Legendary 80s band lands first number one album in 32 years

80s rock band The Cure have landed their first number one album in 32 years and blown the rest of the UK Top 10 out of the water.

Their long-awaited new album, Songs of a Lost World, came out on November 1 to a frenzy of excitement from fans.

It comes 16 years after their previous studio album, 2008’s 4:13 Dream.

The 14th studio album – composed solely by frontman Robert Smith – features eight tracks including the lead single, Alone.

The album’s success was enormous, outpacing other top albums from artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Tyler, The Creator, and Ed Sheeran, and also led the vinyl sales chart with over 40,000 physical copies sold by mid-week​.

Smith told Official Charts Company of the news: ‘It is enormously uplifting, genuinely heartwarming to experience such a wonderful reaction to the release of the new Cure album.

‘To everyone who has bought it, listened to it, loved it, believed in us over the years – THANK YOU!’

And if critics’ reviews are anything to go by, the acclaim is well-deserved.

As Pitchfork praised: ‘Perhaps the greatest compliment to pay Songs of a Lost World is that it already feels inevitable, a work of wisdom and grace that extends naturally from the moment the Cure took up their instruments in a local church hall all those years ago.’

Meanwhile, The Guardian’s five-star review echoed: ‘It’s powerful, possessed of a dark beauty and frequently moving in a manner that feels different to anything they’ve released before.’

The Friday I’m In Love hitmakers launched the new material with an intimate sold-out show at London’s Troxy and Robert has already shared plans to do a full world tour in 2025 and beyond.

In a wide-spanning interview, he revealed there was an almost-finished second album and hopes to perform live.

‘The next time we go out on stage will be autumn next year,’ the 65-year-old revealed.

‘But then we’ll probably be playing quite regularly through until the next anniversary – the 2028 anniversary! It’s looming on the horizon.

‘The 2018 one, I started to think about in late 2016, thinking, “I’ve got a year and a half, it’s easy!” And yet I still didn’t manage to get there in time. Now, I’m starting to think, “2028, I must get things in order”; so [that’s] the documentary film and things like that.’

All this to say, there’s plenty on the horizon for The Cure fans to look forward to in the coming years.

But the new album is not the only reason Robert has been making headlines this week.

The alt-rock guitarist, known for his vampire aesthetic, revealed to  Jo Whiley for BBC Radio 2 that he has some bizarre plans to change up the sheep sleep cycle to match his lifestyle.

‘Apparently, you can’t train sheep, but I’m determined,’ he said on the show. Although he anticipated it could become ‘another viral moment.’

And it was his nocturnal way of life that also motivated him to start a band.

‘My reason for being in a band was primarily so I didn’t have to get up for work,’ he explained, with his bedtime at sunrise.

He continued: ‘The others all get up, they’re all daytime people, and I honestly go to bed at like… I do listen to the Breakfast Show and I do watch the sun come out, and then I go to bed.’

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