The Cure: Classic or Dud?

. The Siouxsie series went along, completely stopped, stalled and then finally completed...and the Cure reissue series STILL hasn't budged since 2010!

Remember the Cure one also stalled for yeeeears, with everyone saying "oh god at least please get to Disintegration even if you don't make it further," and then they put out Disintegration in a different format all by itself. Writing was on the wall that there wouldn't be any more.

(The demos from Wish that a '90s fansite had up for years were great though, sorry to miss those.)

(But also the Disintegration remaster was such a shambles - RS putting together two discs of bonus material, then making one of them only available in a proprietary streaming format, in favour of a badly sequenced and unlistenably brickwalled Entreat remaster. Imagine if they'd just properly mixed and released that show as a companion volume instead.) (Was the Disintegration remaster itself also fucked? I can't remember. But I have a feeling it was a long way from "THIs MUSIC HAS BEEN MIXED TO PLAY LOUD SO TURN IT UP")

It was definitely loudened but I have gone back and forth as to whether I prefer it or the orig cd

My favourite Cure drummer is Lol, so I have no problem with Jason Cooper.

there are so many songs on this album where lyrically it feels like Robert completely lost his grip on the natural cadence of the English language

^^^THIS. Something happened after Wish - too much success?? Robert's lyrics seemed to become Cure-lite or lists of things and he's never fully recovered. I LOVED "The 13th" - a really exciting and fun single - the last time they did something completely bonkers and left-field. There were a few other decent songs on the album, but I could never bring myself to listen to "Strange Attraction" again. That song is completely revolting.

I think there are some really good songs on The Cure and 4:13 Dream, but WMS and Bloodflowers are weak. I can't listen to much besides the title track from the latter.

LOVED "The 13th" - a really exciting and fun single - the last time they did something completely bonkers and left-field

Wrong Number.

"Wrong Number" doesn't feel like much of a stretch from "Never Enough" to me.

I love the playful moments on WMS like Gone! and The 13th and can't imagine anything like that appearing on any of the band's subsequent records.

Bloodflowers, The Cure and 4:13 Dream are all different albums in many respects but they all feel a bit limited in imagination and scope.

tours i have seen:

The Top tour (my first ever concert) (Palladium Hollywood)
The Head on the Door x 3 (Irvine Meadows, Forum and Irvine Meadows '86)
Kiss Me x 2 (Forum July 14, 15 1987)
Disintegration x 2 (Dodgers Stadium, San Diego Sports Arena)
Wish x 2 (Long Beach Arena, The Rose Bowl)
WMS - missed was living in San Francisco
Bloodflowers living in San Francisco but went to SoCal (Irvine Meadows)
2016 Reflections Tour? - May 22, 2016

Relistening to 4:13 Dream for the first time in a while and it's a lot better than I remember. There's some really gorgeous songs here: 'Underneath the Stars,' 'Sirensong,' 'The Hungry Ghost.' Great stuff. The b-sides are all (as is the tradition) really good, as well. Not a life changing album, but a good late period record.

Now the self-titled album.

I hated this album when it came out, save for a few songs that I thought were totally great. It's better than I remember it, although this is another one where I've altered the tracklist, included all of the b-sides and proceeded to ignore the proper version, as it's embarrassing by comparison. My version's running order is such:

Lost
Anniversary
Labyrinth
alt.end
Fake
Taking Off
The End of the World
Before Three
(I Don't Know What's Going) On
Truth Goodness and Beauty
Why Can't I Be Me?
This Morning
Going Nowhere
Your God is Fear
The Promise

Some stray thoughts: the riff on 'alt.end' is totally 'In Your House' recycled; 'Fake' and 'Before Three' are so good, it's just silly, easily among their best work; I still think I hold on to an irrational contempt for this album, mostly because of the Ross Robinson connection.

It's alright.

...so they played "The Exploding Boy" tonight. All bets are off when it comes to predicting which show will get what, I think.

Or at least maybe a snippet of same, based on what Craig of Chain of Flowers posted. Setlist.fm doesn't show it.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2016/frank-erwin-center-austin-tx-73f15e25.html

I love that they're coming out, playing totally random stuff after so many years of predictability.

Yup, and yeah, "Exploding Boy" confirmed.

From Wikipedia

According to Smith, the official track listing of The Cure includes the closing track "Going Nowhere", which was excluded from North American pressings of the album.

"Lost" – 4:07
"Labyrinth" – 5:14
"Before Three" – 4:40
"Truth, Goodness and Beauty" (excluded from North American and Brazilian pressings) – 4:20
"The End of the World" – 3:44
"Anniversary" – 4:22
"Us or Them" – 4:09
"Fake" (excluded from CDs except in Japan) – 4:43
"alt. end" – 4:30
"(I Don't Know What's Going) On" – 2:57
"Taking Off" – 3:19
"Never" – 4:04
"The Promise" – 10:21
"Going Nowhere" (excluded from North American pressings) – 3:28
"This Morning" (excluded from all CDs) – 7:15

I think this is the vinyl track listing? It includes most of the b-sides. Which is the official?

That is the track listing for the Japanese version with This Morning added. I looked at all of the CD versions available and bought the Japanese import, which I see as definitive and superior to the North American release

So, this has got me listening to the self-titled record again... I keep forgetting how damn ugly those chords are on 'Lost'

I really enjoyed the instrumental version on the DVD.

Any other fans of "This Is A Lie" from Wild Mood Swings?

me

the vinyl tracklisting of the s/t album is the way to go for that, all the songs left off the us cd are better than almost anything else on the album

4:13 dream isn't an album I enjoy much, partly because the opening track is so awesome....certainly my favorite Cure song post-Wish (I think it's an old track?), and the rest of the album is completely weak or terrible in comparison to it.

the post-80s albums got a pasting in the Cure poll but do fans round here still wave a flag for them? is one revered above the others?
i haven't liked a Cure song since Wish.

I don't think anyone here loves any full album but there are highlights here and there. s/t is probably the best of the lot.

"the loudest sound" off bloodflowers is prob still my favorite ever cure song

Smith looks as if he's on the verge of tearing up at it during the performance on Trilogy. I've always been fond of that one - great lyric!

Basically, when it comes to those post-Wish records there's songs on all of those albums I really, really like, even love. It's just that as albums they're either more filler heavy (Wild Mood Swings) or feature production that doesn't serve the songs well (4:13 Dream) ... Bloodflowers is a strange one in that its sustained mood, which worked so well on Pornography or Disintegration, is ultimately what tanks it.

I don't think anyone here loves any full album but there are highlights here and there. s/t is probably the best of the lot.

uh hi I still post here

Bloodflowers is by far my favorite of the four. I agree the sustained mood weighs it down a bit. Some songs like "Watching Me Fall", "Maybe Someday" and "39" would be better if they were a bit sped up.

The last two records have some good songs on them but the vocals are so loud they are tiring and the production makes them almost unlistenable.

Dan which full album out of this set do you love? really? any of them? all the way through?

watching me fall and 39 are perfect

the only song i think kinda sucks on bloodflowers is "where the birds always sing." otherwise i 100 percent love that record

I think I remember reading around the time that Bloodflowers was released that Robert deliberately limited himself to the same set of keys and consciously kept everything strictly within a limited tempo range. Maybe that wasn't the best idea, because while most of Bloodflowers sounds great in isolation, as an album it's a bit of a slog to get through.

"out of this world" i think singlehandedly made me a cure fan. it moves very subtly. great lyrics too

Oh god, Brad OTM. 'Where The Birds Always Sing' my least favourite song on there by miles, although I've never been fond of '39' either. I love the rest of the songs on it.

I would prefer if they had a bit more drive like "One Hundred Years" or "Disintegration". (x-post to imago)

I think "Where The Birds Always Sing" is brilliant musically.

I'm a bit late on this but I'd also like to stand up for Wish. Open is probably in my top three Cure songs (with A Night Like This and All Cats Are Grey). High is a fantastic single that was sadly overshadowed by Friday I'm In Love. Apart is absolutely devastating. One of their most heartbreaking songs. To Wish Impossible Things is a really underrated song too. Those strings that come in are so beautiful. Doing The Unstuck and A Letter To Elise are great songs too. Wendy Time is the only one I've never really clicked with.

Out of their last four albums, Bloodflowers is my favourite by a long way. Watching Me Fall is hard work but the rest of it is solid. Out Of This World and The Last Day Of Summer are really gorgeous. I liked the other three when I got them but could only pick a few songs from each that I really love these days (The End Of The World, Mint Car, Before Three, The Only One, I Don't Know What's Going On, Underneath The Stars). Not sure how I'd feel about a new Cure album at this stage.

what is this nonsense about 'watching me fall' being some sort of ordeal

it is the greatest most overblown meta-tantrum robert smith ever committed to tape. it is some sort of mope-rock pinnacle and the longer it goes on, the more it repeats, the greater it gets

Do people rate Cut Here from the greatest hits? I'm tempted to say it's my favourite Cure song since Wish. It's always made me a bit teary being about Billy Mackenzie.

oh wow yeah i completely forgot about "cut here" but i love that song

"The Last Day of Summer" is fantastic.

Yeah, I like 'Cut Here' a lot!

I was just reading about Cut Here on Wikipedia. Feeling pretty stupid that I've never realised that the title is an anagram of The Cure.

The very best thing about that Greatest Hits was the brief return of Boris on the acoustic disc.

I think 'Wrong Number' is incredibly underrated too, I probably like that more than anything on Wild Mood Swings

'Cut Here' rules. The remix on the single is even better.

On the Cut Here single, the formatted the song title such that "t He" were one color and "Cu…re" were another so the anagram was really obvious.

Re: recent albums I love; there are at least a couple of songs on each that I dislike or feel fine skipping but this is also true of (for example) The Head on the Door and I would say I love that album, too; I don't think you have to love every single song on an album to say you love it. So, I would say that I love every album they released except Wild Mood Swings, and even with WMS I love most of the b-sides.

Here's the remix of 'Cut Here':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_GgwQ6yW7c

And the b-side, 'Signal to Noise,' is another great later era Cure winner if you ask me.

Relistening to the 'Wrong Number' single, these remixes are really goofy.

Lime Green & Tangerine is great

Yeah 'Signal To Noise' and 'Cut Here' are really good.

Listening to the Acoustic Hits disc and Boris plays fuckin' tablas on 'High.' Hero.

i have been re-listening to almost every album, getting ready for Sunday's show. today i listened to The Top. i know this has been discussed before but wondering how that isn't considered one of The Cure's best albums. i kept waiting for a bad song to come up and it never did. it was them at their most psychedelic. sort of wish they did a few more albums like it.