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Wild Mood Swings
Wild Mood Swings is the tenth studio album by the English rock band the Cure, released on 6 May 1996 by Fiction Records. The album charted at number nine on the UK Albums Chart, staying on the chart for six weeks, and number 12 on the US Billboard 200. However, the album was the lowest-selling Cure album in 12 years, and it marked the beginning of a downward trend in the Cure's future album sales.
Four singles were released from the album, the first being "The 13th", released in 22 April 1996, followed by "Mint Car" released on 17 June, "Strange Attraction" released in United States on 8 October and "Gone!" released in Europe on 2 December 1996.
The album saw the band explore various styles, similar to their double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987), incorporating jangle pop with "Mint Car" and "Return", jazz with "Gone!" and mariachi with "The 13th". Robert Smith said the album title came from the fact that "Lyrically and musically, we cover more stuff than we have done in the past." The album exhibits jarring track placements, which contribute to the erratic and eclectic nature of the material, from lighter poppier songs to introspective, darker material, often paired next to one another, which NME described as, "rather like a compilation album, with all the disjointedness that implies".
Wild Mood Swings was an album that saw various different changes towards the way the band approached recording their songs, such as the prominent use of computers and music software like Cubase, as well as live strings and brass instrumentation. It was also the first album released since drummer Boris Williams left the band for personal reasons in 1994 while guitarist Porl Thompson also left the group in 1993 to look after his children and joined English rock band Page and Plant.
Smith felt at the time that the previous line-up that had made Wish (1992) had "really done as much as we could. In some ways, in the back of my mind, I was slightly unsure as to what we could achieve, because we all knew each other so well. So the fact that it all kind of fell apart was a good thing. It was one of those haphazard, serendipitous things that worked in our favour."
However, Smith found it difficult to replace Boris Williams as he felt he was "a phenomenally good drummer," and found "replacing him was the most difficult thing. Not only did we have to find someone who would fit, who would get on with us and understand what the Cure is about, [he] also had to be as good a drummer as Boris, and it took months finding someone." Jason Cooper, formerly of the band My Life Story, replaced Williams on drums in 1995, answering to a Melody Maker advertisement made by the band anonymously with the brief "…famous group requires drummer – no metal heads…". Prior to Cooper's recruitment, other potential drummers included Ron Austin (The God Machine), Mark Price (All About Eve), and Louis Pavlou (Pink Turns Blue). All three drummers ultimately appeared on Wild Mood Swings. Perry Bamonte replaced Porl Thompson as the group's lead guitarist, leaving Roger O'Donnell, who returned in 1995 after leaving in 1990, to fulfil keyboard parts.
The album marked the first time the band did not work with David M. Allen as a producer since Japanese Whispers (1983). Robert Smith feared "that nothing new" would happen, had they worked with him again, saying "We've never really needed anyone to help on the creative or artistic side" and opted to get Steve Lyon, due to his younger age and his lack of "any preconceptions about the group."
The track "Club America", is inspired by a summer trip in 1994 that Smith had to New York with Perry Bamonte to watch the Football World Cup. After playing football with electronic band Depeche Mode and Daryl Bamonte, brother of Perry who would go on to work with the Cure shortly after, they all went clubbing. Smith admitted to playing "up to it then and awful lot more than I should have, and on the plane home, I wrote the song, because I was trying to, like, explain it away to myself. It's ironic, you know. I've had this photo taken with these celebrities, and I was there, and I did that, and I was full of self loathing! And that song is not anti-the girl in the "canary feather dress," it's actually anti-me because I was part of it." Rolling Stone noted Smith's put-on deeper voice on the song, citing borrowed "vocal tricks" from David Bowie and Iggy Pop, while also describing the sound as "upbeat" and that its sound invoked the "jaded thrills of nightclubbing in the American fun house." Meanwhile, Spin felt the song resembled English rock band Happy Mondays, due to its psychedelic sound and NME compared it unfavourably to Tin Machine.
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Wild Mood Swings
Wild Mood Swings is the tenth studio album by the English rock band the Cure, released on 6 May 1996 by Fiction Records. The album charted at number nine on the UK Albums Chart, staying on the chart for six weeks, and number 12 on the US Billboard 200. However, the album was the lowest-selling Cure album in 12 years, and it marked the beginning of a downward trend in the Cure's future album sales.
Four singles were released from the album, the first being "The 13th", released in 22 April 1996, followed by "Mint Car" released on 17 June, "Strange Attraction" released in United States on 8 October and "Gone!" released in Europe on 2 December 1996.
The album saw the band explore various styles, similar to their double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987), incorporating jangle pop with "Mint Car" and "Return", jazz with "Gone!" and mariachi with "The 13th". Robert Smith said the album title came from the fact that "Lyrically and musically, we cover more stuff than we have done in the past." The album exhibits jarring track placements, which contribute to the erratic and eclectic nature of the material, from lighter poppier songs to introspective, darker material, often paired next to one another, which NME described as, "rather like a compilation album, with all the disjointedness that implies".
Wild Mood Swings was an album that saw various different changes towards the way the band approached recording their songs, such as the prominent use of computers and music software like Cubase, as well as live strings and brass instrumentation. It was also the first album released since drummer Boris Williams left the band for personal reasons in 1994 while guitarist Porl Thompson also left the group in 1993 to look after his children and joined English rock band Page and Plant.
Smith felt at the time that the previous line-up that had made Wish (1992) had "really done as much as we could. In some ways, in the back of my mind, I was slightly unsure as to what we could achieve, because we all knew each other so well. So the fact that it all kind of fell apart was a good thing. It was one of those haphazard, serendipitous things that worked in our favour."
However, Smith found it difficult to replace Boris Williams as he felt he was "a phenomenally good drummer," and found "replacing him was the most difficult thing. Not only did we have to find someone who would fit, who would get on with us and understand what the Cure is about, [he] also had to be as good a drummer as Boris, and it took months finding someone." Jason Cooper, formerly of the band My Life Story, replaced Williams on drums in 1995, answering to a Melody Maker advertisement made by the band anonymously with the brief "…famous group requires drummer – no metal heads…". Prior to Cooper's recruitment, other potential drummers included Ron Austin (The God Machine), Mark Price (All About Eve), and Louis Pavlou (Pink Turns Blue). All three drummers ultimately appeared on Wild Mood Swings. Perry Bamonte replaced Porl Thompson as the group's lead guitarist, leaving Roger O'Donnell, who returned in 1995 after leaving in 1990, to fulfil keyboard parts.
The album marked the first time the band did not work with David M. Allen as a producer since Japanese Whispers (1983). Robert Smith feared "that nothing new" would happen, had they worked with him again, saying "We've never really needed anyone to help on the creative or artistic side" and opted to get Steve Lyon, due to his younger age and his lack of "any preconceptions about the group."
The track "Club America", is inspired by a summer trip in 1994 that Smith had to New York with Perry Bamonte to watch the Football World Cup. After playing football with electronic band Depeche Mode and Daryl Bamonte, brother of Perry who would go on to work with the Cure shortly after, they all went clubbing. Smith admitted to playing "up to it then and awful lot more than I should have, and on the plane home, I wrote the song, because I was trying to, like, explain it away to myself. It's ironic, you know. I've had this photo taken with these celebrities, and I was there, and I did that, and I was full of self loathing! And that song is not anti-the girl in the "canary feather dress," it's actually anti-me because I was part of it." Rolling Stone noted Smith's put-on deeper voice on the song, citing borrowed "vocal tricks" from David Bowie and Iggy Pop, while also describing the sound as "upbeat" and that its sound invoked the "jaded thrills of nightclubbing in the American fun house." Meanwhile, Spin felt the song resembled English rock band Happy Mondays, due to its psychedelic sound and NME compared it unfavourably to Tin Machine.