(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Thu 12 February 2026 9:01, UK
In terms of British rock bands, it does not get much more cherished than The Cure. Emerging from the progressive landscape of the post-punk movement of the late 1970s, the Crawley band have experienced a career that has had many twists and turns, both artistically and personally, but they’ve invariably produced brilliance in what is a clear testament to their collective skill.
The Cure’s back catalogue is one of the most eclectic of the last 40 years. Whether it be the cold minimalism of Seventeen Seconds, the stoned alt-rock of The Head on the Door, or the sugary pop of Wish, there are many stellar moments in The Cure’s discography, with these just three of the main highlights.
Ostensibly, The Cure are carried by frontman and guitarist Robert Smith, who is the band’s only original member and their driving force since day one. A dextrous musician and poet, Smith can take inspiration from anywhere, be it film, literature, or real life, to create tracks that are in one part surreal and another thought-provoking.
A consumer of popular culture, this has imbued The Cure’s music with the familiarity that has made them so universally loved by people from all walks of life. This has also kept their efforts fresh and has alleviated any danger of being bogged down by genre-specific cliches.
But perhaps the greatest stereotype Smith and the band have been tarnished with is that they are, generally, quite depressing. While there is some validity to the claim, the truth is far more nuanced. Yes, the band found themselves on the glummer side of life from time to time, but the truth is more that they rejected the mainstream notion of being happy all the time.
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
It meant that when the group achieved mainstream success with a run of beloved pop tunes, it irked Smith. He felt compelled to reject songs like ‘Love Cats’ and ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ to a certain degree. It felt like they had been the most easily acceptable part of the band’s output and, so, had been enjoyed by the masses. That was naturally a tough pill for Smith to swallow. But one song would trump them for pushing him over the edge.
One of the band’s best-loved songs is the dreamy yet depressing ‘Pictures of You’, the fourth and final single from their 1989 masterpiece Disintegration. The album was such a critical and commercial success that it helped the band to break into America, shipping two million copies across the pond and setting the scene for the successes of the 1990s that the band would enjoy.
Interestingly, whilst ‘Pictures of You’ is one of The Cure’s best songs, it is also one of their most depressing and has long made fans wonder just what Smith’s mental state was like when writing it. While many speculated a troubled relationship, Smith wasn’t heartbroken in the conventional sense, as Mary Poole, his wife, had been his significant other since they were teenagers.
The song is actually based on Myra Poleo’s essay The Dark Power of Ritual Pictures. Later, Smith claimed that after he read it, he destroyed his old personal photos and home videos in an effort to wipe away the past. Immediately after, he deeply regretted the experiment, which fed into the heartbroken essence of the track.
Speaking to Music Box TV in 1989, Smith explained the emotions that underpinned the lyrics: “It’s about the idea you hold someone. It goes back a bit to a song like ‘How Beautiful You Are.’ The idea of you hold someone isn’t really what that person is like. Sometimes you completely lose touch with what a person has turned into. You just want to hold onto what they were.”
Despite the song being so very depressing, it, like Disintegration, was a resounding success, with ‘Pictures of You’ going on to be one of the band’s most famous tracks, loved by people who wouldn’t necessarily be fans of the band’s other works. Its immense success has long been something of a point of personal conflict for Robert Smith.
Notably, Smith has always been against licensing his music for commercials, something that can be attributed to his lifelong position as a punk. However, in 2004, he abandoned this stance for a Hewlett-Packard advert promoting a digital camera. That said, he did maintain that The Cure had no other choice as they needed money to keep control of their catalogue as their deal at Polydor and Fiction Records was coming to an end.
At the time, Smith explained that allowing ‘Pictures of You’ to be in the advert “fucking killed” him was the only way to secure the band’s future. He said: “I’m so against music in adverts, it f–king killed me even agreeing to that, but it was the only way. The money generated from those adverts went into buying me control on our back catalogue, otherwise it would have been like mortgaging the band.”
There are countless adages available to sum up this exchange, but a “deal with the Devil” is perhaps the most apt. Yes, Smith likely hated himself and the song, for some time after agreeing to let the track be used in advertisements. It was a move that went against Smith’s and the band’s ethos. But it did allow them to gain control of the group and give The Cure a brand new life. All is well that ends well then, I guess.