Songs of a Lost World release day

Plato Utrecht, November 1st 2024

Friday 1 November 2024, All Saint’s Day, was the worldwide release date for The Cure’s new album Songs of a Lost World. A very special release day, as it is the band’s first new studio album in sixteen years!

I like to keep up my old ritual of buying a physical copy of a new Cure album from my local record store on the day it is released. So on this very appropriate grey and foggy morning, I went to the Plato record store in my hometown Utrecht, which has just moved to bigger premises.

Apparently I was a bit early (though not usually an early riser), because they were still filling the shelves. I turned out to be the second person to buy the new Cure album, as I was told. In this store I bought the ‘retail exclusive 1 LP marble stone’ edition. This edition is pressed on grey marbled vinyl. Lines from Endsong ‘outside in the dark’ (A) and ‘left alone with nothing’ (B) are etched into the runout grooves. It looks really wonderful. Like other variations it comes with a poster of the cover art. What made it even better was that I got a promo canvas with my purchase. Thank you Plato!

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Wish – the Dutch release

First Dutch Wish cd edition in numbered cardboard slipcase and contest insertThe Cure just announced a deluxe reissue of their ninth studio album Wish in celebration of its 30th anniversary. The initial Dutch cd edition, released in April 1992, came in a numbered cardboard slipcase. It contained an insert about a contest from the Dutch branch of The Cure’s record company Polydor. With the number of your copy, you could win a trip for two to New York to attend The Cure’s concert at the Giants Stadium, flight and hotel included. You could also win other prizes, such as box sets, hand-printed shirts and tickets for one of The Cure’s upcoming shows in the Netherlands.

In June 1992 Polydor placed an ad in music magazine OOR with the winning numbers. Noteworthy is that The Cure would not play at the Giants Stadium at all that year. They had opened the North American leg of their Prayer Tour there in 1989. So maybe that venue was originally scheduled for the Wish Tour as well. But in 1992 The Cure ended up playing two shows at another venue in New York, the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale. One show was at the beginning of the American tour in May and another one at the end in July. The insert mentioned that the record company reserved the right to offer an alternative destination. I wonder if the winner eventually went to the Nassau Coliseum in July (by the way, I didn’t win anything ;).

 

40 Years of Seventeen Seconds

2020 marks the 40th anniversary of the second Cure LP Seventeen Seconds. A pivotal release for the band. With this album, they started to define their own unique sound and style. It is remarkable how fast the band produced the album. The recording only took about one week. The same goes for the mixing by Robert Smith and producer Mike Hedges.

If I’m right, Seventeen Seconds was the first Cure LP that was also being pressed in the Netherlands especially for the Dutch market. The manufacturing took place at the Polygram Record Service (PRS) plant in Baarn, not very far from Amsterdam. The outer sleeve was almost the same as the UK pressing. But the labels on the record itself were standard red Polydor labels, unlike the printed UK labels, which were in the same style as the sleeve artwork. This was probably to reduce costs.

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Disintegration – Dutch release 2 May 1989

DisPosxToday exactly 25 years ago, early in the morning, I went on my bicycle to the local record shop in the village where I lived to buy the new Cure album: Disintegration. It was released just four days before the concert at the Thialf IJsstadion in Heerenveen.

The record store had its show window entirely dedicated to The Cure’s new album. Jan, the owner, always did his best to make something special out of it. This time he had draped large spider webs all over the place (with some kind of cobweb spray) and hung toy rubber spiders in it. He had also put a lot of LP sleeves in there and one cardboard poster.

When he cleaned up the show window after some time, he gave me this poster (it’s about 60×60 cm). He also gave me one giant hairy rubber spider. I threw that one on stage during Lullaby at a Cure show later that year. Sorry if I scared them.

I kept the poster, so still got some official, genuine 25 years old Disintegration shop decoration… 😉

Thanks to Jan!