The Cure's Greatest Hits

80's music nostalgia is rampant these days. For someone like me who graduated in the early eighties that makes sense of course. The eighties certainly saw a great variety of music. The early eighties for us cool kids meant Van Halen before Jump brought them to the whole world's attention, Bruce singing Nebraska and not Born in the USA, and of course the first last album by the who It's Hard which featured Athena and Eminence Front. The ultimate test of course is did you buy The Final Cut by Pink Floyd and if you did, did you get it?

With all that however what I find one of the more enjoyable trips down 80's nostalgia is the melancholy music of the second half of the eighties. On the First Wave satellite station it often seems between The Cure and The Smith's with a little Thompson Twins thrown in they have time for little else. And surprisingly for me, that is just fine.

Maybe it is because while I was aware of these bands the first time around they were not overplayed on my floor in college. Whatever the reason The Cure in recent weeks has certainly become turn it up music in my vehicle. My kids look at me and say " Really Dad?" It is kind of a two fold look. Not just this is awful but this is not your normal awful music. So I will be the first to admit it is a stretch.

However as the saying goes the heart wants what the heart wants. Listening to The Cure's Greatest Hits album this morning there is no doubt of my being dead on in my assessment.

I cannot listen to Close to Me without tapping my foot. The stomp beat, post Clash and the absolute unique voice of Robert Smith on Why Can"t I Be You is infectious. Now truth be told this music is not for everyone. I have a friend who I am sure would revoke my membership in the he man club if he read this but I think it is well known I am pretty open when it comes to music.

Eventually The Cure went a tiny bit more mainstream or mainstream went a tiny bit more Cure and songs like Just Like Heaven became a success on the mainstream charts. Smith's vocal is a little clearer but he still had the breathy quality you either appreciated or did not. He certainly was not going to change. The peak of the mainstream success, rightly so, came about with " Lovesong" which by any standard is a great performance.

Also on the greatest hits album is one of my favorites. Lullaby, perhaps because it does not make any effort at being liked, it is odd, and Smith's voice is the voice that we remember when he was just the hardcore groups. The Cure really never got enough credit for the cleverness of their songs, the beats, the music itself, much stronger than was thought. Smith's voice, so original, tended to dominate everything else.

One cannot neglect the poppy " Friday I'm in Love " which appeared like a bolt of sunshine in the early nineties. You had to sing along, it was infectious, but the question for most Cure fans was what the hell is this. Did Mr. Smith finally get some anti depressants. No matter the song was one of their most popular and with the contrast to previous records it certainly was original.

I have to offer however that a couple of songs are inexplicably missing. Fascination Street which featured Smith in full Smith voice and has been offered in multiple versions for the hardcore fans certainly should be on this compilation. The obviously missing song in any collection of The Cure's Greatest Hits however is not including Pictures of You. When I think of everything that makes one think of music from The Cure this song has it. When Smith sings" I've been looking so long at these Pictures of You that I almost believe that they're real" captures all the sadness and depression that good or bad encompassed so much of the music of The Cure.

This band made many memorable songs, when you look over a list, you are shocked to realize just how much music they made. With Morrisey touring to stand out reviews in the states right now one wonders if a reborn Cure might not be far behind.

And the Cradle Will Rock by Van Halen

This might be one of the best just turn it up, hit the gas pedal songs you will ever hear. Here is a stereotype or two for you. I was driving to my eye doctor's late this evening, he stays open late on Tuesday evenings, to get my glasses fixed as I had sat on them. Why had I sat on them? Because when I take them off and set them down I cannot see them.

So here I am in my mid forties, late forties, with old bones, eyes that do not work anymore and a litany of aches and pains. One thing I do know though is a great rock song when I hear it. With all the different permutations of Van Halen over the last twenty years it is easy to forget or hard to remember just how great a band they were from the late seventies to the mid eighties.

Everything worked. They rocked.

They never were better than on this song. How many times as you heard David Lee ask " Have you seen Jr's grades? " have you slid the volume up waiting for the guitars and drums to crash back in.

When you hear this song turn it up, even if you can still hear it fine at low volume. This song needs volume and if your like me it will take you back to a time when the future was unknown and the idea of being a suburban parent car pooling kids seemed as likely as, well, as likely as Van Halen still existing thirty years later only Eddie having a plastic hip, no teeth, and having kicked out Micheal Anthony to replace him with his son named Wolfgang. Sometimes my friends the truth is stranger than fiction.

That is alright. As we get older we learn that little turns out as we expected. That is why we relish a song like this. Great then, great now, some things, thankfully, do not change.

A Different Kind of Truth by Van Halen

Van Halen is one of those landmark bands. Divided into the David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar era's. With a bit of a soap opera slant over the last twenty years with Eddie's divorce, Eddie losing his teeth, Eddie's alcoholism, the infamous Gary Cherrone period, the Sammy fueds, firing Micheal Anthony to place Wolfgang in the band, Van Halen has been known for about anything but music.

While it is true that the six albums Van Halen released through 1984 did not have a great deal of range it is also true that these albums had some fantastic songs, even if they all could have appeared on one longplay album and saved us all much time.

Still when reviewung my high school years the songs of Van Halen are front and center. Deservedly so.

The release of A Diffent Kind of Truth was a bit of a surprise. Rumors have been the diet of the Van Halen crowd for years so when this album appeared just a month after the announcemtn of it we all felt a bit surprised.

After listening to the album however we have a differnt feeling. It is not deja vu. It is boredom. Now I think a fair question to ask is does the music miss the mark by that much or do I. I am not a teenager anymore. A 45 year old man cannot review music in the same way as a teenager can. I find the same thing with new Jayhawks, and new Bruce that I do with new Van Halen. Music cannot have the same impact when your 45 as does music that you have heard for the last thirty years and has become part of your DNA.

This album is just not that good. I wish it was. What I do not know is could anything grab me like Van Halen I and II. The first single Tattoo is solid. When we are told it contains remenants of riffs from the seventies we are not surprised. On the song Big River I hear some shredding from Eddie that certainly sounds familiar. Maybe it is hearing David Lee make references to Facebook, it just does not click. All I know is if I never hear this album or any songs on it again in my life I will not care. I will however be listening to And The Cradle Will Rock when I am sixty however.