The Cure: Classic or Dud?

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.

wtf is gallup really going to do with his life other than be the cure's bassist, come on.

being Robert's best mate. Isn't that full time?

"Shake Dog Shake" has become my favorite Cure opener

Seing all this The Top love makes me so happy. I think it's brilliant and criminally underrated, especially by the music press who just seem to copy/paste old reviews without actually listening to it.

it's probably my favourite cure album, next to disintegration (which was the second cure album I ever owned). definitely the two I play the most.

It's hard for me to say what my favourite Cure album is, really. The one thing I'm certain of is that it's never been Disintegration!

Don't get me wrong, I like Disintegration a lot, but I've always been mystified by its status as the Cure album one must hear, above any of them.

I suppose it's down to your entry point into the band, though... for me, I got into the pre-Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me stuff first, whereas someone who heard Disintegration first might rate it higher? Disintegration to me is like a ramped up version of Faith... Faith on steroids.

Disintegration is a bore. Don't be sorry.

hey now

disintegration was my first cure record and it took me a long time to love it (although i fell for "plainsong" immediately) but it's sorta got everything in there while also managing to sustain an incredible mood

idk what my favorite cure record is though. faith?

I got all I want (!) from glacially paced dour Cure listening to "Sinking."

I prefer the vinyl config that cuts 'Last Dance' and 'Homesick', and it's still a long record even then.

I have a fantastic bootleg from the Top tour with Phil still on bass and Boris in on drums (maybe his first or second show ever, if I recall correctly). I'll post it when I get home if enough people are interested.

i have the vinyl, i hate that it's missing homesick. I would have cut something else, dunno what. anyway it's been reissued as a double with noithing cut.

The Head on the Door
Faith
Pornography
The Top
Japanese Whispers
Seventeen Seconds
Disintegration
Three Imaginary Boys
Wish
Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
4:13 Dream
Bloodflowers
The Cure
Wild Mood Swings

...is the way I'd rank them overall, I think.

x-post:

'Homesick' is my least favourite song on there by a zillion miles (dare I say it, one of my very least favourite songs of their so-called "classic" period) so I don't miss it on the vinyl version.

KMKMKM so far down that ranking is astonishing to me

Disintegration is a bore. Don't be sorry.

Listen you

at least turrican and I agree on the bottom 4

not loving disintegration to me is weird. but putting head on the door tells me you like different things about the cure than I do (which is towering monoliths of gloom sound)

also how anyone can dislike homesick I don't know

xxxx-post:

Yeah, but look at the albums above it! There's a lot of tracks I love on Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, but there's also a lot of stuff that would have easily been chopped if they'd had to whittle it down to a single album.

I've never really been a big fan of 'Fight', for example.

not loving disintegration to me is weird. but putting head on the door tells me you like different things about the cure than I do (which is towering monoliths of gloom sound)

― akm, Thursday, May 19, 2016 6:39 PM

I like sex-crazed drug-addled pop Cure.

Yeah, akm, but I ranked Faith second and Pornography third, and we're talking about a less than paper thin difference between the rankings at the top end there.

also how anyone can dislike homesick I don't know

ditto

xx-post:

as opposed to... sex-crazed drug-addled gloom Cure?

you bet!

Ah, for me it's never really been a question of "happy Cure vs. gloom Cure" ... I think it's entirely possible to like both sides of what the band do, and I do. I just prefer the way they did the former on The Head on the Door to the way they did it on Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, and the way they did the latter on Faith and Pornography to the way they did it on Disintegration.