A lot of what makes The Cure’s discography so transcendent and enduring is frontman Robert Smith’s unique approach to making music. It’s not technical or weighed down by perfectionism. Instead, he comes at songwriting and composition from a place that doesn’t even exist on this physical plane.
Smith’s technique becomes less of a technique and more of a feeling. He often deliberately messes with his guitar pitch, tuning it just slightly wrong, creating a sound that’s just slightly off. Mostly, he achieves this by detuning the high E string on his guitar just a touch.
“I don’t know what it adds,” he told Guitar Player in a 1992 print issue. “But the guitar just doesn’t sound quite right to me normally.”
The ethereal, fragile quality of The Cure’s sound became a hallmark for the band. Even through stylistic deviations, they kept the otherworldliness. Smith’s detuning, slack strings, and general habit of messing around with keyboard overdubs, electronic tuners, tape recordings, and more worked in the band’s favor. But even Smith’s mistakes produced surprising textures, like when an accident with a tape recorder totally altered “Friday I’m in Love”.
Robert Smith Shaped The Cure’s Ethereal Texture Through Unique, Experimental Guitar Tuning
“Friday I’m in Love” appeared on The Cure’s 1992 album Wish, and ultimately became one of their most enduring hits. But its now-familiar sound emerged from an accident in the studio, when Robert Smith was messing around with the varispeed settings on the tape deck.
“I was playing with the varispeed and forgot to turn it off,” Smith said in 1992. “But the whole feel changed, and the fact that it’s the only song on Wish that’s not in concert pitch really lifts it out and makes it sound different.”
The forgotten varispeed setting made the song a quarter-tone sharp. It falls halfway between D and E flat, which made it stand out against the backdrop of the rest of the album. “Friday I’m in Love” topped the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart despite being more of a “naive, happy type of pop song,” according to Smith.
“After working on the record for months,” he said, “hearing something a quarter-tone off makes your brain take a step backwards.”
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