Steve Newall: Flicks.co.nz editor on The Cure releasing their first song in 16 years

1980's hitmakers The Cure seem like they're aiming for a musical comeback.

The band recently released Alone, their first new single in over sixteen years, and they have a new album due out on November 1st.

 Flicks.co.nz editor Steve Newall says this seems to be an era of older acts returning to the music world, as this follows the announcement of next year's Oasis reunion tour.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is the new song from The Cure. It's called Alone.
There is another six minutes and fifty seconds for you
to enjoy. It's time to talk entertainment and I'm joined
now by Steve Neill, editor at flicks dot co dot
en z. So what did you think of the seven
minute wonder? My producer Libby said to me she had

(00:46):
to weigh through four minutes before she got to a vocal.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Well, apart from initially thinking I might have been listening
to the instrumental version of this new song from The Cure,
I really really dug it. It's their first new song
in sixteen years. The band has continued to be active,
but their new album, or the forthcoming album, Songs of
a Lost World, has been just hating for a while.
Robert Smith's now sixty five, So this kind of once

(01:12):
upon a time Lipsticks me a young goth is now
now there's sort of issues of mortality are kind of
taking on a resonance that's not just a kind of
a young poet musing about death, but maybe coming a
little bit closer. Sound of this album based on this
first single, Alone, which also opens the record, reminds me
a lot of Plain Song, which is the first song

(01:33):
from their eighty nine album Disintegration, which is possibly the
Cure's best record, and like Alone, Plain Song doesn't feature
any vocals till about halfway through, so it's very much
kind of established the tone of a.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Record excited about a new Cure album.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, I'm super psyched for a Cure album. He's Roberts
Smith's quite a meticulous songwriter and bandleader, and possibly the
last couple of albums haven't you had the punch of
you know, the career peak stuff, But he's also had
a really good vision of what the band is, the
two that they've undertaken down here kind of come through
here once a decade, play a three hour show, play

(02:12):
thirty something songs. Like the number of songs in the
catalog's crazy. His understanding of why people like his band
is really good, and that's something that so many artists
to lose as they move forward through their careers. So
every act I think that's a heritage. Actors had to
reissue the remastered records, go back through the catalog, but
that's something he's supervised personally through the whole process, so

(02:34):
kind of a ready gets the legacy and gets the
body of work. And I think that's what There's a
real consistency with the sound as well.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Am I just imagine it. Are we seeing a lot
of bands sort of getting together again and releasing new
music or obviously we've got Oasis who were reforming to tour.
We've had Jane's Addiction who have just canceled their tour
after reforming to tour. We've got The Cure putting out
a new album. It sort of feels like we've sort
of there's a nostalgic kind of movement going on in

(03:01):
music at the moment. Yeah, well my reaching there.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
I feel I reckon it's been that way for a while.
We're definitely in you know, acts that are still on
the circuit and have you know, are still playing without
even sort of being like a surprise comeback. Are so
much older than we would have expected rock bands to
be twenty years ago. So I think aging with the
aging with the fan base and still staying active and

(03:26):
still taking everybody's money. But I'm going to put The
Cure in a much smaller category because I think the
creative motives here are pretty pure. This isn't a cash
grab reunion album. The fact that it's been I think
this album has been in the mixing stage for two years.
Like this is a big effort. I want to get

(03:49):
a perfect album, Okay, and we should get the album
in full. I believe it's November first, brilliant.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Shortly, Hey, tell me about the story about the New
Zealand skateboarder Lee Ralph. This is going to come to
our screens in a TV series.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, this is super, super exciting. Lee Ralph, a legendary
skate icon from Altero, traveled to the US to compete
and made a huge impression during the skateboarding boom of
the eighties. So he's a pair of people like Tony
Tony Hawk, Mark gonzalie Is, who's the guy who already

(04:25):
invented street skating in the eighties. Lee Ralph was the
best man at his wedding. These are guys who love
love Ralph because he channels a kind of purity to
the sport that predates the commercialism and the status of
being an Olympic sport. But it also does stuff like
skateboard barefoot and this was something that the Americans did
not anticipate. He's a really unconventional, interesting dude and his

(04:51):
life story is going to be brought to the screen
in a six part dramatic TV series, so not a doco,
but actually re enacting moments from his life. He's been
around for so many interesting periods of history. So this
skateboarding boom of the eighties, skateboarding at the big day
out in the nineties it kind of fell off the grid,
went through his own sort of personal problems later on,

(05:12):
but also as childhood sort of sees him at a
really interesting part of I guess the kind of counterculture
and almost mister Asia scene of New Zealand. Tom Hearn
from Dark Horse and the Panthers as one of the
show runners here.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
So classy production.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Interesting, Tony Hawk and Steve O from Jackass to executive
producers on the show. This is going up to the world.
Can't wait for people to discover Lee Ralph awesome.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Thank you so much, Steve. I've just hited actually to
flicks dot co dot NZ because I was just going
to make a mention. Of course, Meggie Smith has passed away, Dave,
Maggie Smith. There is a delightful documentary. It's called Tea
with the Dames and it features Judy Dench and Maggie
Smith and Alen Aikins and Joan Plowwright and you just
basically hear them talk about their lives, their careers. There

(05:56):
you know, it's a lovely documentary. If you wanted to
just celebrate and reminisus a little bit about Dame Maggie Smith,
that is actually streaming. You can get that on TV
and Z Plus. It is available to watch.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
For a bit of a gloomy kind of awkne day,
I might do a bit of Gospel Park.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Gospel pack Aroam with a view. Oh look, you could
do sisterrect if you needed a bit of cheering up.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
It is a Sunday.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
There we go. Thank you so much, Steve.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.