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View Poll Results: The Cure or The Smiths?
The Cure 46 53.49%
The Smiths 40 46.51%
Voters: 86. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 01-21-2013, 01:21 PM   #161 (permalink)
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Looking back on my decision of The Smiths, I still stand by it. Johnny Marr's music was a perfect fit for Morrissey's sharp lyrics and singing. Their great singles, a few choice songs on the first two albums, plus The Queen is Dead and Strangeways, Here We Come said more in a few years than the entire Cure catalog no matter how great it sometimes got.
Said? I love those Smiths albums and Morrissey was a clever writer but I don't rate the band by what they said. It wasn't all that special.

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Originally Posted by Andregan View Post
The Cure is good... Very good but the songwriting from The Smith's destroys The Cure in my opinion. I was into The Cure for awhile, but I don't think they evoke the same emotion that The Smiths' do, though they try. Please please please let me.. get what I want... lord knows it would be the first time.
And this is ridiculous.
Please please please let me get what I want this time/Lord knows it would be the first time.
That's what depressed people say outright. They just say it, or think it. That's not poetic lyricism, that's conversation.
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Old 01-21-2013, 03:52 PM   #162 (permalink)
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Said? I love those Smiths albums and Morrissey was a clever writer but I don't rate the band by what they said. It wasn't all that special.
Yes, I said "Said".

The mix of Morrissey's words and singing with Johnny Marr's knack for creating great music and a good ear for production to match those words (plus the help of John Porter for the first album and "How Soon Is Now?" and Stephen Street for Strangeways...), had a strong effect overall. Maybe the lyrics were not all that special to some, but they were usually well written and performed with conviction and matched with sharp music. Personal, political (especially the Meat Is Murder era), or even about the record industry, a lot of the lyrics were clever and everything together connected very well with most of the listeners.

The Cure have a lot of great songs, but apart from some moments of their albums up to and including The Top (The "Oh So Psychedelic" era), a lot of the lyrics are fluff in my opinion. I know about the Camus reference in "Killing an Arab" (his 1942 story The Stranger) and about The Hanging Garden and Wailing Wall as referencing historical landmarks (and of course Hanging Garden was also a for a film and a book), but their early use of imagery was not very effective in the long run, as if they just chose something that sounded like a cool title and took it from there. The thing that makes it good is actually the music itself, but even if on casual listening it's fine, it does not fully create anything too out-there, hard hitting, or unique when one listens more to the details. It's not surprising to me that after going into lighter worlds that they reviled themselves as a great Pop band in different clothing. The first five albums and the early singles sides are still solid in retrospect, but after that it's best in small doses.

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Old 01-21-2013, 04:11 PM   #163 (permalink)
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That's not poetic lyricism, that's conversation.
This, in my opinion, is the genius of Morrissey: his embellishment of simple emotion when it works best. Though, I will say he has his share of cheeky, if not quite transcendent, poeticism when he calls to mind Oscar Wilde on such tracks as "Handsome Devil."
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Old 01-21-2013, 09:11 PM   #164 (permalink)
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Yes, I said "Said".

The mix of Morrissey's words and singing with Johnny Marr's knack for creating great music and a good ear for production to match those words (plus the help of John Porter for the first album and "How Soon Is Now?" and Stephen Street for Strangeways...), had a strong effect overall. Maybe the lyrics were not all that special to some, but they were usually well written and performed with conviction and matched with sharp music. Personal, political (especially the Meat Is Murder era), or even about the record industry, a lot of the lyrics were clever and everything together connected very well with most of the listeners.

The Cure have a lot of great songs, but apart from some moments of their albums up to and including The Top (The "Oh So Psychedelic" era), a lot of the lyrics are fluff in my opinion. I know about the Camus reference in "Killing an Arab" (his 1942 story The Stranger) and about The Hanging Garden and Wailing Wall as referencing historical landmarks (and of course Hanging Garden was also a for a film and a book), but their early use of imagery was not very effective in the long run, as if they just chose something that sounded like a cool title and took it from there. The thing that makes it good is actually the music itself, but even if on casual listening it's fine, it does not fully create anything too out-there, hard hitting, or unique when one listens more to the details. It's not surprising to me that after going into lighter worlds that they reviled themselves as a great Pop band in different clothing. The first five albums and the early singles sides are still solid in retrospect, but after that it's best in small doses.
I see. Sorry about the tone of my post. I had been awake for way too many hours when I wrote it.
Anyway, I don't have a very cogent argument to make but, all things considered, I personally love the early 'dark' Cure stuff and the later 'pop' stuff (up through Disintegration) a lot more than I love The Smiths, which I do.

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This, in my opinion, is the genius of Morrissey: his embellishment of simple emotion when it works best. Though, I will say he has his share of cheeky, if not quite transcendent, poeticism when he calls to mind Oscar Wilde on such tracks as "Handsome Devil."
I agree that Morrissey is a good, subtle writer and I see what you mean. The reason I quoted that line is that it doesn't strike me as more emotional than things that Robert Smith wrote. At least not to the point of "destroying" The Cure in the songwriting department, as that poster stated.
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Old 01-22-2013, 05:07 PM   #165 (permalink)
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The Smiths is amazing!
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Old 01-24-2013, 12:04 PM   #166 (permalink)
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The Smiths all day long.
Man that sounds depressing.
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Old 01-24-2013, 12:06 PM   #167 (permalink)
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Man that sounds depressing.
Heaven knows I'm miserable now.
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Old 01-24-2013, 01:07 PM   #168 (permalink)
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That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
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Old 01-24-2013, 01:08 PM   #169 (permalink)
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This is going Nowhere Fast.
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Old 01-24-2013, 01:13 PM   #170 (permalink)
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This is going Nowhere Fast.
What difference does it make?
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