The Cure: Classic or Dud?

Re: Wish -- maybe it's because it was the first Cure record I every listened to (aged 13-14), but IMO it's start-to-finish fantastic, and I'm never quite sure why it's had a slightly feeble reputation with the fans. I agree it's their last fully interesting album -- although tbh Faith, Boys Don't Cry and Disintegration are the only ones I've ever been able to listen to all the way through.

(I guess Boys Don't Cry isn't a proper album but I never realised that at the time...)

but would suggest it is in fact the weakest of that line-up's LPs (if we are talking about the Smith-Gallup-Thompson-Williams core here)

hey, Disintegration's there waiting to be denounced.

I'm not entirely sure a 92/93 cut-off works for PSB. Significantly more great stuff than actively bad stuff for maybe a decade beyond their commercial imperial phase.

You'll have to prise Nightlife from my cold, dead hands, etc, etc

Wish is their New Jersey, clearly

Elysium seems like their only entirely neglible EP. I haven't heard Hotspot

The Top is such a great album. I listen to it more often than Seventeen Seconds or Faith. I think it's a better album than Seventeen Seconds, which feels increasingly thin to me.

the only thing the top has over seventeen seconds is THE MIGHTY BANANA SONG.

my challops re:the top is that i prefer it over pornography and always have.

You can make a credible argument that any Cure album in the run from Seventeen Seconds through Disintegration is their best album

(It’s really Pornography, though)

Yep another big The Top lover here. Have happily spent very long periods of time discussing it.

That said, replace "Piggy in the Mirror" with e.g. "New Day" and it'd be even better

“Piggy in the Mirror” is one of their most underrated songs, as far as I can tell

I do like it but its the relative weak song on the album if anything has to be imo

Nah, the weak song is “Birdmad Girl” by a huge margin IMO

BMG is one of my favourites - not least as its Anderson veering towards disco territory (I love that he tries out a lot of things throughout the record) - but I think I've seen every song bar Shake Dog Shake and The Caterpillar singled out as the weakest by someone so it's one of those albums I guess.

Piggy.. is amazing.

Pornography remains my fave early album. I used to love Seventeen Seconds, but now think (to be crude) it's Play for Today and A Forest surrounded by thin gruel.

"Birdmad Girl" is brilliant and echo the above, I'd listen to it for the hi-hat patterns alone. "The Empty World" I nearly always skip because of the keyboard melody, it sounds like the music from an irritating TV ad for Cottees Cordial (Kool-Aid type stuff) from the 80s and I never want to hear it again. And yeah, Piggy is incredible, I can't think of a song remotely like it, apart from maybe The Glove album in places.

also "The Top" is my pick of the "bleak title track to end the album" thing they did for the first five.

also Duke wtf, how about "M" and "At Night" for starters? That era is my favourite live, too.

Birdmad Girl is the best song on that album

I love "The Empty World" and again I enjoy how the marching beat is the Anderson variety hour in effect. The idea of essentially doing a whole Cure song on the snare is a nice inverted treat considering how many Cure tracks are all about toms.

re 17 secs - i always used to feel it was light on actual good songs - but now all the cobwebby/spooky radiophonic interludes and not-quite-songs are what makes it great?

also 'in your house' is one of my favourite cure songs

I love "Concert" for the spectacle of Andy blasting the shit out of tracks which used to sound insular and secret, "One Hundred Years" sounds like a cruise missile compared to the dank clatter of the original (which I also love).

The Concert version of “Shake Dog Shake” is also very special, largely due to Andy

but now all the cobwebby/spooky radiophonic interludes and not-quite-songs are what makes it great?

Yes yes! I love how open-ended it is.

I think "One Hundred Years" is strangely quite weak and defanged on Concert but Andy does a great job of it. And it builds up to excellent versions of A Forest, 10:15 and Arab.

I know everyone says this but I'm forever surprised Concert even exists. Weirdest timing ever for a Cure live album full stop, let alone the first.

best live cure album?

None are perfect but maybe Show and Paris (the former is much better as the film). And actually the original Entreat is probably just as good as well for what it is (I'm aware I've given half of their live albums as an answer).

For me, yes, although it is pretty badly recorded and could do with a solid remaster. re Andy, I don't think I'd call him the best Cure drummer, but probably the best drummer who was in The Cure.

Entreat is the best Cure live album

Would rather listen to Entreat (at least the original 8-song version) than Disintegration these days

i really like the disintegration live in dallas stuff. i tried to put the whole thing on youtube, but it got blocked. that's most of it. kind of like an alternate entreat.

also xpost to recent mix/mastering discussion on Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil — original entreat mix vs entreat plus mix FIGHT

Entreat original mastering x10000

remaster loses that slightly clinical icy quality to the sound - i always used to picture myself standing in the middle of an empty arena watching the band play and hearing every instrument and part in perfect clarity

didn’t they fiddle with the snare sound on the remaster?

also the songs were really well-chosen on the OG album - hearing the extra tracks detracts rather than adds to the experience imo

don't think I'd call him the best Cure drummer, but probably the best drummer who was in The Cure.

Entreat original mastering x10000

these are otm

Concert is an absolute blast and The Top is their second-best album afaic

People say it's bad or whatever but then you look at the individual songs and they all bang. All of them. And so vividly, with such a wired, psychedelic execution. In all the Cure styles, plus a few they didn't try anywhere else. Is there anything as blistering as Give Me It anywhere else in the catalogue?

Curiosity, the other side of Concert on cassette is their best early live account, on the 17 Seconds and Faith tours they sounded so desolate and spooked, and thank goodness for European radio stations.

It's too discordant for me but "The Caterpillar" is increasingly becoming my favourite Cure single

I started looking and there are some incredible recordings from 1979-1982 circulating, probably listen to those more than the albums these days.

Some crazy talk. The Top is top 3 Cure and that whole era is amazing: the incredible B-sides, Concert and that live period is probably my favorite too.
Piggy probably my fave on the album.

The live band sounds furious in a good way. Would have loved to see them

This was one of my favourite boots from 1981, but there are loads actually -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3iatGQpfqs

I'll give it a listen! Another favourite era is in 1983-4 when RS and LT were getting the band going again, some weird lineups and most of the shows with Andy are pretty high energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhVHFdGkwvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKcbR5JvhZI

Moles Club is best bootleg of the era just because Moles is on my doorstep.

Fascinated by how wrong Siamese Twins goes when Andy starts off having heard the 1 in the wrong place when learning the part. They push on and make it work but it’s rough.

A perfect artifact

I'll never stop loving this urgent early 90s fax from The Cure's Robert Smith to Elektra Records A&R man Howard Thompson, urgently requesting a load of banned video nasties, plus others "in the splatter-cannibal she-devil vein!!!" pic.twitter.com/yvF0sFpzZe

— Scarred for Life (@ScarredForLife2) September 14, 2022

OMG

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

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