Songoftheday 6/3/18 - I don't care if Monday's blue Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too, Thursday I don't care about you...
from the album Wish (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song of the day comes from the British alternative rock band The Cure, who in the autumn of 1989 had scored the biggest American pop hit of their career with the surprisingly romantic "Love Song". However, losing original member Lol Tolhurst left only lead singer Robert Smith and guitarist Porl Thompson from their original lineup in the 1970s. Issuing the remix album Disintegration to tide time over during this band trauma, new track "Never Enough" nevertheless ended up topping Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart. In 1992, Smith and Thompson along with Simon Gallup, Boris Williams, and Tolhurst's replacement Perry Bamonte returned with the band's ninth studio album Wish. The first single, the dreamlike "High", went to #8 in their native UK, and spent a month at #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock list, but stalled right under the top-40 at #42 on their pop Hot 100 tally. The second single from the set, though, would surpass that feat, and provide fans with their most off-kilter single yet. "Friday I'm In Love", written by the group and produced by Smith with David Allen, takes their goth image and turns it 180 degrees, with a peppy, happy surface much like R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People", but of course it's Robert fucking Smith, so there's quite a bit of dark edges in the verses if you don't glean over. The music video, which features cameos from Allen as well as clip director Tim Pope, continues the party...
"Friday I'm In Love" became the Cure's third, and so far most recent, top-40 pop hit in August of 1992. The song, like "High", spent a whole month (four weeks) at #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock/Alternative radio chart, and reached #21 on their Mainstream Rock list (their highest ranking there). The remixes of the song helped "Friday" land at #32 on the magazine's Dance Club Play chart as well. Internationally, the single spent two weeks at #3 in Canada, and made the top ten in Ireland (#4), the UK (#6), New Zealand (#7), and Norway (#7). The track hit the top-40 as well in Austria (#13), Germany (#16), Sweden (#17), Switzerland (#17), the Netherlands (#32), Belgium (#34), and Australia (#39). The third and final single from Wish, the shoegazer "A Letter To Elise", took a week at #2 on the American Modern Rock chart, but missed the pop Hot 100 altogether (it did get to a respectable #28 in the UK). The Wish album would earn the band their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative album, which went to Tom Wait's Bone Machine that year.
In 1993, the Cure covered the Jimi Hendrix stoner-rock classic "Purple Haze" for a tribute collection, and it went to #2 on the Modern Rock radio tally, but missed the pop chart again. But by the time it came for recording a new album, both Thompson and Williams bolted, leaving just Smith and Bamonte to start work (eventually with Gallup returning) for their tenth effort, Wild Mood Swings, which didn't arrive until 1996. The quirky lead single "The 13th" peaked at #15 in the UK, as it did on the American Modern Rock chart, but here in the States the song just missed the pop top-40 at #44. With the stagnant sales numbers of Wild Mood Swings, Smith released the Galore hits set, and while bonus new track "Wrong Number" went to #8 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart, it stalled down at #62 in the UK and nothing on the pop list here in America.
Smith's last album on Fiction Records, Bloodflowers, scored them another top ten Modern Rock hit with "Maybe Someday", which went to #10. It was a critical success, and nabbed their second Grammy nomination again for Best Alternative Album, which they lost to Radiohead's Kid A. The Cure changed labels to Geffen, and did the "reintroduction" thing with their self-titled 2004 album. In the UK, The Cure spun off two top-40 hits, including "The End Of The World" (UK #25), which ended up at #19 on the American Modern Rock tally. The other, "Taking Off", so far is their latest British top-40 hit at #39. But shortly after, Bamonte and O'Donnell (who had returned from an earlier incarnation) were booted, and Smith, Gallup, and drummer Cooper reuniting with Porl Thompson in 2008 for what is their most recent studio set, 4:13 Dream. First single "The Only One" spent four weeks at #1 in Spain, and got to #31 on the American Alternative chart, but stopped down at #48 on the British singles chart. Since then Smith's still been touring with various members (including Thompson and Tolhurst), but a new album is still absent for ten years now.
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First off, the Cure in concert on their tour behind the Wish album with "Friday I'm In Love"...
Fast forward to the Cure's tour in 2008...
Here's the band performing the song in the naughties for TV...
In 2015, the musical dramedy Glee included "Friday I'm In Love" in its spattering sixth and final season, giving "gay football player that should have been Karofsky" Spencer lead vocals...
And lastly, in 2012...
And as a bonus, an orchestral and choir rendition of the song, which sounds quite beautiful although they so do not take the spirit of the lyrics to heart...
Up tomorrow: Triple-cuteness from this iconic R&B trio
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