And You Thought It Would Fail: Disintegration was considered commercial suicide by execs because Robert Smith returned to the band's gloomy sound after the success of The Head on the Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, but the album turned out to be the band's most popular.
Many fans agree that Wild Mood Swings could have actually been a good album if some of the weaker tracks were replaced with underrated B-sides such as "A Pink Dream". The self titled album and 4:13 Dream also have fan backlash to them. Some fans believe that the self-titled, with the exception of its well-liked singles "The End of the World" and "Taking Off", is even worse than Wild Mood Swings.
Award Snub: Never won a Grammy Award, despite a few nominations in the alternative category. It took them until 2019 to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, despite being eligible for 15 years beforehand.
Awesome Music: Plenty of their songs, to be sure, but have you ever heard a love song dreamier than "Just Like Heaven"?
Broken Base: Bloodflowers tends to be a divisive entry in the band's discography. Ask fans of The Cure to rank the band's albums and Bloodflowers is usually in the bottom three albums or the top five albums. When discussing the album, people usually bring up "Watching Me Fall", which is eleven minutes long despite being the second song on the album and the fact that the rest of the songs on the album are nowhere near this long.
Covered Up: On the receiving end of it when artist Mareux released an indie pop cover of "The Perfect Girl" off of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me in 2019. The song was hit by Memetic Mutation, with many new listeners not knowing that it was a cover of a song that released all the way back in 1987.
In the UK, "Close To Me" is one of the group's most enduring radio staples - but in its 1990 "Closer Mix" (or more commonly, the "Closest Mix", which is the shorter edit version) rather than the 1985 original. In the US, the best known version of the song is also a remix: The single version of the original, which added a horn section that is not found on the album.
Conversely, very much averted by the 1986 "New Voice - New Mix" version of "Boys Don't Cry", which became Canon Discontinuity almost immediately following its release. The original version wasn't a hit, the "new mix" was - but you'll only ever hear the original played these days.
Epic Riff: Even if "Lullaby" is pure Nightmare Fuel, the two guitar riffs and the bassline are undeniably catchy.
For bass riffs "Play for Today" and "Other Voices" are up there.
"A Forest" also features a really catchy riff.
If there's any Cure song that features one of these, it's "Fascination Street".
The signature keyboard-bass-drum patterns of "Close to Me" became the popular "Cure riddim" in Jamaica, rehashed as the backing track for numerous Reggae songs.
In The '80s, they became one of the first Alternative Rock bands to break into the American mainstream through College Radio and commercial modern rock radio airplay.
Harsher in Hindsight: "Killing an Arab." They don't perform it anymore, unsurprisingly (or when they do, they change the lyrics around heavily; some of the alterations include "Killing Another," and more humorously, "Kissing an Arab.")
A less well known example: In the video for "Mint Car", the lead singer of The Associates, Billy Mackenzie, makes a light-hearted cameo, which gets a lot sadder when you find out what happened to him less than a year after the release of the single, which arguably makes the song itself more of a Tear Jerker, as even though it's one of the band's happiest and most upbeat songs, this gives it a slightly melancholy and bittersweet feel. It even led to Robert writing "Cut Here" which is arguably one of the band's most tearjerking songs.
Hilarious in Hindsight: The name "Lol". While nowadays better known as an abbreviation of "laughing out loud", Lol is also a shortened version of the name Laurence, and Tolhurst isn't even the only musician to use the nickname (There's also Lol Creme of 10cc).
Misaimed Fandom: "Killing an Arab" was based on Albert Camus' The Stranger, and while the song is narrated by the titular Arab's killer, the murder is depicted in an overtly negative light. Despite this, the song became highly popular among neo-Nazis, who interpreted the song as glorifying anti-Arab violence and embraced it. The song's racist following got to the point where Elektra Records tried to have the Cure omit the song from their Greatest Hits AlbumStaring at the Sea after a college DJ at Princeton made anti-Arab jokes before playing the song on-air. Robert Smith refused to do so, but compromised by including a shrinkwrap sticker decrying racist use of it. The problem didn't go away, however, resulting in the band omitting the song from streaming services and changing the title lyrics in various ways during live performances.
Narm Charm: Some of the videos for their more upbeat songs, such as "Why Can't I Be You?".
Replacement Scrappy: Arguably Jason Cooper. Even recently some fans of the band were still calling him a terrible drummer, just because he replaced fan favorite Boris Williams, despite the fact that by that time, Cooper was longer in the band than any other drummer (Williams, Andy Anderson, and Lol Tolhurst).
Signature Song: Either "Friday I'm in Love" (especially to pop audiences), "Just Like Heaven" or "Lovesong." "A Forest" from Seventeen Seconds is also a popular staple of Alternative Rock radio. Goths are also likely to name "One Hundred Years". For the New Wave crowd, there's "Boys Don't Cry".
Sweet Dreams Fuel: "Friday I'm in Love" and "Just Like Heaven" have earned their reputation as songs that are impossible not to be cheered up by.
"Mint Car" as well, it's one of the band's most cheerful, summery, nostalgic and upbeat songs.
In another example with New Order, "Just Like Heaven" sounds oddly similar to "Weirdo", with the main riff being note-for-note identical to that from "Leave Me Alone" (apart from being in a higher key). In turn, New Order's "All the Way" bears a striking resemblance to "Just Like Heaven".
to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, despite being eligible for 15 years beforehand.