A-Side: Primary
B-Side: Descent
Record label: Fiction FICS 12
Producer: Mike Hedges, The Cure
Released: 20/03/81
Purchased: 20/03/82
The Cure | Primary | Fiction | 1981 | My admiration for Robert Smith aside, I do wonder how long The Cure can continue to prop their songs against the same chord progression, with its clambering bass and deadpan drums. At the moment their fast song (this one) sounds just like their slow one speeded up. (Smash Hits, April 1981)
Ah, found it at last. Actually this is the 7″ version, the man didn’t have a 12″ one to go with the lovely cover. Pleasant but heavily phased and everyone sounds incredibly bored. Ah well, onto the next one. (Record Mirror, 28/03/81)
Can’t see a lot of logic in the decision to give this song single status. The finer points of The Cure’s appeal elude me at the best of times, but beyond an attractively fanatical drum-beat, “Primary‘s” point escapes me. Some undistinguished and moaning vocals don’t help, but essentially the fault is with the song itself, and that fault is that it is damned near non-existent – with no other virtues to compensate. (NME, 28/03/81)
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