Published on Dec 22, 2003
This is the album that paved a way for one of the most
versatile, ingenious and eccentric alternative rock bands of all
time, a phenomenon known as The Cure. This band has always been
elusive and outré, and it shows in their debut effort.
Boys Don’t Cry was a punk album, released during the time
when punk music itself was moribund, and rock music was going
through its usual phase of transmogrification, which it does at the
end of every decade, gaining new avatars. Considering the kind of
album
Boys Don’t Cry is, and the period of time it was released,
it can be said that this effort is indeed a bold one. It is punk,
but not the bellicose, “in your face” type, with dyspeptic vocals
singing words of disestablishment, accompanied by an equally peeved
and loud guitar-musicianship. It is punk that’s gloomy, boldly and
shamelessly humorous, saturnine, gothic, and most of all,
controlled, so that it doesn’t explode and spew out things, messing
up its music altogether.
The title song of the album, the single “Boys Don’t Cry,” with
its winsome riff and chorus, may be one of The Cure’s most lovable
songs, but it is just one of the few friendly songs in the album,
along with “Jumping In Someone Else’s Train.” The rest of the songs
of
Boys Don’t Cry may hardly cross three minutes, but within
their teensy-weensy bits of time-share, they are as complicated as
the trademark ‘The Cure’ songs of the later albums, which generally
go on for not less that six minutes.
As usual, Robert Smith is off-centered with his lyrics, more
than in any of his other albums. In the later Cure albums, though
their music became more and more complicated and diverse, their
lyrics pretty much revolved around themes of love. This one has
just a couple of love songs — “Boys Don’t Cry,” and maybe “10:15
Saturday Night.” Even the latter song is not exactly a love song;
it’s about Robert Smith waiting for someone on a Saturday night,
beside a dripping tap, which is emphasized throughout the song and
in the choruses. This is probably a love song of the same weirdness
as the ones Bjork usually writes.
The rest of the album, though humorous at times, is gloomy. “The
Subway Song,” for instance, is absolutely crazy, with Robert Smith
whispering the funniest words instead of singing them, and at the
end spoiling all the fun with a blood-cuddling scream, probably
meaning, “that’s ‘The Cure’ for you.” Also, “Killing An Arab” and
“Fire In Cairo” have cute and funny lyrics, but are taken very
seriously by the band, giving an acerbic edge to these songs rather
than an amusing one.
Boys Don’t Cry is the most inaccessible Cure album. It is
also another amazing Cure album. It is perhaps the only true punk
album by this band, before it started experimenting with other
forms of music. It is atrabilious, but not as gothic as the typical
Cure sound, made popular by classics such as
The Head On The Door,
Disintegration, or even
Wish. For a debut album,
Boys Don’t Cry is too experimental to gain an instant fan
following; but it is the launching album by The Cure, and The Cure
always was and is an anomaly.