#360 (0f 365) "Push" The Cure

The Cure were once one of my 3 favorite bands of all time, along with The Smiths and New Order, and the three bands will find themselves on this chart a lot, even as I don't really listen to them anymore. In fact, while compiling this chart, I discovered that The Cure had released a new album in 2024, its first in over a decade, and--I didn't listen to it. Even after learning about it. It's just I first got into The Cure in high school, in 1987 with "Just Like Heaven" and that's--well, a whole lot of years of fandom and it's pretty impossible to keep up liking the music for that long, consistently. A lot of it has to do with my music taste evolving, or maybe the bands not evolving, or me generally losing interest as bands get too popular or too stale or... something. It's tough to place my finger on it but it happens to almost every band I've ever been a huge die-hard fan of --even if they're one of my 3 or 5 favorite bands of all time at the time... at some point they fade... replaced by newer bands or different bands, and I don't really even listen to their "old stuff" anymore. It's not just the 80s bands. Anyone who read my Vague Space music blog knows how much I used to adore Modest Mouse or Bright Eyes or Arcade Fire or Death Cab for Cutie, even. None of them are in my regular rotation anymore, and haven't been for years. Bright Eyes also came out with a new album this year and I have not had any desire to listen. I'm not going to like it, I realize that. I'd rather find something new.

The other night, a friend was heading to the Duran Duran show at MSG (I was shocked they were playing MSG, let alone touring) and I was telling him about the show I had seen the night before for Beach Fossils at Brooklyn Monarch. Duran Duran was a huge 1980s band (I was never a big fan, but I liked them fine at the time). Beach Fossils debuted in the 2010s. That's a 30 year difference. MSG holds 20K people. Brooklyn Monarch maybe 500? That's another huge difference. My friend is my age and I would guess seeing older bands he grew up with are what most people my age do. In fact, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, and other stadium acts have all played the area in recent months and a lot of people around my age have been spending hundreds and thousands to see them. I've never seen Pearl Jam live. I freaking loved Ten and listened to it all the time in 1992. But it never even occurred to me to want to see them live. I don't listen to them anymore and haven't in decades now. None of their tracks are on this list. Beach Fossils is.

I'm not sure what any of it means except that The Cure was a great band in 1985 when Head on the Door was released, featuring two songs that will be on this list, including "Push". I don't know if they're releasing good music in 2024 (40 years! later). Maybe they are, and maybe I'm the one missing out. But I'd rather stew at the unnecessary mosh pit at an overheated, overcrowded Brooklyn Monarch watching Beach Fossils with a bunch of under-30 year olds every day of the week.

"Go go go. Go go go. PUSH IT AWAY."