Why Three Imaginary Boys Put a Lamp, a Refrigerator and a Vacuum Cleaner on the Cover
Imagine waiting to see the cover of your first album.
You have spent years rehearsing, playing small clubs, developing a sound and trying to convince someone that your band deserves to be heard. The record is finally finished. This will be the first image many people associate with you.
Then someone shows you a photograph of a lamp, a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner.
That is essentially what happened to The Cure.
Released on May 8, 1979, Three Imaginary Boys introduced The Cure to the world as a trio consisting of Robert Smith, Lol Tolhurst and Michael Dempsey. The album was produced by Chris Parry, recorded at Morgan Studios in London and released through Fiction Records.
The cover did not show the three young musicians.
Instead, it showed three ordinary household objects arranged against a pink background. There was a lamp, a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner. The objects appeared to represent the three members of the band, although nobody had explained which object belonged to which person.
Fans could reasonably assume that the image was some carefully designed statement about identity, anonymity or modern life. The Cure would eventually become known for mysterious imagery, distinctive visual presentation and an unusual relationship with fame.
This cover, however, was not their idea.
Lol Tolhurst later explained in his memoir, Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys, that the band was simply presented with the finished artwork. The members did not participate in developing the concept and did not have any meaningful opportunity to approve it.
They were young, new to the recording industry and operating under the assumption that this was how the business worked. Chris Parry had taken a chance on them and was financing the record. The band believed that meant they were expected to accept decisions made on their behalf.
When journalists began asking which household object represented each musician, the band had no real answer. They started inventing explanations.
Tolhurst summarized the absurdity of the situation perfectly when he wrote, “Nobody ever wanted to be the fridge, trust me.”
It is a funny line, but the story behind it is more important than a strange piece of album trivia.
The photograph captured a band that had not yet gained control of its own identity.
The cover was not the only decision made without their full involvement. Robert Smith was also unhappy with elements of the album’s production, song selection and running order. Material appeared on the record that he did not believe represented the direction he wanted The Cure to pursue.
The young musicians had created the music, but other people were deciding how that music would be packaged and presented.
To be fair, the cover was not necessarily created with bad intentions. Designer Bill Smith later recalled that Robert Smith had been distant during the process and had offered little guidance about what the band wanted. From the designer’s perspective, the musicians had not provided a clear visual direction.
From the band’s perspective, nobody had truly invited them to create one.
That difference matters.
Creative control is not simply the ability to reject an idea after someone else has completed it. It begins with being included in the conversation. Artists need the opportunity to explain what their work represents, how they want to be seen and what they do not want attached to their name.
The Cure learned that lesson on its first album.
The experience helped shape what came next. Robert Smith became increasingly determined to control the band’s sound, presentation and direction. The Cure’s second album, Seventeen Seconds, moved into a colder, darker and more atmospheric world. It sounded far more like the band that would eventually create Faith, Pornography, The Head on the Door and Disintegration.
The difference was not simply musical development. It was ownership.
The Cure was beginning to decide what The Cure meant.
That makes the cover of Three Imaginary Boys strangely appropriate in retrospect. A lamp, refrigerator and vacuum cleaner may not have represented the band accurately, but they represented the situation perfectly. Three musicians were present, but their identities had been replaced by objects selected by someone else.
The cover became an image of creative absence.
It also became unforgettable.
More than four decades later, fans still recognize that peculiar collection of appliances. What irritated the band became part of its history. The album itself contains the sharp, restless beginnings of a sound that would grow far beyond the expectations surrounding a young group from Crawley.
Songs such as “10:15 Saturday Night,” “Grinding Halt” and the title track reveal a band already searching for something different. The music had not fully arrived at the emotional depth of later Cure albums, but the instincts were there.
So were the relationships.
Lol Tolhurst was not a musician who joined after The Cure had found success. He was there at the beginning. His friendship with Robert Smith reached back to childhood, long before record contracts, international tours and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
That history gives Tolhurst’s stories a quality that cannot be recreated through research alone. He remembers the moments before anyone knew what The Cure would become. He remembers the uncertainty, humor and mistakes that disappeared once the band became an institution.
The appliance story matters because it reminds us that legendary bands do not begin as legends.
They begin as young people learning how the music industry works.
They make compromises because they do not yet know they can refuse. They accept decisions because someone more experienced appears to understand the business. They sometimes see the final version of their own work at nearly the same moment as the public.
Then, if they survive, they learn to take control.
That may be one of the most important parts of The Cure’s story. The band did not emerge with a completely formed sound, image and plan. Those things were developed through experimentation, disappointment and a growing determination to protect the work.
The lamp, refrigerator and vacuum cleaner did not define The Cure.
The decision never to surrender that much control again helped define them.
In Artists with Adam, Lol Tolhurst gives us the opportunity to hear from someone who experienced that evolution from the inside. He is not simply looking back at the history of an influential band. He helped create that history, beginning when three imaginary boys were introduced to the world as three household appliances.
And for the record, he still did not want to be the refrigerator.
Sources and Further Reading
Lol Tolhurst, Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys
The Cure, official page for Three Imaginary Boys
The Big Issue, album designer Bill Smith discusses the cover of Three Imaginary Boys
Snap Galleries, Martyn Goddard’s photograph for the album cover