Bloodflowers

Bloodflowers came out in Japan on 2 February 2000 and in Britain and Europe on 14 February, with the United States following the next day. It was finished by May 1999, but the record company wanted it to appear after the millennium fever. Smith refused to release any singles, against the company's wishes, and has said it was a form of revenge for the lack of promotion given to the compilation Galore. Out of This World and Maybe Someday went to radio as promotional singles, and Maybe Someday reached number 10 on the Alternative Airplay chart. The album debuted at number 16 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.

Smith said it was the best experience he had had since Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and that at the demo stage the more commercial songs sounded so shallow. He directed the band's sound and mood closely, and only The Last Day of Summer came from another member, Simon Gallup. There Is No If, written when Smith was 19, had been held back for years because he thought it hippy-like. He made a home edit of Watching Me Fall, which runs 11:13, to under six minutes, but said it was not the same song. Watching Me Fall is heard in the end credits of the film American Psycho. In 2004 Smith named Bloodflowers his favourite Cure album.

Reviews were mixed. Pitchfork gave it 7.5 out of 10 and said it contained classic Cure material, more than could be said of their catalog since Disintegration. Melody Maker gave it 1.5 out of 5, and Rolling Stone complained of filler. In 2024 the Guardian ranked The Last Day of Summer seventeenth among the band's best songs, a meditation on ageing and loss that seemed to prefigure Songs of a Lost World.