Robert Smith (musician)
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Robert James Smith (born April 21, 1959), a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, is the lead singer and driving force behind English post-punk/gothic rock band The Cure since its founding in 1976.
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Overview
- See also the history of The Cure
Smith has written or co-written the bulk of The Cure's music and lyrics in a career spanning 25 years. He has also been involved in other musical projects, including a stint with Siouxsie and the Banshees and his side-project with Steven Severin called The Glove, and has contributed vocals to a number of independent projects and performances.
Robert Smith is instantly recognizable for his image, which includes deliberately smeared red lipstick and messy black hair that some have compared to a large spider. Smith's image has contributed to the frequent classification of The Cure as a goth band, a moniker Smith rejects. Smith is also known for his distinctive wavering singing style.
Smith's lyrics are frequently poetic and as frequently inscrutable. Smith has stated that they are often the product of some "altered state," such as drugs or sleep.
Smith married Mary Poole in 1988. The song "Love Song" was written as a wedding present for Mary. They have agreed to remain childless.
In October 2004, he stood in as one of three guest presenters for John Peel on BBC Radio 1, a week before the DJ's untimely death.
"Just Like Heaven" is reportedly Smith's favorite Cure song and easily one of the public's most popular in which he details a lost love: " found myself alone alone alone above the raging sea / that stole the only girl I loved / and drowned her deep inside of me. "
Discography
Band discography
→ See The Cure discography from 1976 (start) to present
→ See The Glove discography in 1983 (only album)
→ See Siouxsie and the Banshees discography: 1983-1984
Collaborations
In 2003, Robert Smith worked in collaboration with the band Blink-182 on the track "All of This" of their album Blink-182.
Solo discography
For more than two decades, Robert Smith has been hinting at a solo album which never materialized. It is often believed that most of his solo writing end up in The Cure, with such closer tracks as "Homesick", "Untitled", "Treasure", "Bare", "Going Nowhere", but Smith denied this, crediting those songs to other members:
- " I didn't write "Homesick" and I didn't write the music too. It's another misconception. […] Out of the 12 songs on the CD, I think I only wrote six musically... "Untitled"... (to Simon [Gallup]) You wrote that one ? ...It was Roger [O'Donnell]. So it [(Disintegration)] couldn't have been a solo album and if I'd done on my own it wouldn't have sounded anything like The Cure anyway apart from my own voice. The Top album could have been a solo album but it's not true the way we worked in studio […] " – Robert Smith in a 1989 interview [1] (http://imaginaryboys.altervista.org/english/cure/articles/tib_holyhour.htm)
External links
- Extensive 1989 Robert Smith interview (http://imaginaryboys.altervista.org/english/cure/articles/tib_holyhour.htm)de:Robert Smith
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