(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 31 January 2026 8:40, UK
The Cure frontman Robert Smith prefers to let his art do the talking on his behalf and hasn’t made a career out of insulting bands in the press. Nevertheless, when given the opportunity, Smith isn’t one to mince his words, and on the odd occasion, he’s rubbed people up the wrong way with his cutting, unfiltered opinion.
As a mainstay in the rock world for over five decades, Smith has seen many new bands hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread before their star quickly fades. To achieve longevity on a comparable scale to The Cure is no small feat, and very few acts manage to hit that milestone. Although many acts can climb up to the top of the mountain, staying there is much more of a significant challenge, as many have discovered. However, one act that can’t be accused of slipping out of sight is Queen, but that doesn’t mean that Smith respects them.
The Cure and Queen were the antithesis of one another amid their respective pomps during the 1980s. Freddie Mercury was the ultimate, flamboyant frontman, and, contrarily, Smith preferred to do his business on and off stage in a quiet, unostentatious manner. Unsurprisingly, due to their seismic musical differences, Smith wasn’t taken by Queen and couldn’t find a single redeeming future in their art. They represented everything he despised, and the fact that they were the biggest band in the world was a source of confusion for Smith.
However, although he harboured negative feelings toward the stadium-filling quartet, he kept his opinions to himself for decades. This is how Smith has typically diplomatically carried himself at every step of his career, preferring to avoid confrontation. Most notably, he was embroiled in a bitter, mostly one-way feud with Morrissey over several decades, but no points are available for guessing who instigated that one.
Smith didn’t stoop down to The Smiths frontman’s level, but he did receive an unexpected apology many years later. Morrissey admitted that his vitriolic language aimed at The Cure’s frontman was one of the few “small regrets” in his career. “I said some terrible things about him 35 years ago… but I didn’t mean them… I was just being very Grange Hill,” Morrissey admitted.
Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. (Credits: Far Out / LastFM)
His one-sided feud with Morrissey proved that it’s not in his DNA to be outwardly aggressive toward other artists. However, his true feelings have sometimes spilt out, like in 2004 when he discussed Queen.
Smith mentioned the group during a conversation with Rolling Stone, a time when the magazine asked for his opinion on classic rock renaissance men The Darkness after they unexpectedly became the hottest band in Britain. In 2003, The Darkness released their debut album, Permission to Land, which spent a month at the top of the charts. In 2004, the group headlined the Reading and Leeds Festival and dominated the Brit Awards by winning the awards for ‘Best Group’, ‘Best Rock Group’, and ‘Best Album’.
After only one album, they were briefly one of Britain’s biggest bands, but Smith wasn’t convinced and believed they were nothing more than a Queen rip-off. “Well, I never liked Queen,” he explained when pressed for his thoughts on The Darkness. “I can honestly say I hated Queen and everything that they did.”
It’s hard to hold such serious feelings about music, but Smith has rarely avoided holding such grudges. And, it would seem, it wasn’t just during the 1970s and ’80s that Smith hated Queen, for decades the reverence of the band’s stadium-filling brilliance seemingly still rubbed Smith up the wrong way. And, when a new band picked up the mantel, issues clearly resurfaced.
Smith continued: “To have that rehashed and reheated for a second time around is pretty weird. So, no, I don’t like the Darkness at all. I think they’re a comedy band.”
By that sentiment, Smith also labelled Queen a joke act, which is a harsh assessment of one of the best-selling bands of all time. While the exuberant Freddie Mercury was willing to play up to his showman streak at every opportunity, he was also a serious musician who wrapped up songs with heartfelt emotion.
Perhaps it was due to their aesthetic, but Smith merely viewed The Darkness as a reminder of a bygone era of rock, which he didn’t enjoy the first time around and wished to forget. While his appraisal of the group was ruthless, Smith wasn’t alone in judging them as a comedy act. It is an unwanted tag that took them many years to try to brush off, but 20 years on from their debut, The Darkness are still going strong.
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