Songs of a Lost World (2024)

Songs of a Lost World is the fourteenth studio album by the English rock band the Cure, released on 1 November 2024 via Fiction, Lost Music, Universal, Polydor, and Capitol Records. It is the band's first release of new material in 16 years since the release of 4:13 Dream in 2008. All the songs on the album were composed solely by singer/guitarist Robert Smith, for the first time since the 1985 album The Head on the Door. It is also their first studio album to feature guitarist Reeves Gabrels. The record was released a day after Halloween at Smith's request.

Upon release, the album received critical acclaim, with particular praise for the lyrics, dark sound, and Smith's vocals. It was also a commercial success, being their first album since Wish (1992) to reach number one in the UK, and was also one of the fastest selling albums of 2024, having at one point outsold the entire top 10 of the week combined. It also reached number one in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. It gave the band three BRIT Award nominations for Mastercard Album of the Year, Group of the Year and Alternative/Rock Act. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in 2026, and the single "Alone" won Best Alternative Music Performance at the same ceremony.

The live album Songs of a Live World: Troxy London MMXXlV, recorded at The Cure's album launch show at the Troxy in East London, was released on 13 December 2024. A remix album, Mixes of a Lost World, was released on 13 June 2025.

Background

Songs of a Lost World was several years in the making, and is the Cure's first studio album since 4:13 Dream in 2008. The album was originally intended for release in 2019. It is the band's first full-length album to feature Reeves Gabrels on guitar since he joined as a full-time member in 2012, although he was previously featured on the band's 1997 single "Wrong Number". It also features the studio return of keyboardist Roger O'Donnell, who rejoined the band in 2011 after a six-year hiatus. Five of the album's songs, including "Alone", had been performed live in 2022 and 2023 during their Shows of a Lost World international tour. Multi-instrumentalist Perry Bamonte rejoined the band in 2022 for that tour, but does not appear on the album as most of the recording was completed in 2019.

The songs were entirely written, composed, and arranged by Robert Smith. During the writing process, Smith had difficulty "find[ing] the right imagery" for the lyrics to "Alone", ultimately finding inspiration from the Ernest Dowson poem "Dregs". AllMusic described the song as "dense swirls of synths, simple, pounding drums", noting that "themes of loss, isolation, impermanence, and mortality" were present in the lyrics.