The Cure are British New Wave alternative rock band, currently consisting of Robert Smith on lead vocals, guitars and keyboards, Porl Thompson on guitars and keyboards, Simon Gallup on bass and keyboards and Jason Cooper on drums and percussion. The group has gone through several line-up changes throughout its history, with Smith being its only constant member.

Formed in Crawley, West Sussex, England in 1976, the group was originally known as Easy Cure, before changing their name in 1978. They recorded a demo tape soon after and sent it to several record companies, eventually earning them a contract with Fiction Records – an imprint of Polydor. Their first release was the single Killing an Arab, which garnered both acclaim and controversy, followed by their debut album Three Imaginary Boys (later released in the US as Boys Don’t Cry).

The group released four more albums during the early 1980s, which all reached the Top 20 and slowly earned them an international reputation. The albums also produced songs like A Forest, Primary, The Walk, The Lovecats and The Caterpillar. However, the group enjoyed their biggest success during the later half of the eighties. 1985’s The Head on the Door saw them chart in the US Top 100 for the first time with singles like In Between Days and Close To Me, while 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me reached number 36 in the US and produced the UK Top 30 hits Why Can’t I Be You?, Catch and Just Like Heaven. Their final album of the decade, 1989’s Disintegration, reached numbers three and twelve in the UK and US charts respectively, selling millions of copies worldwide, and spawned the hit singles Lullaby, Fascination Street, Lovesong (a US number two hit) and Pictures of You.

In the last two decades the group have released a further five studio albums, which have all reached the Top 20 on the US Billboard 200, and scored hits with singles like High, Friday I’m in Love, A Letter to Elise, The 13^th and The End of the World. The Cure has sold over 30 million albums worldwide to date.