Avtor: Peter Podbrežnik
Izvajalec: Hackett, Steve
Založba: EMI Records
Izid: 1981
Ocena: 1.5/5
Before this thing came out, Mr. Hackett must have taken a serious knock to the head, or else this album was the product of post-traumatic stress from watching way too many Brazilian soaps at the request of his lovely companion. “Cured” marked a dramatic sonic turning point in Steve’s career up to then: he cut ties with the symphonic direction and mysticism of his first four albums (which most of his followers also consider his best) and for a while steered into second-rate AOR/pop rock with only the occasional sonic nod to the past. With this move he thoroughly alienated his existing fans, and he was pretty unsuccessful at winning over the then-emerging MTV generation too. He strode boldly into the ’80s and soaked up some of the cheapest sound technology of the era. In making “Cured” he clearly wanted to break with his past at all costs, especially with all the symphonic influences of his former band, and to conquer the American music market, which had never understood the “slightly eccentric” British guitarist. The biggest irony was that Steve caught the scent of the commercial trends of the day in the very year his old Genesis buddies were already enjoying a huge success after pivoting to melodies far friendlier to radio airwaves. While they were hitting the tops of the charts, Steve, as a pop rock artist, crashed and burned, and fully deservedly so.
To push through the new sonic direction and get through the recording as cheaply as possible, he went for a thorough shake-up of his backing band. So ahead of this album he sent the entire crew who had played on the excellent “Spectral Mornings” (1979) and “Defector” (1980) packing, apart from his brother John on flute and keyboards and keyboardist Nick Magnus. That turned out to be a big mistake, and the end result was an extremely weak album that let down most of his existing fans on release. Even after all these years the impression hasn’t gotten any better, and despite trying to pull as many positives as possible from its musical content, in the end you have to accept that “Cured” is the biggest stain on Steve’s entire career.
The saccharine nature of “Cured” is nicely hinted at by the laughable cover, on which a Steve cured of mystical forces sits in a cheap little shirt in front of an exotic cocktail, waiting for his ice cream while gazing goofily at the camera, behind which almost certainly stood his gorgeous Brazilian companion Kim Poor. She liked the photo of her chosen one so much that, for the first and last time in Steve’s discography, he broke tradition and forgot to paint the album cover himself. Still, she did manage to create a front-runner for the worst cover in the history of progressive rock, if nothing else.
The biggest problem with “Cured” is that Steve wanted to sing all the main vocals at any cost. That wouldn’t have been an issue if Steve hadn’t been a pretty mediocre singer at the time, especially when it comes to how well his voice suits pop rock/AOR songs. Setting aside the ever-present sappiness of his vocal tone, it often sounds quite off-key, partly thanks to the poor production. The second problem is the dismal rhythm track, above all the unnatural, plastic drum sound. Instead of the organic sound of real drums, an artificial rhythm track was used, which sounds incredibly dated today and surely sounded unnatural even when the album came out. The third problem was the weak production, which, as mentioned, did the most damage to Steve’s vocal parts. The arrangements of the individual songs weren’t exactly dazzling either, and most of the tracks suffer from a general lack of creative imagination. Nick Magnus was not exactly a hit with the dominant synthetic sound of his keyboards. Meanwhile, against all expectations, the guitar maestro simply ran out of ideas on most of the tracks. Magnus’s synth lines sometimes even flat-out steamroll his guitar.
There’s no point going into detail on most of the songs on “Cured”, since at best they’re extremely average, if not below-average, creations. The first three tracks, “Hope I Don’t Wake”, “Picture Postcard” and “Can’t Let Go”, are below-average examples of light pop rock songs with syrupy vocals, naive lyrics, a dismal plastic rhythm and simple but repetitive melodies. Even Steve’s guitar passages often sound artificial and completely devoid of imagination. The otherwise hopelessly cheesy “Picture Postcard” at least features a decent sax solo, while “Can’t let Go” is a total bore and at best would make a backing track for some second-rate romantic soap of the time. Still, not everything on the album was complete garbage. Steve managed to recreate some of his past symphonic brilliance on the solid instrumental “The Air Conditioned Nightmare”, where he offered some of his trademark classical-style guitar passages and solos. The synth parts also sit nicely under Steve’s dramatic guitar passages here. Above all, though, it impresses with its dramatic and slightly dark atmosphere, the kind that wowed on his earlier releases.
Next comes “Funny Feeling”, yet another whiny AOR botch job with a plastic rhythm, teary vocals and tasteless lines of archaic synths, which at best sounds like some second-rate Alan Parsons Project creation. On the flip side, “A Cradle Of Swan” is a gorgeous acoustic guitar instrumental with Steve’s recognizable classical lines, the kind you missed the whole time on this album. Things get even better with the excellent “Overnight Sleeper”, which is easily the best piece on the album and brings back a bit of the magic of most of Steve’s earlier work. If it weren’t for the dismal, plastic rhythm track and Steve’s off-key vocals, I could even rank it among the best creations of Steve’s career. The dramatic baroque guitar passages are consistently top-notch while the keyboards successfully build a tense atmosphere. The closing “Turn Back Time” is yet another very average, teary ballad that certainly fails to improve the final impression of the album and works best as a lullaby after a boring movie.
“Cured” is without a doubt the worst release of Steve’s entire career (only the equally weak “Till We Have Faces”, 1984, comes close to this negative reputation), and listening to it will turn the stomach of prog rock snobs and fans of quality melodic rock alike, the two target groups at the time of release. With it, Steve created a thoroughly botched, soulless experiment with below-average production, a dismal rhythm track, extremely mediocre vocals and an annoying aura of chasing commercial appeal by any means necessary. Just three brighter moments, which are nothing special compared to most of his best work, are far too little to save the overall impression and shield the album from negative criticism. Even after the test of time, “Cured” remains a failed experiment in a sudden bid for quick commercial appeal and a dark stain on Steve’s body of work, one that, apart from the most devoted fans of the guitar master, isn’t worth worrying about too much. Fortunately, his sudden transformation into a pop artist was short-lived and didn’t do the maestro’s reputation any serious harm.
Zasedba
Steve Hackett – guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, vocals
Nick Magnus – keyboards, drum machine
John Hackett – flute on “Overnight Sleeper”, bass pedal on “The air-Conditioned Nightmare”, keyboards
GUEST MUSICIAN:
John Acock – saxophone on “Picture Postcard”
Produkcija
John Acock, Steve Hackett and Nick Magnus
Seznam skladb
1. Hope I don’t Wake (3:46)
2. Picture Postcard (3:54)
3. Can’t let Go (5:39)
4. The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (4:42)
5. Funny Feeling (4:02)
6. A Craddle of Swans(2:47)
7. Overnight Sleeper (4:30)
8. Turn back Time (4:19)
Album length: 33:39
