Thompson Twins’ “Hold me now”, at song #85, is something of a guilty pleasure* of mine. When I was in grade five, I thought the band was the coolest thing ever and even today, I still know all the words to this song. I’m dedicating this one to Victoria, my lovely wife, for whom this song is also a pleasure, but maybe not so guilty.
Like so many British New Wave bands of this era, Thompson Twins began as a post-punk band (seriously) and at the time of their debut album, had a roster of six members! Alannah Currie was only officially added as the seventh member for the band’s sophomore album, 1982’s “Set”. The band’s core of Currie, Tom Bailey and Joe Leeway were convinced by their manager at the time to whittle themselves down to a trio and expand on their synth pop direction, given the North American success in 1982 of single, “In the name of love.” The changes paid off because the band enjoyed global success for the next four years and three albums, culminating in an appearance at Live Aid in 1985 where they were joined onstage by none other than pop icon, Madonna.
“Hold me now” was the first single released off Thompson Twins’ fourth album, “Into the gap” and despite the sneers of critics everywhere, was a huge hit the world over, charting into the top ten of many countries’ charts. I personally remember watching this video for many weeks running on my favourite music chart show at the time, CHUM FM top 30 videos. Sure, it sounds dated now, as does most of the band’s back catalogue, but it still has a place in my Apple Music library. The nostalgia factor is strong here.
Click the play button on the video below and sing along loudly with me.
Original Eighties best 100 position: #88
Favourite lyric: I like: “You say I’m a dreamer, we’re two of a kind / Both of us searching for some perfect world, we know we’ll never find.” But I’m near certain Victoria likes: “And then I’ll ask your forgiveness though I don’t know / Just what I’m asking it for.” Maybe because it reminds her of the two of us together.
Where are they now?: Joe Leeway left the band in 1986 and the remaining duo of Bailey and Currie officially called it quits in 1993. The band has never considered a reunion but since 2014, former lead singer Tom Bailey has regularly toured under the name “Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey”.
*I’ve always called this one a ‘guilty pleasure’ but I think I’m nearly ready to own it. Give me another year or two. 😉
For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.
If you’ve been following along, you might have guessed this album to be here at number one, given its conspicuous absence thus far.
I’ve been a fan of The Cure for many years, close to four decades in fact. Yeah, I’m aging myself here but what can you do? I first got into the post-punk legends led by Robert Smith when I was in high school, shortly after the release of their seminal album, 1989’s “Disintegration“. Alternative music became a passion amongst me and a few friends, with each of us introducing the others to the latest bands, in a time before the internet. I’m pretty sure it was my friend John* that shared “Disintegration”, along with early singles compilation “Staring at the sea”, both of which I dutifully dubbed to blank cassette and quickly wore out from playing.
When “Wish” came out in 1992**, I wasted no time in purchasing it for my burgeoning CD collection and obviously played it to death. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for 1996’s “Wild mood swings” on either count. I did try to make amends with “Bloodflowers” in 2000*** but that was mostly because I had bought tickets to finally see the band live with my youngest sibling for that tour. I still don’t believe I have heard an ounce of either of the two albums Robert Smith and company released between that album and this year’s release.
All that to say, I certainly wasn’t expecting a new Cure album to be my favourite album of the year when the calendar turned to 2024 last January. But it certainly is and I’ll tell you why.
It could be just me but Robert Smith seems a completely different musician and person than he was in the early 2000s. I remember seeing them for that aforementioned show for the “Bloodflowers” tour and walking away disappointed. The setlist seemed more designed for him than for the audience. Contrast that with the next time I saw the group at Osheaga in 2013, when organizers had to pull the plug to get them to leave the stage, and even then, they performed “Boys don’t cry” without sound. I’ve heard that this is pretty much how all his shows go now. Playing everything he thinks his fans want to hear and having a great time doing it. And he’s been touring lots without releasing anything new for years, though the rumours of new material have been swirling faster and faster of late.
“Songs of a lost world”, The Cure’s 14th long player was finally released in November and it explodes through the speakers. It exudes all this passion that Smith performs with while on stage. People talk about how Cure albums waffle between goth records and pop records but this one feels like it nestles and nuzzles itself snuggly in between both. It is big and bold and is unabashedly The Cure.
At just eight songs, our number one album feels way too short, like we wouldn’t have minded it go on for another 45 minutes at least. However, Robert Smith has assured us that he’s got enough material in the can for a few more albums to come soon. Until then, let’s listen to this again and again and you could do worse than go with any of these, my three picks for you.
“Alone”: “This is the end of every song that we sing.” Quite the line to start off an album with. Indeed, it’s the first line on the first song and the first single to be released off the album. And that it comes just shy of the three and a half minute mark of a nearly seven minute song and that it just happens to be the first piece of new music to be released by The Cure in 16 years is both heartbreaking and beautiful. Of course, this was not random. Robert Smith knew he needed a great line to open the album and it might very well have been the reason that the long promised album kept getting pushed back. He’s readily admitted that once this line was written, the rest of the album fell easily into place. And this line, this song, is well worth all the waiting. The sweeping and trudging and haunting darkness that prefaces these words is simply gorgeous, so easy to get wrapped up in, that you almost don’t want any vocals to appear, that they might mar the perfection in some way. But of course, Smith doesn’t let this happen. His words, morose, moody, satisfied, whatever, they make the perfection even more so. How does it get better? Read on friends.
“All I ever am”: “My weary dance with age and resignation moves me slow, toward a dark and empty stage where I can sing of all I know.” The penultimate track on the album sounds like Mr. Smith reflecting on his mortality. But he does so with panache and in a way that only The Cure can do it. Of course, it’s morbid and morose, but it’s also set against an aggressive and tribal beat and haunting synths, ambulance sirens and elevated heart rhythms. There’s soaring guitars demanding to be forefront and twinkling keys content to take the back seat. It’s all very big and epic and romantic. And begs for more.
“A fragile thing”: “Don’t tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart.” This line and so many like it in this song is heartbreaking. The whole song is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking and truthful and real and beautiful. A song about a relationship in trouble, love when love is not enough, love that hurts, a relationship whose story is linear and long foretold. And the music is just as haunting. Menacing keys from an early eighties slasher flick, set against shimmering and blinding cymbals, and a foreboding bass line, the kind that keeps you up at night, cold sweat from a nightmare, reaching for comfort but only finding an indentation where a warm body should be. This is the kind of Cure single we’ve been waiting a couple of decades for and we are more than grateful to be able to crank it up and let all soak over us. Over and over and over again.
*Or maybe it was Tim?
**It was also around this time that I purchased an original pressing of “Mixed up” on vinyl. Sadly, I lost that one to one of my younger siblings when I moved away to university. I’ve since purchased a reissue.
***Thankfully, it was a better album than its predecessor.
I hope those of you that have been following along this mini-series of my favourite albums from last year. I am going to try to get back into a rhythm and a regular schedule after this. For those of you who haven’t been following along, here are the previous albums in this list that you’ve missed:
Wunderhorse is an indie rock band that was started by guitarist/vocalist Jacob Slater in 2020 in Cornwall, England. The group was initially a solo project outlet for the songs he was writing during the early days of the COVID pandemic. Slater fleshed out the group to a quintet to record these songs as “Cub”, the debut album that was released in 2022 to rave reviews.
Everything so far is what I’ve gleaned from googling the group online* after coming across the music off “Midas” over the last few months of 2024 and being blown away by this, their sophomore record. But to be honest, I still haven’t had time to go back to the debut, nor have I checked out anything by Slater’s near legendary punk trio Dead Pretties, whose breakup apparently broke a lot of fans’ hearts and sent Slater hurtling from London to Cornwall in the first place. These will likely require my attentions at some point but right now, I’ve just been content to lose myself in these 10 songs.
If you haven’t yet had the pleasure, Wunderhorse’s music is bluesy, punk-influenced, crashing, guitar rock. It’s a sound that if described to me in such a way, I wouldn’t have thought out of place in the explosion of American alt-rock commercial radio in the mid-90s and I would probably have run screaming from at that time. However, there’s something about this music, on this album: Slater’s songwriting and vocal presentation, and even the musicianship of Harry Fowler (guitar), Peter Woodin (bass), and Jamie Staples (drums). There’s an energy and a passion that has hooked me. Indeed, the spit and the sweat is palpable on each track, feeling like it’s present in the room with you, raising it’s elbows to clear some room to dance. You can definitely hear how this would be amazing live and in concert**.
Everything is quite good on this album but these three picks for you are the ones pulled from the heap on the day I wrote this post.
“Cathedrals“: “There are shipwrecks in the sea, there are blossoms on the tree, there’s this little part of me – that is you.” The riffs off the taut guitar string like sparks off a horseshoe. It all starts a bit soft before the wild abandon. Playing the loud soft loud contrast like Coldplay covering Nirvana willfully and unabashedly ripping off the Pixies. It’s all about love and pain and all the emotions in between. Naked and honest lyrics, recorded in a studio that sounds like it’s in a vacuum.
“Silver”: “Yeah, I was crooked from the cradle, I’m a bastard from the start, and I kept some pretty people in the hollow of my heart.” Track number four is a deceptive beast. It comes off as mellow with a jangly riff but it rocks and rants just the same. The name, too, is trickery – a precious metal as decoy for something sinister. Frontman and lyricist, Jacob Slater has said of the single: “Everyone has elements of their makeup that they’d rather not admit to or keep locked away and never look at.” Just more honesty, in words and practice, and in the frankness of the musicality.
“Rain”: “Do you feel the rain? Did it crawl up on your shoulders? Did it coil around your name? Did it slowly snatch the sunlight out of every waking day?” This is a dark and haunting number. It reminds me something of CanRock classic, “One gun” by 54-40, in the way in which it uses negative space and echo as a fifth instrument. It has the kind of sound you shoot for when you are out for a late night drive, a drive without destination, on an old country road, without streetlights, your brights constantly on because there’s no other car out here this late and you don’t want to accidentally hit an animal that could jump out through the mists at any moment. It’s a song for searching and losing yourself at the same time and keeps you good company while doing so.
*I was amused to learn that frontman Jacob Slater appeared in the very excellent Danny Boyle-directed miniseries on the Sex Pistols, portraying drummer Paul Cook.
**From what I’ve read, their shows are exceptional for their energy and the way the musicians lose themselves in the sound.
Stay tuned for album #3. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:
My (life in) music lists 