In search of my Rock Time 7 - The Cure

80年代，出現一種樂風叫做 Alternative Rock，並且在之後蔚為流行 (雖然這可能有違 Indie 獨立創作理念的初衷？)…
不過，說穿了，我所認識的 Blur、Oasis、Suede 以及 Nirvana、Pearl Jam 等其他樂團也都是一種另類的流行吧！
Britpop 或是 Grunge 都不是我這次想談論的，雖然對於這些樂團都曾經有過深深的迷戀 (可能要留待後敘)，我想先提一個也是主流的、「另類的」樂團，名叫（怪人合唱團） “The Cure”，儘管當事人--主唱 Robert Smith 曾經嚴詞否認：
Robert Smith of The Cure rejects the genre labels like alternative, gothic rock, and college rock applied to his band. He has said, "Every time we went to America we had a different tag [. . .] I can't remember when we officially became 'alt-rock'"

在 The Cure 的官網預告了今年5月將重新發行1989 年的第八張專輯《Disintegration》

http://www.thecure.com/blog/default.aspx?nid=25518
The Cure - Disintegration... THE PUFF...
Deluxe Edition - Polydor/Universal
Date : 24th May 2010
Three-Disc Deluxe Edition Produced & Compiled by Robert Smith, Including a Remastered Version of the Original Album, plus Unreleased Songs, Demos, Out-takes and Live Performances.

而關於這張專輯，網友 Mansun 如是說：
「在多次蛻變下，反覆的步行著成功、墮落、再成功、再墮落的路徑，但也因此在1989年成就了The Cure最登峰造極的經典《Disintegration》，我套一句The Verve的歌詞，正因有苦澀有甘甜，這才是人生。」
http://blog.sina.com.tw/cinerama/article.php?pbgid=1941&entryid=576789

先試聽一下這首讓人睡不著的搖籃曲〈Lullaby〉吧！ Robert Smith 慵懶迷幻的嗓音，這樣的頹廢美學風格在20年後聽起來一樣的迷人



《Disintegration》是一張”藍色”的作品，每一首歌憂鬱的氛圍都濃到化不開， Robert Smith 曾經做過一番解釋：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smith_(musician)
Although Smith's public persona suggests a depressed image, he has said that his songs do not convey how he feels all, or even most, of the time:

"At the time we wrote Disintegration ... it's just about what I was doing really, how I felt. But I'm not like that all the time. That's the difficulty of writing songs that are a bit depressing. People think you're like that all the time, but I don't think that. I just usually write when I'm depressed."

〈The Same Deep Water As You〉是另外一首意義特別的歌曲，我總會想起這樣的畫面：

「令人傷心欲絕的一夜，彷彿置身夢裡，
傾聽兩個孤寂而赤裸的靈魂相互慰藉，
繼而掩面啜泣，恰似窗外未曾停歇的雨聲......」

就隨著歌聲讓淤塞在內心深處的悲傷緩緩地流瀉出來吧！

Kiss me goodbye Pushing out before I sleep Can't you see I try swimming the same deep water as you is hard " The shallow drowned lose less than we “You breathe The strangest twist upon your lips "and we shall be together…”




網路參考資料：
治療 (樂隊) (The Cure，一譯「怪人」)，是一支於1976年在Crawley, Sussex成立的搖滾樂隊。該樂隊經歷了多次人員調整，只有其核心、吉他手兼主要曲作者Robert Smith是固定成員。他經常以其一頭亂髮、蒼白的面龐，並塗抹故意弄髒的唇膏示人。他的歌詞悲觀沮喪卻發人深省。

樂隊成員在1970年代末開始嘗試推出他們的音樂。他們的第一張專輯Three Imaginary Boys (1979)同他們早期的單曲被認為是在英國以後朋克和新浪潮運動掀起朋克搖滾革命的一部分。樂隊在1980年代早期從哥德搖滾中汲取靈感，音樂主題趨向黑暗和痛苦。在1982年的Pomography專輯發行之後，由於其核心Robert Smith十分希望將樂隊帶回原來陰鬱的風格，使樂隊的未來難以預測。隨著1982年的單曲「Let's Go to Bed」，Smith開始在樂隊的音樂里注入更多流行音樂的感覺。隨後樂隊的人氣日漸增長。特別是在美國，樂隊的歌曲"Just Like Heaven"，"Lovesong"和「Friday I"m in Love"均進入了公告牌前40位。在1990年代初，治療已成為世界上最受歡迎的另類搖滾樂隊。2004年經粗略統計已有兩千七百萬張專輯售出。至2007年，治療樂隊已經發行了十二張錄音室專輯和三十多張單曲。(維基百科)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_rock
Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk rock, which laid the groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s. At times alternative rock has been used as a catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists in the 1980s, and all music descended from punk rock (including punk itself, New Wave, and post-punk).

While a few artists like R.E.M. and The Cure achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition, many alternative rock artists during the 1980s were cult acts that recorded on independent labels and received their exposure through college radio airplay and word-of-mouth. With the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became commercially successful.

Gothic rock developed out of late-1970s British post-punk. With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock," gothic rock utilizes a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes," and the genre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Bauhaus' debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in 1979, is considered to be the beginning of the gothic rock genre. Around the same time, post-punk contemporaries Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure adopted the new sound


官方網站：
http://www.thecure.com