The Cure — Friday I'm In Love

JUL 01 1992 · 12:00

The Cure — Friday I'm In Love (1992) Director: Tim Pope Era: Post-Punk Mainstream Crossover (1992) - The Cure's commercial apex, bridging gothic alternative rock with euphoric, radio-friendly pop during the early-90s alt-rock boom preceding Britpop Exceptionally high. This is one of the most identifiable and culturally resonant music videos of 1992, winning a major MTV VMA and marking The Cure's commercial apex. The Méliès homage gives it significant art-historical depth, the director–artist relationship (Pope/The Cure) is among the most sustained in music video history, and the quantitative metrics — high saturation, warm temperature, rapid cuts — are textbook examples of how production choices encode a song's emotional register. Essential for any archive covering early-90s alternative, British post-punk, or the history of MTV-era music video direction. Context: Released in May 1992 as the second single from The Cure's ninth studio album Wish, 'Friday I'm in Love' represented a deliberate pivot away from the band's goth-rock reputation toward unabashedly joyful mainstream pop. The video reinforced this tonal shift through pure carnivalesque spectacle: a Méliès-inspired soundstage overflowing with props, painted flats, and slapstick chaos that communicated accessibility without sacrificing the band's theatrical identity. The song reached number six in the UK and number eighteen on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for four weeks — the band's last US top-40 hit to date. The video's MTV award win at the 1992 VMAs cemented it as a defining artifact of early-90s alternative rock's mainstream breakthrough moment, predating the Britpop wave by two years. Director notes: Directed for The Cure in 1992 as part of their long-running collaboration spanning 37 videos. The video was shot on a soundstage in approximately two hours. It features the band performing in front of hand-painted backdrops created as a homage to French silent filmmaker Georges Méliès, specifically referencing his 1907 short The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon. The band interacts with theatrical props and costumed extras who progressively trash the set. Tim Pope himself makes a cameo at the opening, riding a rocking horse and shouting directions through a megaphone after inhaling helium. The final shot features bassist Simon Gallup in a bridal veil holding champagne. A notable in-joke: the drum kit reads 'The Cures' rather than the band's correct singular name. The video won the European Viewer's Choice for Best Music Video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.