Emerging from Crawley in the UK in the late 70s, The Cure have always been lumped into the Gothic Rock sphere mostly due to lead singer Robert Smith's get up that endeared himself to the millions of terminally depressed coffin kids the world over but I see the band in a whole new light. To me they're an integral part of the post-punk/new wave scene with a lot of their records being right up dance alley. Mr Scruff famously ended his sets with Love Cats for quite some time and I saw a video of a guy scratching over the track at a hip hop/sneaker event to a load of backpacks the other night, so they definitely do have a wider appeal than the rest of the Gothic Rock bands of whom I couldn't really name any in all truth.
Here's a random anecdote. My sister dated a guy who was a bit of a coffin kid and they took me off to a goth club when I was 16 and being the adventurous type I went in a pair of blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a jean jacket (it was the early-90s, so not a word), which in a sea of black made me stick out just a bit and when I walked in the place was swarming with all manners of oddballs but that didn't seem to bother me in the slightest and I started talking to all and sundry about what they did, what shade of lipstick was a no-no and all manners of rubbish really and what I found was that most of them came from upper middle-class families and worked in the medical field scarily enough. I ended the night by drinking shots of God knows what with a girl who was so pale she was practically translucent and drawing smiley faces with my trusty marker all over the place before being caught and thrown out head first into the street. The place did shut a short time after and became The Boiler Room where a lot of my friends first experienced dance music, so it wasn't a loss really. Now I'm not saying that my doodles had anything to do with it but karma is a bitch, remember that my friends. My friend Steven McNulty is known to wear a t-shirt that says 'Cheer Up Goth' and that always makes me chuckle.
Anyway I've massively digressed here, this track Hot Hot Hot!!! to me is a dance record and one that were it not for Robert's dulcet tones would have been appropriated by the beard scene a long time ago. I think its great and I've been known to sneak it into my sets from time to time. It's quite a happy tune made by a guy who has a face like a slapped arse. Brilliant.
The Cure - Hot Hot Hot!!!
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