms. Cestlamort puts it for legacy shows: Stop stepping on my youth).


Side note: I wonder if there would be a more positive narrative if things had fallen slightly differently, if they'd hadn't signed up with Schecter (the Cleopatra Records of guitar companies, plus some nu-pop-punk and a big dash of misogyny / LA sleaze). Would we be having this discussion if the RS Bass VI was in its third iteration? If the limited CS RS JM with top ten pickup was commanding $4k on the collectors' market? Or if the Squier RS JM would have happened instead of the Mascis one? Would that have led to Converse doing a special edition Robert Smith high top marshmallow boot?
(Their Schecter endorsement stuff did predate the offset boom, Fender renaissance however, so this is maybe all just conjecture).

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by mackerelmint » Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:46 am

BeeTL wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:33 am
Larry Mal wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:49 am
It would be like if Bowie ran out on stage as Ziggy Stardust and shit when he was 60.
I think some people might have loved that, and Bowie could have pulled it off without missing a beat. Along those lines: Prince & Madonna.
Yeah, you're right about all of them. And I think that more than reasons of age and shape, it's because all of them reinvented themselves multiple times. That gives you the space to go back and step into a past aesthetic, when it's been years since you did it.
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by mackerelmint » Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:50 am

burpgun wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:32 am
building up some rat's nest to keep yourself looking like you once did is never going to look great and folks are going to notice.
He could even wear a wig. Wigs can look incredible, to say nothing of "better than an explosive combover". He's committed to tacky choices.
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by daemon » Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:58 am

mackerelmint wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:50 am
burpgun wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:32 am
building up some rat's nest to keep yourself looking like you once did is never going to look great and folks are going to notice.
He could even wear a wig. Wigs can look incredible, to say nothing of "better than an explosive combover". He's committed to tacky choices.
That seems to be what it boils down to. For me it's a distraction. A few years back I saw Matthew Sweet. He'd bulked up a bit since the mid 90s, which was a bit of a shock, but nowhere near as much as his choice to wear shorts and those ridiculous shoes that have toes in them. Shoes...with toes in them. I mean if you're walking around in a creek bed or on the beach or even tooling about in the back yard, sure. But when you're headlining a show in an intimate setting? It took me out of the moment, a bit. I adore The Cure and Robert Smith, and he's certainly entitled to look however he wants. However, it's hard to look at him now without thinking "Man, he sure is committed to that look, no matter what".

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by BTL » Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:28 pm

mackerelmint wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:50 am
He's committed to tacky choices.
Objection sustained...:D
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by mackerelmint » Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:46 pm

daemon wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:58 am
his choice to wear shorts and those ridiculous shoes that have toes in them.
OOF. :squint:
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by BTL » Wed Aug 25, 2021 7:01 pm

By the way, Vince Neil and Axl Rose are fair game...;)
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by mackerelmint » Wed Aug 25, 2021 9:10 pm

Oh, Axl's cornrows!

How regrettable.
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by Larry Mal » Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:52 am

mackerelmint wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 9:10 pm
Oh, Axl's cornrows!

How regrettable.
Stop it, Megan, stop it. It's ageism and oldism and reverse racism... the worst kind.

Don't you know you can't say a negative thing about anyone no matter how fucking stupid and awful they make themselves look anymore?

It's the 21st century, and in this bold new millennia we all have to act like everything is good.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by noisepunk » Fri Aug 27, 2021 10:54 am

it doesn't matter how Axl Rose' cornrows look/looked, the cultural baggage of a famous white person appropriating a black hairstyle (one that black people still get shit for wearing in the year 2021) is more than enough of a reason for that to not be okay.



the thing with all of this is that so much nonsense is wrapped up in what "good taste" and "graceful aging" is that it's ridiculous for anyone to try and decide what either of those things are...and regardless of how much you try to spin it or distance yourself from it, "good" pretty much always comes down to what some awful, wealthy white dudes decided was good, which is at least worth questioning.

this financial times article sums it up better than i have the capacity to:https://www.ft.com/content/95638ecc-ced ... 4ce08b24dc

personally, i think it's amazing–and about as punk as you can get anymore, if that's anything to be proud of–that Smith has managed to come circle from being criticized and laughed at in his 20s to being criticized and laughed at in his 60s while barely lifting a finger...and i also don't think he particularly cares, which is absolutely aspirational.

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by BTL » Fri Aug 27, 2021 2:56 pm

noisepunk wrote:
Fri Aug 27, 2021 10:54 am
[...] personally, i think it's amazing–and about as punk as you can get anymore, if that's anything to be proud of–that Smith has managed to come circle from being criticized and laughed at in his 20s to being criticized and laughed at in his 60s while barely lifting a finger...and i also don't think he particularly cares, which is absolutely aspirational.
That's pretty much how I feel about it/him.
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by DeathJag » Sat Aug 28, 2021 7:39 am

Thank you for being a voice of reason in this utterly ridiculous thread (that I can’t stop myself from reading).
noisepunk wrote:
Fri Aug 27, 2021 10:54 am
it doesn't matter how Axl Rose' cornrows look/looked, the cultural baggage of a famous white person appropriating a black hairstyle (one that black people still get shit for wearing in the year 2021) is more than enough of a reason for that to not be okay.



the thing with all of this is that so much nonsense is wrapped up in what "good taste" and "graceful aging" is that it's ridiculous for anyone to try and decide what either of those things are...and regardless of how much you try to spin it or distance yourself from it, "good" pretty much always comes down to what some awful, wealthy white dudes decided was good, which is at least worth questioning.

this financial times article sums it up better than i have the capacity to:https://www.ft.com/content/95638ecc-ced ... 4ce08b24dc

personally, i think it's amazing–and about as punk as you can get anymore, if that's anything to be proud of–that Smith has managed to come circle from being criticized and laughed at in his 20s to being criticized and laughed at in his 60s while barely lifting a finger...and i also don't think he particularly cares, which is absolutely aspirational.

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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by Larry Mal » Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:48 am

So, I can't read that article, because it's paywalled, but I do see that it is titled "There's No Such Thing As Bad Taste".

Which, according to some of you that are posting here, means that Robert Smith is a God damn hero for going out there looking like he does. Because there's simply no "right" for there to be anything "wrong" in the first place. Any self expression is as good as any other.

However, you all are simultaneously judging Axl Rose negatively for his cornrows.

Why does your own standard not apply to him? Can't he wear his hair any way he wants as an equally valid form of self expression?

I want it to be explained to me how this is not hypocrisy.

Because it really seems to me that there is a standard of bad taste, right? I mean you freely admit that Axl is acting in bad taste with his corn rows, right? You all seem to be really familiar with the concepts here, you just don't want them applied to a man you like.
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Re: Is the end here for the Cure?

Post by mackerelmint » Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:05 am

Beacause only black people are allowed to have cornrows, Larry.

Now, I get where that's coming from, and why it bothers people. People might recall that I'm a vocal opponent of dreadlocks on white people. Of course, the reason I oppose dreadlocks on white people is simply that the entire reason for the popularity of dreadlocks on white people in the world today is because of dirty hippies, and people who think being a dirty hippie is cool, or that looking like a dirty hippie is cool. And it's not, it's gross. It's not OK to be a hippie, especially a dirty one, or to idealize that kind of people. The fact that dreadlocks have existed across cultures ever since human hair got matted up is an inconvenient truth to the people who want to claim dreadlocks as something only black people can have.

No race, culture, ethnicity, etc. owns a hairstyle. And that notion is a uniquely western one, part of the larger "cultural appropriation" discussion. And while there is some merit to parts of it, it's mostly bullshit that gives way to some really regressive and hypocritical ideas. It's basically a blindly western-centric conceit employed by anglicized non-white westerners. The actual sociological work that's been done (and that I had to spend way too much time mired in for my international affairs degree) holds that when more than one culture meets, they exchange ideas, styles, ways of living and social mores and each takes what makes sense to them and inevitably blends it with characteristics from their own society. That's the way it's been for the entirety of civilized human history. People will always point to the primacy of white people in this culture as a reason why they can't "have" something from another culture, but to do so ignores the fact that in other societies around the world, people other than whites run the show.

And with something like hair, it's just incredibly silly since people everywhere have played with their hair since always, and done things in a zillion ways. You don't have to look hard for people to decry white girls in "bantu knots", as if the Bantu are the only people who ever tied anything resembling a pigtail all over their heads. Or holding a bun with a stick. That's only for Asians. Of course, one also doesn't have to look hard for someone who isn't white OR asian holding a bun with a chopstick, and that's invariably excused because they're not white and because of social power heirarchies it can't be appropriation, just like racism by one non-white person against another non-white person of a different stripe isn't racism because they don't have the weight of a racist society behind them as a non-white person. Even when it's my Korean boss firing a black guy who worked his ass off for being "lazy".

So, it's all a bunch of regressive garbage in the end. People want to see things from other cultures represented in their own, and then screech about it when it happens, be that food or fashion or holidays or whatever. Remember folks: El Dia de difuntos doesn't belong to Mexicans! It exists across Latin America, and is derived from the Spanish Catholic celebration of All-Saint's day. When someone comes to the US and participates in our cultural things, we're always happy to welcome them into it, and so it is in other countries. Go to Japan, and do summer festival stuff with friends, and they'll probably wanna stick you in a Yukata. And when someone back home sees it, they'll scream about cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is when someone falsely represents themself as something they aren't, or uses something of another culture in an actually denigrating or derogatory way. The way the actual social science has been warped by people wanting to set up barriers or weaponize it is something that actual sociologists have been made miserable by for a decade.
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