Song Saturday: The Cure Block

How's it going my gumdrops? Sorry for my lack of presence. These last 3 weeks have been brutal. As you already know, I have been recovering from a minor head injury. In addition to my head injury, my right hand is swollen.

Let's all hope and pray that I don't spend this entire year enduring injuries. I'm already hating this new year. Hopefully, 2017 will be better than 2016.

Aside from my injuries, I joined another forum earlier this month. Tomorrow I will explain more about this forum for Cartoon Sunday. However, I will say that this particular forum has sub-forums for general topics outside of Anime.

Someone posted a thread on that exact message board about being Goth. Apparently, some of the posters have very little knowledge about what it is like being a Goth. For people, who knew and still know very little about me, I have always been Goth.

There is more to being Goth than wearing all black clothes and liking certain bands. If you are somebody with a dark, morbid, and creepy personality and interests, you may be Goth. Although, you're NOT  required to only like something with the "Goth" label attached to it.

Something everyone should understand is that being Goth is NOT easy. Since the time of the Columbine High School Massacre on April 20, 1999, the mainstream media has been demonizing and condemning Goths and the Goth Sub-culture.

Everyone should take most the negative stereotypes and depictions of being Goth in the media worth a grain of salt. Not all Goths are depressed, suicidal, and homicidal maniacs worshiping Satan, sacrificing anything and everyone, while ONLY dressed in black attire.

Yes, even though some Goths are Satanists, they do NOT  purposely go out their way to hurt innocent humans and animals like sociopaths. The same most definitely applies for Wiccans, who are Goths.

Yes, there are some of us Goths who generally have serious baggage. We are not any different from the average person with baggage. Also, Goths are NOT  required to be Pagans. 

We can be Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Muslim, Pagan (Wiccan or Satanist), etc.

Because we may look and act differently and don't always share the same interests and views as most "normal people" do, we're automatically ostracized and condemned for not conforming to everything in society.

As I was saying earlier, we can like whatever we like whenever we like without having the "Goth" label. Goths are normally the most well-rounded, open-minded, accepting, and nicest people you will ever encounter in public. This cannot always be said about "normal" people.

If you would like to learn more about the Goth Sub-culture and its community, you may want to visit the website, What Is Goth?  This will give you a better explanation about what it's like to be Goth.

Last year, I published a blog about me being morbid, since childhood. If you would like to learn more about my "dark and morbid history," you can read it right HERE.

Speaking of being Goth on the latest forum I joined, I introduced that same group of posters to the pioneers of Goth Rock. 

It's amazing. Over the last 3 years, I already published Song Saturday blogs about bands such as Bauhaus, Siouxsie And The Banshees, and other Goth Rock bands.

All the while, I have never published a Song Saturday blog about The Cure. All this time and not a single Song Saturday blog about this Classic Goth Rock band!

For The Cure fans, today is your lucky day. This band has been around for nearly 4 decades and their sound has changed a lot over the years. Between 1980-82, they were more of a Goth Rock band in the sense that their music sounded darker and more ominous.

The Cure's albums, Seventeen Seconds and Pornography sounded much better than Faith, in regards to the the band's darker sound. Faith wasn't that enjoyable. I feel the best song on that album is "Carnage Visors."

To warn you in advance, "Carnage Visors" is literally close to a 30-minute song. It sounds like a really long Horror film score. If you'd like to listen to "Carnage Visors," go for it!

After 1982, The Cure evolved and crossed over as being Alternative and Pop-Rock. Most people don't hear the band's older and more obscure songs from the late '70s and early '80s. 

Therefore, I am sharing some of The Cure's older and more obscure songs with you for today's Song Saturday, including their song, which was originally featured on The Crow Soundtrack in 1994.

1) The Cure "The Final Sound" Seventeen Seconds (1980)

2) The Cure "A Forest" Seventeen Seconds (1980)

3) The Cure "Carnage Visors" Faith (1981)

 

4) The Cure "One Hundred Years" Pornography (1982)

5) The Cure "The Figurehead" Pornography (1982)

6) The Cure "A Strange Day" Pornography (1982)

[BONUS SONG:]

The Cure "Burn" The Crow Soundtrack (1994)

Song Saturday: Vanity's Nature Boy [Cover]

            RIP VANITY!!!

 

How's it going my gumdrops? Wow! This is shocking and sad news. Literally 1 day after Valentine's Day, Denise Katrina Matthews, (a.k.a. Prince's former protege, "Vanity") just died from Renal Failure at age 57. 

 

This is not only surprising, but also tragic. It appears that more entertainers have been dying again, including this past week. Vanity recently celebrated her 57th birthday, last month on January 4th. It is 1 month later. NOW, she's dead.

I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like the year of 2016 will be worse than the last several years. I really dread what this year has in store for everyone. 

 

2016 already got off to a brutal start with famous people, most specifically musicians dropping like flies.

As I was saying, Prince's former protege, Vanity died from Renal Failure on February 15, 2016. It's a good thing Prince hasn't died yet. Chances are great that my uncle would go postal over him. Prince has always been more of an idol to him than Jimi Hendrix. The man loves them both, although he seems to favor Prince over Hendrix.
 

Growing up during the 1980's and '90s, I was never a Prince or Vanity zealot. However, my youngest aunt and I both had our own parakeets named Prince and Vanity. She had a blue parakeet, named Prince and mine was a purple parakeet named, Vanity.

More than 30 years later, I still feel that having a purple parakeet named Vanity is strange. I mean, c'mon! 

 

Everybody knows that Prince is about purple. He has an album called Purple Rain and purple is his signature color.

When my youngest aunt and I had our 2 parakeets, I was a preschooler. She claims that my parakeet, Vanity literally pecked hers (Prince) to death. Supposedly, Vanity pecked out all Prince's feathers and gave him a disease. Talk about a vicious bird.

Other than owning 2 parakeets named after Prince and Vanity, I was NOT  a zealot of theirs. Don't get me wrong by any means. I DID like some of Prince and Vanity's songs growing up, during the '80s, but I listened to more Pop Music and Glam Metal. 

 

Even though my mother FORBADE me to listen Rap, I still listened to it. Regardless, I always listened to whatever I wanted to growing up and still do today as an adult.

Earlier this week, I learned some interesting tidbits about Vanity. For example, I had NO idea that Vanity and Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue were engaged in 1986!

 

On YouTube, I stumbled upon an old interview with Arsenio Hall interviewing Vanity.

 

Arsenio Hall Interviews Vanity (1986)  

Watching the way that man salivated over Vanity repulsed me to no end. Growing up, my grandmother always ranted about how much she could NOT  stand Arsenio and normally referred to him as a "lowlife." 

 

After watching his interview with Vanity as a 33 going on 34-year-old woman, I have to agree with her. Arsenio Hall reminds me of the sleazy, lowlife creeps from the street.

Meanwhile, I was annoyed watching Vanity act like a bimbo on stage. Not to speak ill of the dead, but she was literally a bimbo on crack or a "crack whore." Vanity used so much crack throughout the 1980's, that she and Nikki Sixx broke off their engagement in 1987.  

 

The Howard Stern Show: "Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx Explains Why He & Vanity Broke Up" (2007)

By 1994, Vanity overdosed on crack and nearly died from Renal Failure. Because of the large amounts of cocaine she used throughout the decades, she started having kidney problems and had to go through a Peritoneal Dialysis 5 times a day.

After surviving her cocaine overdose in '94, she chose to become a "Born Again Christian" and went into Evangelism. 

 

In 1995, there was a 1980's special on MTV, which was reflecting on music videos and groups from the '80s. It also shared updates about musicians from that decade.

Vanity explained in an MTV interview about her drug addiction and how she became a "saved" evangelist. In addition, she began blaming Prince for her cocaine problems. 

 

As a 13-year-old girl at the time, I could not help rolling my eyes at Vanity's interview. 

 

Unless Prince physically FORCED  Vanity to the ground and made her use cocaine, or slipped it inside her food and beverages, he is not at fault. 

 

She chose to become a drug addict. I think it's wonderful that Vanity quit abusing drugs and changed her life for the better.

All the while, Vanity acting like a self-righteous victim and blaming Prince for being a crack whore was and continues to be bullshit. 

 

I completely empathize with Vanity wanting to change her life for the better and leaving her scandalous past behind. In spite of the past, she really needed to take ownership for her dumb choices. Hopefully, the woman did before dying.

Before I forget, I learned something else about Vanity that I found to be interesting. Like a few other singers in the past including the late David Bowie, Vanity did a cover of the old Nat King Cole song, "Nature Boy."

In 1989, Vanity made a cameo appearance on Friday The 13th: The Series as a Pop singer named, Angelica. It was on Season 2: Episode 20 titled, "The Secret Agenda of Mesmer's Bauble." In that same episode, it featured Vanity's cover of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy."

You may be assuming that I'm half-assing today's blog. I really hope this is NOT  the case. This has been quite a rough week and I almost didn't publish ANY  Song Saturday blog for today. 

 

Rather than doing an entire music block of Vanity songs, I thought I would share this extremely rare cover of Vanity singing "Nature Boy" for today's Song Saturday. 

 

Vanity "Nature Boy" [Cover] Friday The 13th: The Series (1989)