The Cure: Classic or Dud?

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.

It was a heavily drug-influenced album. I think part of the reason it's seen as a lesser effort is because it's the album without Simon and it came directly after such a poppy period ('Let's Go to Bed', 'The Walk', 'Lovecats', etc.).

The demos and related material on the deluxe edition are completely great, though.

And, let's not forget, its tour birthed Concert — arguably their best live album, even without Simon.

that's right, i forgot about Concert. i played that to death and had the cassette version that included a whole bunch of extra songs.

The version of "One Hundred Years" on that is just incredible, cranked up loud, that shrieking twin-guitar chaos at the end. I can feel adrenaline washing out of me when it shudders to a halt.

Mind you the version on Trilogy is pretty much as good.

no wonder i liked it so much:

the second side of the cassette and it's called Curiosity (Killing the Cat):

"Heroin Face" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Three Imaginary Boys)
"Boys Don't Cry" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Three Imaginary Boys)
"Subway Song" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Three Imaginary Boys)
"At Night" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Seventeen Seconds)
"In Your House" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Seventeen Seconds)
"The Drowning Man" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Faith)
"Other Voices" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Faith)
"The Funeral Party" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Faith)
"All Mine" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered Pornography)
"Forever (Version)" (now found on Disc Two of the remastered The Top)

Made a Curiosity playlist from the deluxe editions, the Seventeen Seconds live tracks are equal to the studio versions for me. There are a couple of really nice Dutch / German radio broadcast recordings from that 1980 tour which are pretty much my favourite Cure. Also worth tracking down is the video from a TV broadcast of a show in Glasgow on the 1984 tour, a few nights after the Concert recordings.

I have to say I expected this tour to have some sweet setlists but... damn, I did not expect them to be so diverse and unpredicatble - seems they could play anything from their entire catalogue at this point. Kinda reinforces my suspicion that this could be their real farewell tour.

I love The Top! At various points I would've said it's my favourite Cure record.

Kinda reinforces my suspicion that this could be their real farewell tour.

I'm surprised they're doing such a massive tour without a new album. I still haven't given up hope of an unexpected release at some point, there's been vague hints/rumours about them in the studio over the last year or two.

The Top was the first Cure album I ever owned so it's really cemented in my mind as one of their best records. But it had a weird history in the US; only available on CD as an import for a long time, not many hit singles, etc, so I think many people in the 80's missed it. Their loss.

The Top is a great album but I tend to underrate it because of how much "Birdmad Girl" sometimes gets on my nerves.

(more specifically, the chorus to "Birdmad Girl")

weirdly that is the only song on the album i can't bring to mind immediately

like, i try to, and it's 'dressing up'

Does this help:

Oh I could be......... A POLARR BEEEEEEEEAH

hahaha

like a polar beh. euh.

It's imPOSSIBALL

I think "Birdmad Girl" would sound good in the hands of Ric Ocasek

i like that chorus

Sometimes I do. Sometimes it is the most irritating thing in the world.

Birdmad Girl is by far my fav song on The Top.

"Piggy in the Mirror" >>>>>>> "Birdmad Girl"

there is not one bad track on that album. not even sure there's a track that isn't great.

So they busted out "The Perfect Girl" the other night. First time in a quarter century.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2016/don-haskins-center-el-paso-tx-7bf146b0.html

I will be impressed if they decide to do "Descent" one night.

def glad i decided to get tickets.

sounds like demand is pretty high at least in minneapolis at first it was going to be a "half show" at the Excel Center (hockey arena) where they blocked off half the arena with a big curtain but they've expanded it to a full arena show because of quick sales

Give me It is the only song I skip on the Top

lol that is probably my 2nd or 3rd favorite

too chaotic for me - I find Shiver and Shake does that thing better

The Top was my first cure and often my favorite. I group it in my mind with purple rain, fried, and fegmania -- all great mid 80s neon colored pop psychedelia

Nice merch update here -- $25 for shirts is less than I expected:

http://craigjparker.blogspot.com/2016/05/new-merchandise.html

Give Me It is in my Cure top 5

The Top rules. While I can completely understand the shit that Wild Mood Swings gets, I'll never really understand why The Top has gotten so much flak over the years. I love almost every song on it (apart from 'Bananafishbones') and the title track and 'Wailing Wall' surely must rank as two of their most underrated songs. I've always liked 'Give Me It' (the live version on In Orange even more so) mostly because it is chaotic. 'Shake Dog Shake', 'Piggy In The Mirror', 'The Caterpillar', 'Dressing Up', 'The Empty World'... just great stuff.

The two Cure albums where the very first song made me sit up and go "oh shit" on first listen were Pornography and The Top. (Part of me wishes Andy Anderson had rejoined the band at some point over the past 30 years as a second drummer/percussionist.)

(Most of the others aren't bombastic enough to elicit an "oh shit" reaction, or don't kick off immediately, ie I eventually went "oh shit" at "The Kiss" but it took a while to get there)

'Shake Dog Shake' made for a great gig opener, too. I think Anderson's drumming on The Top is great, but they probably wouldn't have risked re-hiring him even if they'd wanted to, given the legendary stories about him freaking out on long tours.

I like Boris Williams a lot and think he is an integral part to the sound of The Cure when they went huge but I can't help listening to "The Lovecats" or The Top and wondering what might have been

I mean, imagine Andy drumming on "Hot Hot Hot!!!" for starters

The Top is amazing. I maintain the album Robert did by himself on drugs is his best stuff. Check the bass tone on this live version it's so siqqqqqqqqqqqq.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfb-FYXaFM

Andy woulda put those neat hi-hat trills on 'Hot Hot Hot!!!', like he did on 'Birdmad Girl'

Oddly Anderson was briefly in the tribute band Cureheads and got fired for not turning up. What are the stories about him freaking out on tour? He's been with quite a variety of bands.

Getting into fights with security guards and smashing up hotel rooms.

Violent when drunk I seem to recall. Must have been quite a tour given the state RS was in at the time

...and Lol, too!

robert's bullying of the rest of the band is so ingrained in cure culture and it looks like he's still at it. there's some video of him clowning on simon's stuttering problem on stage a few nights ago. i love it.

More people have actually left The Cure than been fired, haven't they?

I mean, in terms of firings, there was Anderson and Tolhurst during the '80s and then Bamonte and O'Donnell in the '00s. All the others: Dempsey, Hartley, Gallup, Thornalley, O'Donnell (the first time), Thompson (both times) and Williams all left. Although rumour has it that Gallup has actually left and rejoined several times over the years between albums, though it's been kept quiet.