WHOA! It's been four years since I started writing on these pages. Although I completely forgot my first three anniversaries, I planned something a little special this time.

I believe the year was 1995, and I was on a bus returning from my (then) annual trip to the Montreal Jazz fest. Somehow, my friend Sandra and I got to talking about really well known albums that we'd somehow never gotten around to hearing (note to self: maybe start a thread on I Love Music about this). I was really surprised that she'd never heard "The Queen is Dead", but not as shocked as she was to find out that I'd never heard the Smiths debut. By pure coincidence, she had the tape with her so she grabbed it and forced me to listen to it right then and there.

I also confessed that I'd never heard the Cure's "Disintigration". This, to me, was my number one surprising neverheard (SNH). But in those formative years, such things were more common than they are now. Money was more scarce, and good songs on the radio were more common. I didn't hear Depeche Mode's Violator until a good eighteen months after it's release -- DM songs new and old were played on CFNY all the time, I owned the Violator singles, I owned most of their other albums, so there was no shortage of ways to get a regular DM fix. Similarly, I didn't hear New Order's "Technique" until 1992 or 1993. And much of the same was true of the Cure at the time. Anyhow, in the summer of 1992 all the good DJ's left CFNY, I essentially quit the radio cold turkey and the Cure were on an extended hiatus, so it was out of sight, out of mind for a few years.

That covers the story/excuses up to 1995. More time has passed since then than had passed since "Disintegration"'s release at that time. And I still haven't heard it!

Amazing. The conditions that led to those early SNH's are long gone. I buy a LOT more music now and my tastes are broader. When there's something I'm curious about hearing it usually isn't a problem to find it and hear it. Today, I buy music based on pure speculation all the time. Sometimes I don't even bother to listen to it first. With filesharing, it's even simpler -- the time between a curious inkling and music to my ears is only a few minutes. The bottom line, SNH's used to be not uncommon, but now they're practically an impossibility.

I can't even put this stuff into words. It's preposterous. Everyone knows how trivial it is to obtain music these days. How could I have managed to avoid one album for fifteen years, particularly one as lauded as "Disintegration"? All those times I could have found it in a used CD shop, all those times someone said "I'll lend it to you sometime", I said "OK", and then we never got around to doing it. It's nonsensical.

In some sense, the fifteen year wait is ending today. I don't have "Disintegration" in front of me right now, but I do have "Entreat". The existence of this live document of the "Disintegration" era was news to me until a couple of weeks ago. I remember the singles containing live tracks from back in the day, but I didn't know there was an actual live album released as well. As for the songs, I have "Disintegration" from the Finsbury Park 1993 bootleg, and of course I know "Pics of You" and "Fasc Str", but the other five tracks are new to me! So here it is ... the last of the great SNH's?

"Pictures of You". This is actually my first Cure CD, period. I have a bunch of cassettes and the "Just Like Heaven" remix 12" (from the Mixed Up period), but no CD's until now. Hey, eight minutes just flew right by, how about that. Great song.

"Closedown". I feel like such an idiot. Fifteen years ... the intro to this is just totally beautiful, good and long, but the perfect length, unlike the intros to some of the "Kiss Me" songs which were long for the sake of being long. The lack of the bass drum and wistful, yet downtrodden mood reminds me of Travis' "Driftwood", although that may be because I listened to "The Man Who" this morning.

"Last Dance". Nice, but I'm still hung up on the last two songs.

"Fascination Street". I'm 99% sure that this is the version that was on the single, and got played on CFNY almost as much as the studio version. I always preferred the studio version. Even better, I preferred the eight minute extended remix.

"Prayers For Rain". This album isn't bowling me over, but I've heard enough Cure to know what to expect from them. I'm getting flashbacks to their concert in 2000, which was the one and only time I saw them. Yeah, it even took me eleven years to get around to going to one of their concerts. I was never a hardcore fan (which is blatantly obvious by now, otherwise this entire article wouldn't have been necessary) but I've known enough hardcore fans to know that this is the good stuff. This type of song is what the hardcore types swoon over.

"Disintegration". The song goes on for a healthy time, but I'm still hung up on "Prayers for Rain". This is also the only album track I know, so I don't have to listen as carefully. "Prayers for Rain" is my kind of Cure track, long, gloomy, swirling, and mildly hellish. "One Hundred Years" is one of my fave Cure tracks, to put that in context. "Homesick"/"Untitled". I'm beginning to think that this entire article is pointless. This is like the Kraftwerk Euro Music awards performance (which I wrote about at length at the time and happened to mention again just a few days ago). I'm finally hearing these songs, it's taken so long for this to happen, and now time is anonymously passing by and before you know it, it's over. Fifteen years of waiting and now it's over. No fireworks, no nothing. Imagine how I'll react if/when Kevin performs on the Oscars. I won't have a damned thing to write about.

"Untitled" is a suitable ending, almost a lullaby despite the breezy tempo, drifting on for minutes on end ...