Have The Cure written the feel-bad holiday hit of the year?

(Image credit: Scott Legato/Getty Images)

The Cure’s Robert Smith may have inadvertently written a Christmas banger.

During an interview with Radio X this week, the wild-haired frontman says he has a “really catchy” pop song in the vault, and that he may stick some festive lyrics on it for a release around the holiday season.

Smith discusses new album Songs Of A Lost World in-depth during the chat, highlighting the record’s glum mood by saying his days of writing pop hits “have kind of gone a little bit” (via NME).

He immediately adds a caveat to that sentiment, however: “Although I have written a really catchy pop song!”

Smith says he’s struggling to find a way to release this pop track, but adds that a recent visit to “town” (possibly Brighton, located in his longtime home county of Sussex) offered some inspiration.

“Having been up in town all day, the amount of times I’ve heard [Wham!’s] Last Christmas… I think I just need to stick some Christmas words on it and get it out there!” he continues.

It’s far from the first time Smith has spoken about new music recently. During the build-up to Songs Of A Lost World, The Cure’s first studio album in 16 years, he revealed that another record has been “virtually finished” and that a third new release is in the works as well.

“We recorded three albums in 2019; that’s always been the problem,” Smith said in an interview uploaded to The Cure’s Youtube channel. “I’ve tried to get three albums completed. After waiting this long, I was like, ‘Let’s just throw out Cure albums every few months!’ Everything with hindsight, you think, ‘Really? I could have done that a lot better.’”

He added, “It will work out this time. Having finished this one, the second one is virtually finished as well. The third one is a bit more difficult because, well if we get that far… Talking about the third album, you see what I mean? I just can’t help myself.”

Songs Of A Lost World was released on November 1 to critical acclaim. The same day, The Cure played the album in full during an intimate concert at The Troxy in London. The audio of that performance came out today (December 13) as the live album Songs Of A Live World.

Louder’s Matt Mills attended the Troxy show, where the band also played two hours of greatest hits, and awarded it a perfect five stars.

“The Cure aren’t calling it a day – at least if their leader is to be believed about what’s on the horizon,” Mills wrote. “But if they were, this would have been the perfect bow out: an inventive reminder of both their gloomiest and happiest highlights, played to the loyalest of loyalists, just up the road from where the band formed in West Sussex.”

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.