The Cure have dipped into double-album territory before, and the "light" 4:13 Dream apparently has a "dark" counterpoint in the can So why weren't the two records released as one double album?

Robert Smith recently told me the rather shocking factors behind the release strategy. Basically, Geffen were only prepared to pay them royalties equivalent to a single album, even if the album was priced as a double. In effect the label were penalising the band for wanting to give their fans more music for less. Smith insisted he didn't care about making any more money but the principle was paramount; he was furious at the idea of a major label conning him out of making the record he wanted. So he held back the second half of the album for six months and one day later, the earliest moment that his contract permitted. The concept would be intact, it would just be up to the fan to Sellotape the two "episodes" together.

While Mark Beaumont might be shocked—shocked, I say—over the label's cheapskatery with the legendary Robert Smith, double albums have most recently have been priced at either the single album pricepoint or a slightly elevated album-and-a-half price, so it wouldn't make much sense to pay Smith a doubled royalty rate. At this point, it's a wonder artists are getting paid for one album at this point, to be honest.

Still, the larger question is whether these "double the music, double the fun" releases are a good idea anyway, or just labels catering to the artistic indulgences of those temporarily lacking the ability to edit. The entire nature of the album is likely disintegrating before our eyes, with artists just as likely to release tracks in batches before getting into two-hour territory. But when double albums have come out in recent years, practically all of them could have been hacked down to a seventy-minute opus, or in the case of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium, possibly just not released at all. Speakerboxx/The Love Below was a nature of the two artists in one group dynamic of Outkast at the time, so they have an excuse, but otherwise, can we just declare a moratorium on the concept? Sure, it would have been unfair to ask Judas Priest to hack down their 102 minute opus on the life of Nostradamus, but even Kate Bush, whose 2005 album Aerial was her first since 1993, could have hacked down eight minutes of music to squeeze things on to a single sliver of plastic. Even you, Patrick Wolf. If you're a new-ish artist whose options are "retire from music" or "release a double album collaborating with Alec Empire", it might be a good idea to rethink your career.

Is the music industry calling time on the double album? [Guardian Music Blog]

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Run-D.M.C., Metallica nominated for Rock Hall [AP]
Bon Jovi has best shot at 2008 Rock Hall of Fame induction [USA Today]

DEAR...

I FUCKING DESPAIR
AGAIN

HYPNAGOGIC STATES EP IS NOW UP ON UK ITUNES...

5 TRACKS FOR £7.99?
FOR FUCKS SAKE!

AND THE PACKAGE IS COMPLETEY MISSING THE EXTRA BONUS TRACK (65DOS ALT REMIX OF "THE ONLY ONE")

SO
YOU CAN BUY THE FOUR REMIXES BY 30STM/AFI/MCR/FOB INDIVIDUALLY FOR 79P EACH...

BUT YOU ONLY GET THE 65DOS "EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME" REMIX OF ALL FOUR SINGLES IF YOU PAY £7.99 FOR "THE ALBUM"...

IE YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO PAY £4.83 FOR THE 65DOS REMIX... !!!
WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO PAY THIS AND NOT FEEL TOTALLY RIPPED OFF?

IT'S NOT A FUCKING ALBUM!
IT'S A 5 TRACK EP
AND YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GET AN EXTRA FREE TRACK (THE 65DOS REMIX OF "THE ONLY ONE") IF YOU BUY IT AS A 5 TRACK EP
AND ITS SUPPOSED TO COST LESS IF YOU BUY IT AS A 5 TRACK EP THAN IF YOU BUY THE 5 TRACKS INDIVIDUALLY...

THAT IS WHAT WAS AGREED

THIS IS SO TOTALLY WRONG
I REALLY DO FUCKING DESPAIR

WHY IS IT SO INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING DONE RIGHT?

PLEASE FIX THIS NOW

No word on whether Smith's e-mail-long yawp has resulted in things getting fixed over in the UK, but here, you can buy the six-track EP (with digital booklet!) for $3.99:

Or you can just download it illegally somewhere, I guess. Anyway, I look forward to Smith's next bit of ire being directed toward the user reviewer whose review was headlined "I Wish I Could Say It Was Great." (That's a play on words, right?)

ITUNES UK HYPNAGOGIC NONSENSE [The Cure]

There's no dancing around the fact that rock radio in 2008 is ruled largely by pretty much any monsters of 90's alt-rock who are still roaming around the major-label landscape. One need look no further than the current Hot Modern Rock Tracks, the top three slots of which have been filled by Weezer, Offspring and the Foo Fighters for three weeks now, to prove this point. I say some variation of this line every other column, I know, but said landscape is much than it used to be, so the survivors are bigger now almost by default, even as bands of more recent vintage nip at their heels.

Rock programmers must be among the most loyal in their profession, because name recognition seems to triumph over all in their arena; consider that the rock charts have recently seen the return of even more onetime hitmakers, some of whom no one particularly wanted to hear from again, and others who are remembered fondly even though they're indisputably past their peak.

One of the more surprising familiar names to reappear lately is Candlebox, the Seattle hard rock band who got signed and went multiplatinum at the tail end of the early-'90s grunge explosion. The band never got much respect from the alt-rock crowd, lacking the cred of any connection to the '80s Sub Pop scene, and fared better on Active Rock stations. (I remember seeing the video for "Change" on
Headbanger's Ball months before MTV started giving the band heavy Alternative Nation exposure.) But they became frigging huge for a brief moment, and each of their first three albums yielded at least one top 5 Mainstream Rock hit, even the infamous sophomore slump Lucy and 1998's Happy Pills, which I didn't even really know existed. By that standard, the newly reunited Candlebox's current No. 19 single, "Stand," can't quite be considered a comeback—but it's also the chart's airplay gainer this week, so it may be getting there. And it can't hurt that the song's opening riff is so similar to that of the band's breakthrough single, 1993's "You," that when
I first checked the song out on YouTube, I initially did a double take to make sure I didn't click on the wrong search result.

There's a lot riding on Mötley Crüe's Saints Of Los Angeles, the first album by the band's original lineup since 1997's Generation Swine. And while the first-week album sales and the summer tour receipts haven't come in yet, things look good on the radio front, where the title track hasn't dipped out of the Mainstream Rock top 10 since debuting there in April. (It's currently peaking at No. 7.) But that's a little less impressive when you consider that "If I Die Tomorrow," the Simple Plan outtake (seriously!) that the band recorded for a greatest-hits comp in 2005, peaked at No. 4, and Nikki's side project Sixx: A.M. hit No. 2 just a few months ago. And if you're still wondering about the unconfirmed rumors that Mötley cut a 360 deal with concert-promotion giant Live Nation, which would give the company a cut of any of the band's possible revenue streams, there might be subliminal hints in "Saints," which features refrains of "we signed our life [sic] away" and "give it up, give it up."

Over on the Modern Rock chart, one of the format's longest-running dynasties, The Cure, has been back in business as of late. The band racked up four Modern Rock chart-toppers in its heyday, and probably would've had more if Billboard had created the chart earlier than 1988, just before Disintegration came out. Of the band's contemporaries from that era, only U2 and, to a lesser degree, Depeche Mode, are still making occasional runs at the chart. The latest from Fat Bob and co., "The Only One," is one of four advance singles planned for the new Cure album, which won't be out until September and hasn't yet been given a title. The track, a pretty faithful approximation of the band's most radio-friendly Wish-era songs, has only peaked at No. 34 and already seems to be slipping off the charts, while the second single, "Freakshow," has yet to chart since being released earlier this month. I'm pretty curious to see if The Cure's experiment with so many singles in quick succession will have any impact on radio play, or if those songs will end up functioning as early leaks for die-hard fans to snap up. Perhaps one of the singles released in July or August will get a surge of airplay once the album comes out this fall, or maybe "The Only One" will drop off months before its release, never to return. Time will tell.

So who's definitely not staging a comeback, at least on the radio? Filter and the Black Crowes come to mind. Both bands recently reunited and released new albums, but their lead singles peaked at No. 27 and No. 33, respectively, on Mainstream Rock, then quickly fell off the chart. Likewise, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale's "Love Remains The Same," from his recent solo debut, dropped off the Modern chart after hitting No. 33, which can't be more embarrassing than his song with the Blue Man Group, at least. And Judas Priest, who scored a minor hit in 2005 with their first new single after the return of frontman Rob Halford, "Revolution," have yet to chart with any of the songs off of their admirably ludicrous concept album Nostradamus. But if so-called rock stations can't embrace a seven-minute single about a 16th-century prophet, let's face it, that's their problem.

It was the last song that we wrote for the record. All the other songs were finished, and my producer came up to me and said, "'How I Could Just Kill a Man,' you know that Cypress Hill song? Play that song." And I was like, "Alright." I went into the other room and wrote it. I came out, and there it was. It's pretty hysterical, because again, it was just what was happening to me at the moment. I felt like I could just kill a man then. It was perfect. But it's really funny, people ask, "Is this a cover? Is this girl gangsta?" It's just a little pop song [laughs].

This girl is definitely not gangsta, but I can't complain too much about the lift, as it's inspired me to put on the first Cypress Hill album after far, far too long.

Hey, hardcore rap! Could you please sound like this again? And Charlotte Sometimes, could you sound more like this?

If not, please change your name to "Fidelity" or "Mother Mother" or something. I know you got your name from the novel, but c'mon, the Cure got there first. Truth in advertising.

Charlotte Sometimes - How I Could Just Kill A Man [YouTube]
Cypress Hill - How I Could Just Kill A Man [YouTube]
Charlotte Sometimes [YouTube]
Interview: Charlotte Sometimes [ARTISTdirect]

Every listen to this song reveals it as less and less a tired retread of that classic and simply another worthy entry in Robert Smith's bag of happy hits. But even if it came off hollow, I'd still be grateful that he bothered to revisit this mode, which might be my favorite of his many moods.

"When I see you sticky as lips, as licky as trips, I can't lick that far." Robert, you dog!

The Cure - The Only One [YouTube]
The Cure - High [YouTube]

Curious what it sounds like when the boys in Good Charlotte get their Cure on?

Yow. Now do "Shake Dog Shake."

Joel Madden: Daughter Harlow Is My 'True Love' [People]
Good Charlotte - Love song @ Helsinki [Youtube]

Yes, yes, we get it: Robert Smith is an icon, a legend, an inspiration—and, it seems, a guy who has no qualms about taking a Stipe-like victory dance about his back catalog, despite the fact that his band's last start-to-finish listenable album was nearly fifteen years ago. But remember when the Cure were so good, even a B-side from 1985 sounded like amazing?

The Cure - The Exploding Boy [MP3, link expired]