Robert Smith in ‘Awe’ of Olivia Rodrigo as Cure Collaboration Goes Public

The Cure frontman kept the duet secret even from his own bandmates until the Barcelona performance.

Robert Smith has spoken openly about his admiration for Olivia Rodrigo following their surprise joint performance at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, where the pair debuted ‘What’s Wrong With Me?’, a co-written duet set to appear on Rodrigo’s forthcoming album, You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love, due June 12. In a BBC 6 Music interview aired June 8th, Smith described Rodrigo as someone he watches with genuine awe, marking a cross-generational pairing that has been building since Glastonbury 2025.

A Secret Kept Even From The Cure

Smith told BBC 6 Music that the collaboration was guarded with the same secrecy he applied to Rodrigo’s Glastonbury guest appearance. His own bandmates in The Cure were unaware the track existed until the night of the Primavera performance. “I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t tell my band until yesterday night when we came off,” Smith said. “They were like, ‘What?'”

He framed the secrecy as deliberate and energising. “The same was with Glastonbury, everything we do is genuinely secret, and it’s just exciting when we do it. It proved the point tonight, I think.”

Rodrigo, introducing the song in Barcelona, called it “really special to me for so many reasons… primarily because it’s my first collaboration,” adding, “I can’t believe this song exists and with the person that it exists with.” In a handwritten note shared after the show, she wrote that Smith “has been soundtracking my life for as long as I can remember” and that she is “in disbelief that this song exists.”

Smith on Rodrigo’s Effortless Talent

Smith was candid about the contrast between his own laboured creative process and what he perceives as Rodrigo’s natural ease. “I’m slightly in awe of how easy she finds it all, it’s not really comparable to how I do things,” he said. “It just comes across as very effortless, very natural, and I’m not really a natural performer.”

He elaborated on his own method as a counterpoint: “I think when I write songs, I’m writing them for a very specific reason, and I agonise over them to be honest.” The admission is notable from a songwriter whose catalog spans more than four decades and includes some of post-punk’s most enduring records.

Smith also revealed he has not yet heard Rodrigo’s full album despite receiving access to it. “Her producer Dan sent me the link to her album a few weeks ago, but I haven’t listened to the album because I like to listen to the albums on vinyl or on CD and put them in and sit and listen to them.”

The Cure’s Influence Woven Through Rodrigo’s New Material

The collaboration sits within a broader pattern of Cure references running through Rodrigo’s upcoming record. Her single ‘Drop Dead’ interpolates ‘Just Like Heaven,’ and Rodrigo explicitly acknowledges Smith wrote that song for his then-girlfriend, now wife Mary Poole. She sings, “You know all the words to ‘Just Like Heaven’ / And I know why he wrote them / Now that you’re standing right here.”

The album’s lead single ‘The Cure’ borrows its title as an unapologetic tribute, and the lettering used across Rodrigo’s new website and the single’s visuals echoes the typography familiar from The Cure’s 1980s releases. Rodrigo covered ‘Just Like Heaven’ during her Glastonbury headline set, the same occasion where Smith first joined her onstage.

The Quietus writer Jude Rogers has noted that this kind of cross-generational reach is becoming a recognisable cultural pattern. Black Box Recorder recently reformed for a London Palladium show after Billie Eilish’s Instagram posts drove millions of new streams to the band. Charli xcx collaborated with John Cale, who also appears on the cover of her forthcoming album. Mitski, whose songs have accumulated two billion streams, recently played the Royal Albert Hall with experimental Welsh guitarist Gwenifer Raymond as support.

The Cure’s Own Next Chapter

Smith used the BBC 6 Music interview to provide a brief update on The Cure’s own recording activity. He confirmed the band’s next album is “done” and disclosed that a further album beyond that is already in progress, describing it as “really poppy.”

He also reflected on The Cure’s current standing among younger audiences. “We have found ourselves in a position where there are a lot of people who are just getting into The Cure,” Smith said, noting the band has “always refreshed the audience” but that the trend has become “much more evident” in recent years. He pointed to ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ as a particular catalyst, saying the song seems to have “really tapped into something.”

What we know

• Olivia Rodrigo and Robert Smith performed their co-written duet ‘What’s Wrong With Me?’ at Primavera Sound in Barcelona.
• The duet will appear on Rodrigo’s album You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love, due June 12.
• Smith told BBC 6 Music, in an interview aired June 8th, that he kept the collaboration secret from his own bandmates in The Cure until the night of the Primavera performance.
• Smith described Rodrigo as someone he is “slightly in awe of” for how effortless and natural her performing appears.
• Smith confirmed The Cure’s next album is “done” and that a further album, which he called “really poppy,” is also in progress.
• Rodrigo covered ‘Just Like Heaven’ at Glastonbury 2025 and brought Smith onstage during that headline set.
• Smith has not yet listened to Rodrigo’s full album, preferring to hear it on vinyl or CD.
• Rodrigo’s single ‘Drop Dead’ references ‘Just Like Heaven,’ including a lyric acknowledging Smith wrote the song for Mary Poole.

The take

Robert Smith has always occupied an unusual position in rock history: a figure who emerged from post-punk’s fringes and became, almost despite himself, a mainstream icon. His catalog has been a reliable touchstone for successive generations of outsider teenagers, and the current wave of younger artists citing him as a formative influence fits a pattern that stretches back at least to the early 2000s, when acts like Interpol and The Rapture made their Cure debts explicit. What makes the Rodrigo pairing different is the scale and the sincerity. Rodrigo is operating at the commercial peak of contemporary pop, and her references to Smith are granular enough to suggest genuine obsession rather than brand positioning. The ‘Just Like Heaven’ lyric in ‘Drop Dead,’ the typography lifted from 1980s Cure singles, the choice to make Smith her first-ever collaborator: these are the moves of a fan, not a marketing department. Smith’s own comments about agonising over songs versus Rodrigo’s apparent effortlessness also reveal something honest about how differently two generations of songwriters can approach the same craft. Historically, legacy alternative acts have benefited enormously when pop figures with large young audiences adopt them publicly. The Cure’s streaming numbers and live audience demographics have visibly shifted in recent years, and Smith himself acknowledges it. The timing, with a new Cure album confirmed as finished and another described as “really poppy” already in progress, suggests the band is well-positioned to capitalise on exactly this kind of renewed attention.

Why it matters

For Classic Rock and alternative music audiences, the Rodrigo-Smith axis represents something genuinely useful: a high-profile bridge between legacy acts and the streaming generation that doesn’t feel manufactured. Smith’s candour about his own process, and his evident respect for Rodrigo’s talent, gives the pairing credibility that a simple guest spot would not. It also signals that The Cure, with new music confirmed and a younger audience actively discovering the back catalog, are entering a period of renewed relevance rather than coasting on nostalgia.

What’s next

Rodrigo’s album You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love is scheduled for release on June 12, with ‘What’s Wrong With Me?’ confirmed as a track. The Cure have a completed album awaiting release and a second, described by Smith as “really poppy,” in progress. No release dates for either Cure record were given in the available reporting.

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