Assuming the music stays the same, would it hurt the aging Cure to stop using makeup, get short, low-maintenance haircuts, and wear basic, casual clothing?

At this point it seems there may always be a Cure. Can they keep their costumes and not look (more) ridiculous?

im not trying to insult them as a band but they are primarily a girlee band.
not saying they are not good musicians but most of their fans are women who are not that old in fact. they want the visual .
now many other acts the guys could age and lose their looks and it would be allright and some other acts could age and develop a gq kind of look.
to them its like seeing kiss without the makeup.

i feel like such a chauvenist pig with this opinion.

the cure did try that when they released "wild mood swings" in '96 (?). robert smith did interviews in which whined that he felt that the band was stereotyped as a gloom and doom band, and claimed that they were much more. they played letterman one night and smith was wearing some hockey jersey (don't remember the team) and less makeup and everything. my girlfriend at the time was highly offended by it (she was a huge Cure fan, but didn't dress like an idiot). i think they pissed some fans off, and by the time i saw them in st louis in 2000 they had reverted back.

incidentally, their performance of "killing an arab" that night during the encore was fucking amazing...

I think it was a NJ Devils jersey.

And ya, the make-up hasn't been a big part of their schtick for over a decade now - not that there's been much reason to tune-in to the Cure for most of that time. I did see the Trilogy show in Berlin (free ticket for me;sans makeup for them) and I still listen at least once to new stuff they put out, but c'mon they are basically a 'teeny' band at heart - why should they be expected to grow old with the rest of us?

btw, for anyone else who stopped the love-affair circa Kiss Me..., the Freakshow 7" is actually a very worthy gem buried in the pigshit of their output over the last year(s).

I don't regard The Cure as a girly band, but I do agree that the visual image seems integral to the band (or at least to Smith).

I wouldn't compare this to Kiss without the makeup, though. Even without the visual aspect, The Cure's music is distinctive and recognizable for who's playing it ... whereas, without the makeup and the costumes, Kiss became one of the most dull, generic hard-rock bands of its time.

That said, Rob Sheffield had this to say about Robert Smith: "He's the greatest lesbian rock star ever, even if he is technically a straight guy."

They could start the ball rolling by not appearing in any of their film clips.

the cure R like the church, dolls, pistols, U2, velvets and most of the rest of the best.

Timeless.

Bloodflowers is as quint essential as 'boys don't cry' for evidence/proof.