Taking Sides: Echo & the Bunnymen VS. The Cure.

no, hang on. echo and the bunnymen. yes. got to be.

hang on. no. let me think.

bastard!

gonna go with the cure. yes. don't ask me to explain, i'll only change my mind again.

my heart, however, tells me to pick EATB -- as an inverse to what baaderoni just said, ian mccullough spoke more incisively to ME than robert smith did. musically, they were a little chillier and more grandiose than the cure -- which suits me just fine. i listen more to my crystal days box-set than my join the dots one. and bunnymen-love pisses off miccio more than cure-love :-p

alex, i don't think that it's a matter of there being "little love for the bunnymen" so much as it's "i prefer the cure to the bunnymen." which is telling in and of itself -- EATB were always the odd man out of the 80s depressing-brit band bunch.

There are SO many early Echo moments I can't live without. You think I have no love for something like "Crocodiles" or "Over the Wall" or "Villiers Terrace" or "Gods Will Be Gods" or etc., please. (Not that you were saying that, Alex -- but perspective here is good!)

This might be what sinks it actually. I think that it might be the combination of what feels to me like the cheapness and crassness of that type of 80s pop crossed with the ultra-romantic dramatic ambitions of the music that seems so gross to me.

I know I like lots of things that are just as crass and cheesy in their own way.

i do kinda like "don't stop believin'" you know ;-)

yeah, esp. since the cure and EATB were an antidote to journey et. al. when all three were going concerns i think that this is OTM. i used to think that this was more grounded in 80s youth culture (think breakfast club and pretty in pink), though apparently those divisions haven't really died. the best that i can explain it is, that what might strike one person as "crass," "cheesy," self-indulgent et. al. would appeal to a somewhat lonely misfit suburban 80s teenage kid (like myself) as an interesting alternative to all that. think "subdivisions" for anglophiles (a song that i also love and kinda flits w/ the same vibe). it just kinda went hand-in-hand w/ growing up, discovering yer self, yer identity, etc.

Believe it or not, though, I'm inclined to think that the Bunnymen were actually the more versatile of the two. Yes, the Cure dabbled in a myriad different styles (from spritely pop, to po-faced gloom to danceable bop to ponderous doom), but in the end, it always sounds like the Cure -- no real surprises. Despite Sundar's impression ("It just feels like the cheesiest, drippiest music I've ever heard"), the Bunnymen were capable of being absolutely feral...no drippy cheese to be found. Moments like the live rendition of "Do It Clean" and/or the absolutely amazing b-side "Rollercoaster" or the afore-alluded "Thorn of Crowns" catch the band in such sharp, angsty frenzy that to get to close to them while they're performing means you'd risk getting lacerated. The Cure, by comparison, usually sound pretty blunt. The Cure -- for all of their glacial splendor, always seemed to lack a certain edge. I also think that apart from a couple of tracks on Wish, they should've hung it up after Disintegration.

I'm assuming the version on Songs To Learn & Sing isn't the live one you speak of, since it sounds far too much like "Incense & Peppermints" for me to worry about laceration. I like both songs though.

This is completely correct, even down to the 'couple of tracks on Wish'.

"Plastic Passion"
"World War"
"Primary"
"Doubt"
The entire _Pornography_ album
"Give Me It"
"Bananafishbones"
"The Baby Screams"
"Screw"
"The Kiss"
"Torture"
"The Snakepit"
"Like Cockatoos"
"All I Want"
"Shiver And Shake"
"Fight"
"Last Dance"
"Fascination Street"
"Disintegration"
"Open"
"From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea"
"Cut"
"End"
"Want"
"Trap"
"Watching Me Fall"
"39"
"Bloodflowers"
"Lost"
"Labyrinth"
"Anniversary"
"Never"

It's Mac, you divs.

Not. Even. Close.

im gonna pick the cure(shokah). but to be honest, i never paid enough attention to Echoe way back when. which means i ve got more of it now to digest.

"Plastic Passion"
"World War"
"Primary"
"Doubt"
The entire _Pornography_ album
"Give Me It"
"Bananafishbones"
"The Baby Screams"
"Screw"
"The Kiss"
"Torture"
"The Snakepit"
"Like Cockatoos"
"All I Want"
"Shiver And Shake"
"Fight"
"Last Dance"
"Fascination Street"
"Disintegration"
"Open"
"From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea"
"Cut"
"End"
"Want"
"Trap"
"Watching Me Fall"
"39"
"Bloodflowers"
"Lost"
"Labyrinth"
"Anniversary"
"Never"

-- Dan Perry '08 (djperr...), October 18th, 2004."

File under: "Posts you knew were Dan before scrolling halfway down."

Your spiritual compatriot Matt Maxwell is a massive fan of it, and would urge you to see it sharpish. I would say this too.

It's a cringe-making kind of song, isn't it?

Good lord no, it's merry and the video is great.

(xpost HAHAHA Didn't Phil also produce _Pornography_???)

Is this not in fact the point? It's giddy and goofy.

Meanwhile The Cure have just plodded stolidly on.

Each to his own. Goth camp never really did it for me!

But so did the Sultans of Ping FC. *hides*

Actually does the credit for all that go more to the band or to Drummond and his habit of snorting ley lines?

Goth camp never really did it for me!

What goth ISN'T camp? The best ones are those who get the joke.

(xpost Meanwhile The Cure have just plodded stolidly on. I Cannot get behind this sentiment AT ALL. Echo may have been a fantastic live band but I never saw or heard them and the idea that their live performances would be THAT MUCH BETTER than their recorded output, which by and large makes no impression on me, sets off gigantic "these guys suffer from 10,000 Maniacs Syndrome" warning bells for me and prejudices me against liking them.)

Either you are joking without a smile on your face or you are just plain wrong (I'd prefer the former approach).

Er, I would tend to think the more obvious breaking point would be between Pornography and "Let's Go to Bed," at least in terms of musical approach.

I am struggling to explain what it is that EATB did/do that is so special. I think with the Mac/Will/Les/PDF line-up it was a case of having quite inventive drums and especially guitar, yet still all working within the bounds of the song. All their best songs have great hooks, yet sound unforced and effortless. And that exactly complements Mac - swaggering, but never looking or sounding like he cared *too much*. I just think the Cure sound like it's all a bit of an effort.

After the Top/Ocean Rain I can't really see what the two groups had in common at all, (a similar fanbase maybe?)

Yeah, the Smashing Pumpkins, for one, were really damned obscure here in the nineties in the US. As was Jane's Addiction.

Adam Clayton of U2 in --- was it Blender or Q -- recently commented that some of his bass parts sounded particularly Bunnymenesque...following up with some quip about "going back to our roots" or some shit.

They made not admit it (well, by now they would), but if you've ever heard "Wasteland" by the Mission, you should be able to pick out their obvious reverence for the Bunnymen ("Over the Wall" in particular).

i will have to dig out my mission records and have a listen

This is the thread where you post in the style of Wayne Hussey

Aw, Doomie, am mad busy until the end of next week but after then, yes yes fun. Have to send an invite to AMcG for the crazy thing I'm working on that I'm not talking about here. Mail at my Yahoo address, suzy(surname)@yahoodotcodotuk. Any probs, mail Ed!

First time I interviewed RS I was (just, still) dating a certain Creation artiste whose 4AD band had opened for the Cure in Edinburgh in the wayback. Nick had told me about this juxtaposition before I went to meet RS and we were shooting the shit in between questions and in the middle of the bit where they ask about 'you' they asked if I had a boyfriend and when I said who it was, RS and Perry started running around, yelling 'her boyfriend's a pervert! She's shagging a pervert!'

Back in the days when my friends and I used to hang out near stage doors at soundcheck time (couldn't go to ID shows etc so we connived to watch soundchecks, also allowed us to meet bands ) we met both groups and the Bunnymen brought New Order with them in '88. I cannot BELIEVE Dan missed that show.

robert smith stands in for john peel on his radio show sometime this week btw. as does siouxie: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/index.shtml

Dan wasn't allowed to go to shows until 1991 because Dan's parents were overprotective and paranoid. (I could depress everyone and tell WHY they were overprotective but suffice to say I lived far enough out of town that sneaking out of the house was not an option.)

Maybe I'll check out those other E&tB albums. If they're anything like what Alex makes them sound like, they'd have to be pretty damn different from what I've heard.

If it was based on singles only, then The Cure win by a furlong and two lengths.

I think you might have fun checking out the various Interpol threads in the archives for possible answers to that question. ;-)

here is that live version of "do it clean" that Alex in NYC referred to a decade ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KCSQk5ZvSA

E&TB were indeed a fearsome live band ca 1980-84, as evidenced above.

this is a tough question! burning incandescent for four years VS in-for-the-long-haul. a pleasant dilemma.

I like Echo & The Bunnymen, but The Cure have always meant more to me.

Cure all the way and I love both bands. But yeah, Cure.