Sunday, January 8th, 2012

"Young Americans"

The Cure covers David Bowie

Photo via Ten Man RecordsTen Man RecordsToday is David Bowie’s 65th birthday; traditionally, this would be the age where he could officially retire from the workaday world and spend his golden years tending to his garden and doing the daily crossword. Of course, one of the perks of being rock music’s most influential artists is that you can take early retirement and that’s what Mr. Jones has done since approximately 2005, making only sporadic guest appearances on others’ records and certainly not doing anything of his own – his final release of new material is almost a decade old, 2003’s Heathen Reality. And if this does turn out to be all he plans to do for the rest of his career, well he’s earned it.

Robert Smith has threatened to retire The Cure several times in the past, but no one really believes him anymore. But still, they’re now over three years removed from their last release of new material – 2008’s 4:13 Dream – and have of late been concentrating on revisiting their sizeable legacy, performing their first few albums live in their entirety and reuniting with former members Roger O’Donnell and Laurence Tolhurst. A month ago they released the live double-disc set Bestival Live 2011, which captured their headlining performance of the English festival last Summer and later this year, they will be inducted into last year they were nominated for entry into the Rock’N’Roll Hall Of Fame.

This studio cover by The Cure of David Bowie’s “Young Americans” is no spring chicken itself and a touch ironic considering that neither coverer or coveree is either young or America; it dates back to a 1995 compilation for London radio station XFM.

MP3: The Cure – “Young Americans”
Video: David Bowie – “Young Americans” (live on The Dick Cavett Show 1974)

By : Frank Yang at 10:10 am
Category: Chromewaves Radio

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RSS Feed for this post6 Responses.
  1. Paul M says:

    Reality was released in 2003 — Heathen was ’02…

  2. Paul says:

    Sadly, The Cure are not being inducted in to the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame – the were a nominee this year but did not get enough votes to be inducted.

  3. Paul says:

    Frank, sadly The Cure are not being inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame this year – they were nominated but did not get enough votes to be inducted.

  4. Paul says:

    Sorry for the double comment, it appeared to fail the first time!

  5. juepucta says:

    Reality is the last studio album. Heathen’s the second to last album – from 2000 or 2001.

    -G.

  6. Thursday morning music news: Spotify pulls the plug (or nearly), Spin downsizes and Tom Ardolino and Bob Weston pass on : KDHX Blog says:

    […] Listen to the Cure cover David Bowie’s “Young Americans.” […]