Japanese Whispers

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I suggested that we were going to do something that’s kind of like a Disney take on jazz, based around the Aristocats. And suddenly everything we did started to sell.” This new direction would earn the band their first two top 20 hits in both the UK and Ireland. Japanese Whispers would also be the band’s first album to chart in the US. Disintegration, released in 1989, made them almost superstars on the strength of their single " Lovesong / 2 Late", even if the album was dark and not as catchy as their previous "mainstream" albums. They tried to capitalize that success releasing the mix album Mixed Up, and an accompanying new single, " Never Enough / Harold and Joe", which showed prevailing dancefloor influences. However, even if it sold respectably, it wasn't well received.

On its original release, Japanese Whispers charted in the UK Album charts on December 24 in 1983, and was the first album by the band to enter the Billboard 200 in the US in early 1984.

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The band regrouped later in 1983, adding Andy Anderson on drums (as Tolhurst moved to keyboards) and Phil Thornalley on bass. That year they released a handful of singles, later compiled in Japanese Whispers, and a critically panned album, The Top, the following year. These releases showed the band pursuing a poppier sound, reflected in their chart success in the UK, with " The Lovecats" becoming their first top 10 hit. The albums that followed, Faith (1981) and Pornography (1982), did not receive any great commercial or critical success, but instead helped in developing a devoted cult following. However, there were tensions in the band and Gallup exited in 1982. When Smith joined the Banshees in 1983, The Cure were briefly inactive, with Smith also collaborating on an album with Banshees' Steve Severin under the name of The Glove. The Cure’s Japanese Whispers is coming to Picture Disc for the first time on 26th March 2021. The announcement follows the band auctioning off a signed guitar ampfor the Milk Crate Theatre.

Their crossover success was solidified by their 1986 singles compilation Staring at the Sea: The Singles, and by their first US top 40 single, " Just Like Heaven / Snow in Summer", still one of the band's most popular tunes, which also appeared on the successful 1987 double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. In 1985, with a new line up featuring Boris Williams on drums, Porl Thompson as an additional guitarist and a returning Simon Gallup on bass, The Cure built on their commercial success with the album The Head on the Door, and its singles " In Between Days / The Exploding Boy" and " Close to Me / A Man Inside My Mouth", which also were their first minor hits in America. When asked about The similarities between “The Walk” and “Blue Monday”, Robert Smith had this to say:

I tend to call this release The Fly - a gander at the cover should explain why. But that's not the title - when The Cure tied together this collection of singles and b-sides, they ( he morelike) listlessly titled it The Walk, which of course was the title of one of the singles. Which is fine. I'll call this The Fly if i want to, and you can't stop me. You know that would be a better name for it anyway. On December 6th 1983, The Cure released the singles collection Japanese Whispers, which for all intents and purposes can be considered to be a proper Cure album, despite it being for the most part unrepresentative of the sound Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst had set out to create—far removed from the previous effort, 1982’s masterpiece Pornography. The following year, two additional (and even more successful, as it turned out) poppy singles were made available to the public - a grateful public, it seemed, with ‘The Walk’ reaching #12, and ‘The Lovecats’ faring even better, hitting an impressive #7 position in 1983 on the reformed-goths home turf. The singles marked a change of direction in The Cure’s sound, so it’s convenient then, that fans were offered an opportunity to collect the aforementioned singles (and their respective b-sides) in one, neat bundle entitled ‘Japanese Whispers’, to investigate this unassumingly important chapter in the bands eclectic catalogue. Japanese Whispers is the third compilation album of Cure singles and B-sides released between Nov 1982 and Nov 1983, originally released by Fiction Records. Recorded during a transitional phase after bassist Simon Gallup left following the Pornography promo tour, Andy Anderson joined the band on drums, while former drummer Lol Tolhurst switched to keyboard duties, and Phil Thornalley played bass. The album includes Cure standbys such as Let’s Go to Bed, The Walk, and The Lovecats, as well as the fantastic b-side Just One Kiss.

Thrillseekers slam Lightwater Valley for 'only having baby rides' after shutting down favourite attractions In a 2004 interview with Rolling Stone, Smith detailed what contributed to the shift in style. “I didn’t want that side of life anymore; I wanted to do something that’s really kind of cheerful. I thought, “This isn’t going to work. No one’s ever gonna buy into this. It’s so ludicrous that I’m gonna go from a goth idol to a pop star in three easy lessons. By now, O'Donnell had left and been replaced by Perry Bamonte and this was the line-up that recorded Wish in 1992. By this time, they were as close as ever to the mainstream audience, as the success of the single " Friday I'm in Love / Halo" evidenced. As a result, Wish was a commercial success, but it wasn't well received by the critics. Biography In January 1976, guitarist Robert Smith and bassist Michael Dempsey formed Malice with guitarist Mark Ceccagno while at school together. They were joined by a drummer known as Graham and his brother on vocals. By April of that year the line-up had changed to feature Smith and Dempsey alongside drummer Lol Tolhurst, guitarist Porl Thompson and vocalist Martin Creasy. When Creasy left the group in January 1977 the remaining members changed the group name to Easy Cure, and after two vocalists, Gary X and Peter O'Toole, passed through the group, the group setted as a quartet in September 1977 with Smith stepping up to the vocalist role alongside his role as guitarist. Following Thompson's departure in April 1978 the group became The Cure. Cellphones are laid in a circle and calls are initiated from one phone to another in a variety of patterns with differing results. Japanese Whispers audience interactionJapanese Whispers is a mini-album that collects previously-released songs on various singles from November 1982 to November 1983. It marks a significant change in the band’s sound. Smith told Rolling Stone with a laugh that after spending time recovering at his parents' house after touring in support Pornography, he ‘decided to be a pop star’: Japanese Whispers is the second compilation album by British group The Cure. It was released in late 1983 by Fiction Records. The title is a pun on the children's game Chinese whispers.

In the video for The Lovecats, on the doublebass is Phil Thornalley, who produced The Cure’s Pornography. Thornalley would perform live with The Cure off and on until Simon Gallup rejoined the band for 1985’s The Head on The Door. Andy Anderson would round up the live lineup on drums, and also contributed to The Glove’s Blue Sunshine LP. Here is some footage of the The Cure in Paris recording Lovecats Yorkshire Pudding Pie company is officially a thing - and it might just be the most Yorkshire combo ever The songs were recorded when the band was in a transitional phase. In 1982, bassist Simon Gallup left following the Pornography tour and musician Lol Tolhurst switched from drums to the keyboards. There are versions of The Walk that are singles rather than EPs, and those include just Walk alongside this, this being the b-side. And boy is it the exact b-side of The Walk you might expect. In that it is cut from similar cloth, and is far far less impressive or interesting. That is all I have to say about it.

Additionally, below is an interesting interview with Robert Smith from October 17th, 1983. Recorded later on the day Play at Home was done at the Riverside, Mr. Smith discusses The Walk EP, the Banshee’s Nocturne live LP, and recording demos for The Top. A nice touch is Lol Tolhurst’s shout-out for producing Baroque Bordello and And Also the Trees. Casbah, the cooling towers and Redgates: Things we took for granted in Sheffield that are gone forever This pressing will be the first time Japanese Whispers is ever released on picture disc, and made available exclusively at The Cure Store& Rhino Store. Prior to the recording of their following album, growing tensions between Smith and an increasingly unreliable Tolhurst prompted the latter's exit from the band. He was replaced by Roger O'Donnell. Considerably more ear catching than The Dream, but not by enough for my hopes. It benefits from a catchy guitar hook, and that goes a ways I suppose. Ultimately that makes it respectable filler. All else I can say is that it's more guitar based than synth based.