The Cure are back with their first album in 16 years. The band doesn’t need hyping. They’re one of the great pop groups in history. Robert Smith has produced a catalog of staggering greatness. The Cure’s first album, Three Imaginary Boys, was released in 1979. I was 15 and have loved every record since. However, I’m not a Cure fanatic—unlike some of their disciples, I see the soft spots in their catalog, the songs that don’t work, the times when their gloom is excessive. I still laugh at a line I read in Melody Maker back in the 1980s—“Margaret Thatcher gave a speech last week. Boring? Like watching the Cure play ‘A Forrest’ live.”

I have three outstanding memories involving the Cure.