The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several lineup changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member.

The Cure first began releasing music in the late 1970s with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys (1979); this, along with several early singles, placed the band as part of the post-punk and New Wave movements that had sprung up in the wake of the punk rock revolution in the United Kingdom. During the early 1980s the band's increasingly dark and tormented music helped form the gothic rock genre. After the release of Pornography (1982), the band's future was uncertain and Smith was keen to move past the gloomy reputation his band had acquired. With the 1982 single "Let's Go to Bed" Smith began to inject more of a pop sensibility into the band's music. The Cure's popularity increased as the decade wore on, especially in the United States where the songs "Just Like Heaven", "Lovesong" and "Friday I'm in Love" entered the Billboard Hot 100 charts. By the start of the 1990s, The Cure were one of the most popular alternative rock bands in the world, and although their profile has lessened in more recent years, they are estimated to have sold 27 million albums as of 2004. The Cure have released thirteen studio albums and over thirty singles during the course of their career.

Formation and early years (1973–1979)

The first incarnation of what became The Cure was The Obelisk, a band formed by students at Notre Dame Middle School in Crawley, Sussex. The band made their public debut in a one-off performance in April 1973, and featured Robert Smith (piano), Michael "Mick" Dempsey (guitar), Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst (percussion), Marc Ceccagno (lead guitar) and Alan Hill (bass guitar). The first real incarnation though came in January 1976 when Ceccagno formed Malice with Smith and Dempsey along with two other classmates from St. Wilfrid's Catholic Comprehensive School, with Ceccagno on lead, Smith now also on guitar and Dempsey switching to bass. Ceccagno soon left, however, to form a jazz-rock fusion band called Amulet. Increasingly influenced by the emergence of punk rock, Malice's remaining members became known as Easy Cure in January 1977. Smith and Dempsey had, by this time, been joined by Lol Tolhurst from The Obelisk on drums, and new lead guitarist Porl Thompson. Both Malice and Easy Cure also trialed several unsuccessful vocalists before Smith finally assumed the role of Easy Cure's frontman in September 1977.

That year, The Easy Cure won a talent competition with the German label Hansa Records, and received a recording contract. Although the band recorded tracks for the company, none were ever released.Frost, Deborah. "Taking The Cure With Robert". Creem Magazine, 1 October 1987. Following disagreements in March 1978 over the direction the band should take, the contract with Hansa was dissolved. Smith later recalled "We were very young. They just thought they could turn us into a teen group. They actually wanted us to do cover versions and we always refused." Thompson was dropped from the band that May, and the remaining trio (Smith/Tolhurst/Dempsey) was soon renamed The Cure by Smith. Later that month the band recorded their first sessions as a trio at Chestnut Studios in Sussex which were distributed as a demo tape to a dozen major record labels. The demo found its way to Polydor Records scout Chris Parry, who signed The Cure to his newly formed Fiction label—distributed by Polydor—in September 1978. However, as a stop-gap while Fiction finalised distribution arrangements with Polydor, in December 1978 The Cure released their debut single "Killing an Arab" on the Small Wonder label. "Killing an Arab" garnered both acclaim and controversy: while the single's provocative title led to accusations of racism, the song is actually based on French existentialist Albert Camus' novel The Stranger. The band placed a sticker label that denied the racist connotations on the single's 1979 reissue on Fiction. An early NME article on the band wrote that The Cure "are like a breath of fresh suburban air on the capital's smog-ridden pub and club circuit" and noted "With a John Peel session and more extensive London gigging on their immediate agenda, it remains to be seen whether or not The Cure can retain their refreshing joie de vivre."