Customer Reviews

String Quart Tribute to Cure

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been waiting a long time with a fantasy that someone would do some symphonic versions of some Cure songs. While a quartet is less grand than a full orchestra, "Whisper" still does the trick, and the quartets here are nothing to be disppointed by.

The songs on this album are imaginative versions of Cure songs, arranged for string quartet. Duh, right? Well, this project COULD have been drums and guitar with a violin playing Robert's vocal parts...considering this, I give "Whisper" high marks, even though I wish other less-known but more appropriate songs would have made the album ("A Few Hours After This," "To the Sky," "Treasure," etc). Bonus points for the covering of two newer tracks, "Bloodflowers" and "Maybe Someday." The version of "Just Like Heaven," The Cure's most covered song, joins the ranks of such great covers as Deadsy's and Dinosaur Jr's.

As I say, the arrangements are very close to the original songs, but don't adhere so closely that you think "why bother?" Vocal melodies are approximated - not duplicated - by the strings, which is what I prefer. The arrangement of "Hot Hot Hot" varies the furthest from the original, making a surprisingly wonderfully sombre piece out of the original chintsy tune. Pizzicato figures in nicely on a few tunes, as well.

The original tune "Zazen" sounds more like a Cure pastiche than a Cure-inspired tune; you'll probably be placing different parts of it with different songs. However, as nice as this tune is, I'd much rather have heard another full cover than this. (Granted, I'd rather the track be on it than have only 9 tracks on the album).

Overall, I'd recommend this album to huge Cure fans (who else would buy a tribute album anyway?). While not meeting my hugely high expectations (full orchestra, rare songs), this cd does a LOT better than what could have happened (listen to the "Pride" tribute to U2 to know what I mean). A good, solid album. Maybe this is naive, but I recommend buying this album rather than bootlegging, just so that the industry knows how welcome a project like this is (can we get any more, perhaps? : )

** Two stars generously given for the idea and production. **

Okay I'm not a fan of Cure covers, in fact I can't seem to think of one that I like, most of them make me mad that it was even attempted. I love strings and the fact that Roberts vocal lines arent attempted I thought this was going to be the missing link of Cure covers/tributes...

So when I first saw this album, my jaw dropped, I couldn't believe my eyes. Stared at it in awe for a minute, purely overjoyed, bought it and RAN to my car to listen to it. . . . Was interesting... Then I got it home, sat down and really listened to the entire thing, to be incredibly disappointed. It's not "BAD", it's a great idea, it was put together very good .. BUT .. The track selection is everything that is wrong with this. In my opinion, most of these songs were HORRIBLE choices. I don't think many of these work well with a string quartet. A few, yeah okay, aren't bad, but could have been much better with the proper tracks. They selected mostly the more upbeat pop singles, Just Like Heaven? Lovecats? C'mon...

This would have been INCREDIBLE if they did songs like Same Deep Water as You, All Cats are Grey, Kyoto Song, Sinking, If only Tonight we can Sleep, Faith, Apart... Things like that, slower songs. The upbeat pop songs, don't work for me with a quartet.

Great idea, wonderfully done, but terrible terrible track selection.

If I had heard this before I bought it, I wouldn't have, think about this before you purchase this.

I really thought this was going to be something special, like the Joy Division string Tribute which I HIGHLY recomend over this one, in fact go and get that right now if your looking for a string tribute.

About what you'd expect. You can tell that they're the songs by The Cure. The gimmick wore off after about 4 or 5 songs. It's not bad. It's just not great. If you've heard the other string quartet tributes, it's on par with those.

If you are a fan of the Cure, or if you are a fan of any string quartets, forget about it. This album (and all the rest of the String Quartet Tribute albums for that matter) is BS. I am a classical cellist and a huge fan of the Cure, and this CD just pisses me off. These guys are trying to make some profit off of some amazing original music. The sound is horrible, technically they areextremely average, and there is no spirit to the music. Some ass clown probably arranged all of these songs for a bunch of classical players who don't even appreciate the original artist. They play like a bunch of greedy dinguses, and they sound phony. Don't support these guys, just stick to the originals.

... so I give this one ill deserved star. I love classical music. In particular I love string quartets. The Cure is fantastic. I thought this piece of junk might be magical. Hah! The arrangements are boring. The pace is ponderous. These "tributes" completely miss the point of the original wonderful cure songs. The only selection that isn't utter trash is "Lovecats". It's actually pretty good. I actually did discard this useless CD after the second bleak listen.

Ok, so, what the hey. The String Quartet tributes are popping up like bloody mushrooms after a spring rain, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Not that it's a bad idea -- many of the bands covered are probably well managed by these instruments -- but this one, and the two TOOL I also own, are not exactly inspiring. (And if you can recognize "Hot Hot Hot !!!" by ear without being told, you deserve an award.) Everything is played blandly, and, in some cases, fairly oddly -- many notes are played counter to what would conceivably work better.

The selections are crap; possibly, the group wanted a mix of everything, but it's all mostly new, and mostly music that isn't even suited to the instruments. I shudder to think what would have happened if "The Cure" came out before this one. Terrible songs played even worse, most likely.

But, if you simply like instrumental music, it's not bad. It's just not necessarily The Cure.