Never Enough: The Story of the Cure

by Jeff Apter

The first major, definitive biography of these post-punk survivors. Never Enough traces The Cure’s roots in middle-class Crawley, Sussex, and tracks their gradual rise, revealing how their first major album Pornography, almost ended the band well before their multi-platinum career began.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir

338 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Jeff Apter is the author of more than 30 books, many dealing with the world of music. He has written biographies of Keith Urban, Malcolm and Angus Young of AC/DC, Jeff Buckley and the Bee Gees. As ghostwriter, he has worked with ARIA Hall of Famers Kasey Chambers and Richard Clapton, and AC/DC’s Mark Evans. He was also the creative consultant for the award–nominated live production A State of Grace: The Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley and spent four years on staff at Rolling Stone Australia.

Reviews

[Mariel · Rating 1 out of 5]

No one lifts their hands
No one lifts their eyes
Justified with empty words
The party just gets better and better

I went away alone
With nothing left
But faith. The Cure's "Faith"

But first the hyperbole. The most fudgin' flippin' to darn worst music biography book I've ever read. I've been bored in a fabric store less bored than this. I could Houdini with my hands behind my back submerged in the sea with the key at the bottom of a different ocean write a better book about The Cure than this. In my sleep. When my dog didn't take no from an answer from smaller dogs at the dog park I walked away whistling. Not my dog. I don't know this Jeff Apter guy. He is dead to me. But first my review and then I'll whistle. I should have gone with a different whistling analogy. I can't stand tuneless whistling that sounds like it's the tv static noise to fill in the space for a person who bores the heck out of you who had been thinking some full-filling stuff yourself before they started torturing you with the shrill noise. I don't get the point of Never Enough as a biography of The Cure any more than I understand people who have to stand right beside me and whistle something that isn't even a song because they don't know what else to do. Why does this exist? Since as a little girl I discovered the band on an episode of Beavis and Butt-head I will now make my catatonic what the hey face. I feel dumber and dirtier and on a couch eating stale nachos. Hey, what the hey? (My apologies to anyone if my mouth frothing hit those in the front row.)

Oh yeah, I read this because I didn't know what else to do. I was too tired to concentrate on much and blah blah I found music trivia soothing a long time ago and return to this method again and again despite that it doesn't work anymore. The Beatles Anthology was a long time ago. It isn't going to happen for me. I won't be able to tell myself stories about German fans staring at the boys while they are sweating night after night. Something good that happened once isn't happening right now as if I'm in a tv episode about a time traveler.

Blah blah blah some stuff culled from ancient official Cure website press material blah blah maybe some 1980s official biography Ten Imaginary Years that I remembered as if I had read it yesterday and not when I was twelve blah blah blah Robert Smith talked a lot of poop and then he talked more poop to contradict the poop that he had already pooped. I remember one (it doesn't appear in this book) that he bought a diary farm because he loved to drink milk so much. Nothing as good as the yarns spooled by Tom Waits when he sits down at the live needle. Last year I read a biography on Waits (The Wild Years) that respected his privacy and took the Virginia Woolf truth in lies (I like this version of truths myself) approach. The book was not the Tom Waits book of my dreams because it didn't transform me into the kind of person who is so comfortable in themselves that to live in imagination and reality to support the other is possible. I can't live without the fantasy and I will probably try to distract myself with shitty music books instead of making real life steps to fix anything. I want to be Tom Waits and survive in both. But it is unfair to expect that from a book. I'm sorry to Jay S. Wilds for that vicious review that I wrote on his book last year. He's probably forgiven me by now. So blah blah blahing again Robert Smith kicked everyone out of the band, this guy was WRONG he said guitar bands were on the way OUT! In the year this song came out it meant... That has nothing to do with The Cure. There's an entire chapter on the forgettable 1998 South Park episode featuring Robert Smith. This time Robert Smith treated everyone to rounds of booze! Mary Poole (Smith's childhood sweetheart and wife) commandeered a bar! Lol Tolhurst pretended he was Boy George for hours and hours and hours and it was an ensuing riot of belly laughs. Apter is probably the most annoying any time he drools over stupid parties and when stupid Melissa Der Auf Maur announced them at some stupid MTV function when they awarded them. MTV actually seems to matter in the world this books is set in. It's all about the hits, the pop making machine. The glitz got in my eye.

But did you know that if you love music you're a psychotic freak? Sometimes it's all important to be greeted by screams in Brazil and then the fans are assholes for cheering in a stadium for some later show. Oh my god Wild Mood Swings wasn't as big of a hit as expected (because it wasn't a good record). But the fans were driving him to death! In this book Robert Smith writes music to say fudge off to the fans. I'm gonna write a poppy Let's go to Bed because I don't like that people liked the earlier albums Faith, Pornography and Seventeen Seconds. But later I'm gonna write gloomier songs because Wish was too popular and I wanna chase off the come-lately fans. What is this stuff? At one point Apter belittles the fans who were disappointed to have to purchase two back lot albums they already owned to have access to a new release of live songs (Entreat). What monsters!

As Smith did his best to soothe the savage Cure fan...

I remember some of how this stuff went down and I recall that Smith's complaints were directed to journalists (Hey, Apter?) and not fans of his music. Why would you write music with the sole purpose of driving away people who you thought liked you for the wrong reasons? To keep people off guard? And then later turn around and say you want to chase off these newer people and it was the older people you loved all along.

I would say that the book should have been about the music. But not written by Apter. His musical insight is as if he walked into a room and could only see that the lights were off. He would walk into another room and say the same thing. He wouldn't stay and he wouldn't leave. There would be a hallway stretching past the eye could see and for him it would be nothing because he was blind. Or maybe someone would uncork a bottle of champagne and he could write about how neat that was. Hey, Robert Smith wanted an expensive sports car for his wife. I'm rolling my eyes. It makes a sound in the dark like an audible sigh.

When I was seventeen I read a Robert Smith quote that music didn't mean anything after you were seventeen years old. I remember thinking that was dog poop. It was probably a thing to run the mouth off about because someone was listening to you or you had to fill some noise. If you play three hour shows, play the old albums in their entirety in one night, you sing it like you still mean it. That music doesn't bleed out of you on the clicking of a tock. Unless you are listening for only that sound, the line drawn at the end sound. I don't like these angles. If Smith was in a position that he hated to be that person was it anyone else that put him there than himself? If Apter was right that his sole driving motivation was maneuvering on what he thought others wanted how could it have been anything else? But it wasn't that. If Apter was right and that the song "End" is a "Fuck off" to "fans" who held him too responsible to look into the abyss for him, expected the answers. Isn't it about you if you are looking into the faces of a sea of strangers? What you see is in your own eyes. I wasn't listening to The Cure in my bedroom at three am in the dark (I could find any of them by reaching out my hand. I knew them by heart) and expecting anything of Smith more than being another person who lives in a world with other people and tries to look or listen to anything at all that might mean people are more real than what you're just going to make up. I think Apter is a moron looking for an angle for his badly written book. The songs don't feel that way. If his later song from Bloodflowers (their only album after Wish that I like) mourns (and I always thought he was wrong. You cannot lose what is yours if you tell it to someone else) feeding the fire, everything he has given to others to give life to the songs. I don't think of it as selling your soul to the devil and what you win is a hell of a pop song and that love is no longer yours. How could he sing Faith and it is still true? Because it's not true.

The factual inaccuracies abound. Apparently there's a song on Faith about Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and then in the end notes he alludes that The Drowning Man ALSO references it loosely. Um, The Drowning Man is about Fuchsia that's the Gormenghast song. Apparently it is about the third book in the series, Titus Groan. No, it was about events from the second book Gormenghast and Titus Groan is the FIRST book. Other Voices isn't a nod to Other Voices, Other Rooms though it is a fantastic book ("Smith is no Truman Capote" says Apter). He criticizes the title of Charlotte Sometimes as unsubtle for a song about Penelope Farmer's book Charlotte Sometimes. Sighs. The Smith literary living songs were important to me. When I was young I took my list of these books and I had all of these books that would mean so much to me. When Robert Smith sings about Fuchsia that he wanted to save her that is how I feel about books that I read as if I could have lived them. What is all of this stuff about crass market appealing to a Goth crowd because you wrote about Gormenghast?

I was wrong I have more hyperbole. If Apter made another comment about "goths" and "the overcoat brigade" I was going to paint a frown on my face with gothy black lipstick. Exclamation point.

Ok, The Cure was never going to be an especially sexy band- their female fans would rather comb their hair than fuck them- but their weird new look was tailor-made for Generation MTV.

Something I've always loved about The Cure is that their b-sides are as good as the album songs. I didn't feel throw away tracks and filler. Isn't that important to write about a band? Doesn't that say something about a writer and his relationship with his songs?

Maybe it says something about them as a band that Smith had almost total control musically over everything. It said something to me that band members couldn't play much of anything, roadies were filling in and once they had a contest for their most insipid (my opinion) member Jason Cooper. Lol Tolhurst (true story my first website I ever visited was The Cure website and the fans were mean to me when I asked why they kept saying his name all of the time. I didn't know that laugh out loud was not a nickname for Lawrence). He was useless and he was bitter he was kicked out of the band. He sued for the name and the band couldn't put out material for four years. From the biz side that's important and from the artistic side it isn't because it was always Robert's music.

I would have thought it would maybe be important that Smith's most impassioned albums were written before he turned thirty and again at forty. If he felt complicated things about life after he was working from the moment when you go "Fuck it" and jump. I know that feeling and it resonated with me, to be open that way. His claims that he's unlike Morrissey, a fun loving guy. He would say that he lived life and didn't get fat. Except he was and he was addicted to drugs and alcohol all of their time. I love his humor (though it's nonsense that Morrissey doesn't have a sense of humor). I don't know why they let a guy with his emotional chart set to "bleak" and "pop" near this. It got me down to read this. Money, love me but you suck if you aren't famous don't love me. That's not The Cure. The Cure is cutting open your heart and laughing in the mirror for a first time in a year. I'll feed it to anyone. His songs are about stories and the ugliness of wanting and how you feel ugly and how you feel they are beautiful and when you shift and see what you thought you were seeing wasn't them. The despair in that, and how it is better that you can shift and what you thought you saw wasn't as good as what could be there, surprising in another person, and surprise yourself. There's always something left, you don't burn in the fire. You get up. I freaking hate this book.

Now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces
I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone
Crying for sympathy
Crocodile cry for the love of the crowd and the three cheers from everyone - The Cure's 'Disintegration'

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Smith was on such a high at Glastonbury that when he wished the masses a 'happy tomorrow', the persistent rain actually stopped falling. Only a star could do that."

Two of my most cherished memories of the 1980s: my wife and I totally mesmerized watching Close to Me, The Cure's music video on MTV in 1985. Then, two years later, my five-year-old daughter and I dancing like crazy to The Cure's Just Like Heaven in our small rented apartment.

Fast forward 13 years: in 2000 my then grown-up daughter takes me to The Cure's concert at the SDSU Open Air Theater, where - at the age of about 50 - I was the oldest person in the huge crowd of young people. They thought I was a journalist on an assignment: such a geezer could not like that kind of music. 16 years further into geezerhood I still often listen to The Cure's music to interrupt my usual rotation of Bach, Coltrane, and Sonic Youth. (And both my wife and my daughter are here on Goodreads. Hi!)

Jeff Apter's Never Enough (2005) fully delivers on the promise of its subtitle - "The Story of The Cure." Of course it is mainly the story of Robert Smith, the band's "creative force and focal point," author of music and lyrics of the majority of songs, guitarist, vocalist, front-man, and the visual symbol of the band. Mr. Smith has also been the only permanent member of the band, since their first concert in 1973 when they were still in high school and performed under the name Obelisk. Forty-three years later The Cure still perform and Mr. Smith still fronts the band. (By the way, I have a lot of respect for him for non-music-related reasons, but that's a topic for another story.)

Mr. Apter patiently and in meticulous detail leads the reader through all twists and turns of The Cure's artistic and personal biography. We learn about the band's beginnings when, after five years of performing at obscure venues, they got their first break thanks to music that combined "urgency and futility of punk with bittersweet melodicism." Then came the limited success of their dark-period music: The Cure's second album Seventeen Seconds (1979) was called "a study in sorrow and bleakness" and the enormously influential fourth album Pornography (1982) contained songs that sounded as "odes to nothingness" and conveyed "pure self-loathing and worthlessness." Of course Robert Smith's creativity was the driving force that engendered the band's moderate success in the early 1980s, but the author is right to point out The Cure's luck in finding the right people at the right time. First they happened to find the tireless and clever manager, Chris Parry, and later they received support from the hugely influential BBC DJ, John Peel, who recognized the quality of an early song by The Cure - Boys Don't Cry - perhaps the best post-punk-influenced pop song ever.

But The Cure's greatest breakthrough - when they metamorphosed from an ambitious, post-punk, goth-influencing, alternative music band into the world's pop stardom - came with the video age, when they met an extremely talented video maker Tim Pope, and when Mr. Smith began writing ambitious pop songs (no, it is not an oxymoron), such as The Walk, Just Like Heaven or the memorable superhit Lullaby, that were accompanied by top-quality music videos by Mr. Pope. The Curemania began sweeping the world in 1985 and reached its peak in 1987. In 1989 The Cure's probably best album ever, Disintegration, was released, to be followed by several others. While The Cure's story, told in the book, ends in 2005, the band is still active and performs on worldwide tours, but their most recent - and likely the last - album, 4:13 Song was released in 2008.

Never Enough is a solid, extremely informative, balanced, objective, and well written (!) biography of the band and of Robert Smith's undaunted creative leadership for over 40 years. Mr Apter credits a lot of the band's success to Smith's "ability to pen killer tunes," and his "unshakeable approach to his craft." I will not dwell on various other aspects of the band's career - particularly the issues of extreme boozing, drug use, and personnel changes - one needs to read the book to learn about all that.

Obviously The Cure's music is not the highest form of art, but while their early period, the time of searching for their own voice and making their own imprint on the post-punk movement, yielded interesting if imperfect results, their pop period produced some of the most ambitious and compelling popular music ever written, far, far above the usual "cookie-cutter pop."

Four stars. (Of course, five stars for Robert Smith.)

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Se supone que esta es la biografía más completa de The Cure pero a mi me ha parecido un coñazo. Cada capítulo habla sobre un disco. las borracheras de Smith y compañia en la grabación del mismo y el personal involucrado. Y al siguiente capítulo más de lo mismo.
Para un grupo con una imagineria, historias y letras tan importantes este libro es un bodrio. Me he quedado con ganas de saber más de The Cure porque este libro no me ha resuelto ninguna duda.

[Martyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

EDIT: So, as I was reading this I felt like I had read it before (I hadn't). It spooked me enough though (and the subject interested me enough) to go back and re-read the infinitely more interesting 'Ten Imaginary Years’, which may seem dated to some but at least it has a grain of authenticity about it, being co-authored by Robert Smith.

Well after re-reading that and ‘The Cure: A Visual Documentary’ I realized why I had the sense of déjà vu – basically much of the first two-thirds of this book are taken, mostly without alteration, from those sources. It makes me wonder how the author got on for source material after 1987, but that probably explains why most of this book is dedicated to the early period of the band and then we are presented with a rushed ‘line-up change/album release’ style of biography for the last hundred pages, a hundred pages which tries to cover nearly twenty years.

The jacket describes this as the definitive Cure biography, it isn’t; that book is still ‘Ten Imaginary Years’. Meaning that until a serious music writer (Mark Blake, are you free?) tackles this much needed project we will be stuck in 1987. Unless Robert intends to pick up his pen again, although ‘Thirty-Five Imaginary Years’ doesn’t quite scan.

I disliked this book for other reasons, the repetitiveness (do we really need to be told at each album release story in the book that Apter is stunned when it comes out, in his opinion, ‘gloomy’?) , the fact that he makes a great show of having ‘spoken to everyone’ in the making of his definitive biography (yet somehow missed out speaking to Robert Smith), that the book is stitched together from previously published stories and interviews and reads like a Wikipedia article, the fact that it's crammed with Apter's personal opinions, but I mainly disliked it because it’s not very good. Wait for something better is my advice.

[Christie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a terrible book. Poorly researched and highly biased (sorry, Jeff, but I wasn't interested in reading your opinions). Save your time and money.

[Eric Copeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the outset, I was unsure whether I would stick with this book. It began in media res, taking up with a tragic incident at a concert several years into The Cure's career, then it seemed to settle into an episodic kind of feel. I stuck with it, though, and it soon settled into a more traditional narrative. What I got for my steadfastness was an in-depth look at one of my favorite bands, with lots of the information coming from one-on-one interviews (this sometimes resulted in conflicting versions of events, but that's to be expected).

It ends too soon, of course. The book was published more than 15 years ago, and there was no way the author could have predicted that The Cure, which was always on the verge of imploding, would still be around in 2021. The timing also meant there was no way to include Robert Smith's wry dismissal of the band's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2019. Approached by a giddy reporter who was practically hyperventilating as she asked Smith if he was as excited as she was, Smith simply said, "Umm, by the sounds of it, no." That's as rock & roll as an attitude gets.

[Kate Bellew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have learned that I already know everything there is to know about The Cure.

[Gopi Krishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 was an year I re-discovered The Cure thanks to a prop from "Professor of Rock" YouTube channel and my Amazon Prime Music subscription. From knowing the band only through their hits from '87-92, I have gone through at least 70-80 songs of their catalog, especially the two tight consistent albums that turned out to be my favs- the majestic Disintegration (1989) and their US-breakthrough, Head on the Door (1985)

Jeff Apter's review has been trashed by some of the hardcore Cure-maniacs for errors here & there, inconsistent writing (from classy & stately to gossipy & tabloid-ish), but for a fan re-discovering the band, it is an absolute treasure-trove of context along a clean linear narrative. There is tremendous amount of detailing through the ages - the evolving music scene, the tech, even the politics, which of course the Cure would have none of. That said, I don't think the author got any facetime with the main man, which in a way is good since he could bring out multiple and inconsistent sides of the phenom that is Robert Smith without being too fanboy-like.

My biggest and bitter disappointment was the utter rush-job of Disintegration, their magnum opus. While pretty much every other album had a song-by-song commentary (1 chapter/album), only for the eagerly awaited section on Disintegration, Apter stopped at the 4th track Lovesong and then gave a general line covering most of the other tracks.

The books ends in 2005. Well, its 2020 and the Cure, with even further line-up changes in the form of revolving doors, continue to rock on to sell-out audiences. 40+ years on, they're now inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame as well, so something has worked out right. Whether it is their catalog of "happy-sad" songs (dark lyrics couched in peppy melodies/arrangements) or the morbid ones for depressives, the Cure bandwagon keeps rolling, adding newer and newer generations of fans along the way.

A fabulous read even for casual fans.

PS: An additional plus was the use of several interesting words (an English thing?) from po-faced, mod-con and eggheads to semaphores, laconic and nihilism. There's something new in every few pages.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was always hesitant to read any sort of history of The Cure, as I felt it would ruin the magic of the music for me, but then I received this book as a gift and decided to just dive right in.

The book describes their rise to fame and talks about the ever changing line up, but I found myself slightly disappointed. There is a great many detail about their early career. In fact, about half the book covers their first three albums. There's even some insight into the meanings behind their songs, but it's very brief. Then all of the sudden, The Cure is famous and recording their masterpiece Disintergration. Their career after Disintergration blows by, which is a shame. Also, there is a lot of talk about "meltdowns" and Rob's unhealthy relationship with the Banshee's bass player, but not much detail about what exactly happened.

In short, a well written read, worth the time. Just don't expect every Cure mystery to be solved.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but a bit weighty and dense at times. The author seems a bit callous at times which is unsettling. It should be a book celebrating the band, not criticizing them.

[Skrot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would’ve been 4 stars if the author hadn’t felt the need to call Robert Smith overweight regularly throughout the book. We got it the first time, bud.

[Jim Dunedin · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Never Enough: The Story of the Cure’, Jeff Apter. How do you sustain a career of bedsit becomes gothic rock, becomes pop, becomes stadium gothic rock, and write the tunes we have all embedded in our ears all these years? Have the stamina and enduring patience of Robert Smith and become an icon.
From my Medium review at: https://medium.com/music-voices/the-r...

[Carmen]

Fantastic!

I enjoyed every second of Never Enough, and only wish the author would pick up where he left off with a follow-up nd bring us to current day. If you like The Cure in any way, read this book!

[Bruce Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obscurity, debauchery, originality and musicality. You can't talk about 80s music without mentioning The Cure. I admit I always thought they were a great pop band until I saw them live and read the lyrics. Robert Smith is really deep. Great read.

[Steve Brooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, as a massive Cure fan but it was cobbled together from press interviews and interviews with Lol Tolhurst, no direct meetings with the main man.

[Trena Hatfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Info About The Cure

I enjoyed all of the info about actual Cure members but didn’t care for all of the extra info about producers and such.

[Alan Andrews Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cure got dark and then reached amazing heights before simmering to a solid standpoint

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of insights from the folks who were there

[Sheri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just can't get through this book. Over 1 month of reading & only on chapter 2. I love The Cure & Robert Smith. This book? Not so much.

[Erik Steevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a very pleasant reading. This book doesn't have any dull moments. It was for me a very nice introduction to Robert Smith's puzzled music world. Of course, I knew The Cure for a long time but thanks to this book I was able to dive deep into their legacy that is described here until 2005. I am looking forward to a new album of The Cure in 2021.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book literally takes you through month by moth from the beginning of the band up to Bloodflowers.An excellent read.I hd no idea they were all such hardcore addicts back in the day.

[minnajee · Rating 3 out of 5]

22.7.2007
Apter, Jeff: Never Enough - the Story of the Cure (2005)
8½
- Quite extensive story of the Cure, though it seems that the mainman Smith didn't participate with it? I doubt this is in any way "official"... But anyway, brings light to the shadows of their past and is interesting though from time to time moves slightly fast, maybe because there wasn't more to tell without Robert's contribution (it seems to be based on his interviews). I could recommend this for Cure lovers.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite band of all time explored as in depth as any group I have read about. Did you know the band used to build giant mountains of empty beer cans in the studio when they made albums? Robert Smith would get pissed if someone tried to clean it up before he wanted them to.

This book finally connected the dots for me, if you love this band you will love this book.

[Pete · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is full of inaccuracies, poorly edited ( the photo captions are rife with spelling errors), and should be avoided at all costs. When Apter is describing the music, he writes like a man who not only hates his subject, but who often misses the point. I'm not going to say much more about it because reading this book already wasted enough of my time.

[Grayson]

By the time I got to the end of the first chapter, I realized this was going to be a horrible read. I was wrong. The rest of the book was quite enjoyable. If you can make it through the first chapter, it's an interesting read while trying to be fair about any inter-band differences. It isn't "Robert Smith is a god" like I was afraid it would be. I liked it.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Fascinating to learn insider details about the making of some of their early albums. The author interviewed some of the band members as well as producer Phil Thornalley to help explain how it really was. The book feels like a resource, it goes quite in depth. Feels like I got to kmow the band members, especially the genius of Robert Smith.

[Angie Aha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good and interesting <3

[Lorenzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ottima biografia non ufficiale fino a metà anni '00