Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Fascination Street (1989)
Rock historians love to credit 1991 as the year that the alternative went mainstream, but it had been happening for a while before that. I mean, look at 1989. Sure, there was still a lot of dumb stuff being released, but you also had artists like Love and Rockets, the B-52, the Cult, Pixies, XTC and Nine Inch Nails all getting attention.
And then there was the Cure. By this point, they'd already been around for a decade, but they had already released some amazing singles: "In Between Days," "Close to Me," "Let's Go to Bed," Boys Don't Cry," "Just Like Heaven," "Hot Hot Hot!," "Why Can't I Be You?" After years of being big everywhere else, their 1987 album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me got them some notice in the U.S., hitting the top 40 of the Billboard 200 album chart and getting steady play on MTV.
In '89, the Cure released their eighth album, Disintegration, in May. Whereas the previous album was pretty diverse sonically, this new release drilled down on the gloomy, guitar- and synth-driven density. The Cure was already the goth go-to band and they still dressed the part, but they weren't a one-trick goth pony. The biggest song on this album, "Lovesong," is exactly that: a love song that frontman Robert Smith wrote for his wife. It's still fits in with the album's aesthetic, but it went all the way to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. "Lullaby" is a creepy little ditty about a kid being unable to sleep after hearing a disturbing lullaby.
But "Fascination Street" is magnificent. "Lullaby" was the lead single everywhere but in the U.S., where "Fascination Street" was first because it was featured in the movie Lost Angels (which starred one Adam Horovitz). It's a pulsing, snarling ripper that's driven by a killer bass line; the intro seethes for over 2 minutes before the vocals start. Smith has said the song was about a misadventure the band had on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
"Oh it's opening time/Down on Fascination Street/So let's cut the conversation/Get out for a bit/'Cause I feel it all fading/And paling and I'm begging/To drag you down with me/To kick the last nail in."
The song hit #1 on the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks chart and got to #46 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it was just an introduction into the rest of the album, as "Lovesong" and "Lullaby" were much more successful. The album reached #12 on the Billboard 200 chart and remains the Cure's best-selling album to date.
My introduction to the Cure was through my high school classmate Kristin, who sat next to me in English and was goth before anybody knew what that was. She loved to make fun of the hard rock bands I listened to, although she did lend me her copy of Aztec Camera's cover of "Jump." But it was thanks to her that I started checking out the Cure and the Smiths and I fully acknowledge retroactively that she had much better taste than me in those days. I bought Kiss Me x 3 when it came out in the summer of '87 and Disintegration was one of the first CD purchases I made in the summer of '89. I love putting it on for long road trips because you can kind of get lost in the atmospherics.
The Cure's output slowed down in the 2000s, with only three albums released. A new one was rumored to be coming out a few years ago but it still hasn't arrived. Although they did a North American tour last summer and broke Ticketmaster in the process.
Anybody who writes the Cure off as mopey gothsters is missing the point. They're a great band, period.
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