The Cure: Classic or Dud?

that was the original chorus and title of "Why Can't I Be You?"

as long as simon plays on it, i'm still interested.

I've waited hours days weeks months years decades for this...

"This Twilight Garden" (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 4:45 (Originally the B-side of "High", 1992)
"Play" (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 4:36 (Originally the extra B-side of "High", 1992)
"Halo" (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 3:47 (Originally the B-side of "Friday I'm in Love", 1992)
"Scared as You" (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 4:12 (Originally the extra B-side of "Friday I'm in Love" 12", 1992)
"The Big Hand" (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 4:53 (Originally the B-side of "A Letter to Elise", 1992)
"A Foolish Arrangement" (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 3:51 (Originally the extra B-side of "A Letter to Elise" 12", 1992)
"Doing the Unstuck" [Saunders 12" Remix] (Bamonte, Gallup, Smith, Thompson, Williams) – 5:55 (Previously unreleased remix made in 1992, intended for a "Doing the Unstuck" single that never came to be, 1992)

"Doing the Unstuck" was supposed to be a single? I never knew that before, what I have learned on this board. I always felt they should have released "Open" as a single, as I think I would have worked the same way as "Fascination Street" did with the big guitar sound. My all-time favorite Cure song is on Wish and so looking forward to that reissue.

oh, I did know about "Doing the Unstuck" thing as it was told on Join the Dots, I had just forgot.

Lost Wishes EP

Four instrumental tracks taken from the 'Wish' sessions at the Manor Winter 1991. Released in 1994 as a limited edition cassette, through mail order only.

Side A
No. Title Length
12. "Uyea Sound" 5:21
13. "Cloudberry" 5:19
Side B
No. Title Length
14. "Off to Sleep..." 3:38
15. "The Three Sisters" 4:11

yeah Lost Wishes is excellent, I really hope we get a full fidelity version of that.

On April 13, 2018, in an interview with BBC Radio 6, Robert Smith confirmed that the deluxe edition of “Wish” is finished. A release date is yet to be announced.

The B sides won’t be on it, they’ve omitted everything on Join the Dots from all the previous reissues.

so ultimately they were great from the beginning and started going downhill after mixed up and most will agree they dominated the 80s!

I know that Wish is not considered a Cure classic album especially following the last record. I tend to disagree and think it's great, it has "Open," "High," "A Letter to Elise," "End" and the Cure's best song on it "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea." OH yeah "Friday I'm in Love" is remarkable too.

I know that Wish is not considered a Cure classic album

What? In what universe?

(He says, quite literally wearing a shirt from that tour.)

My favorite band of the 80s and probably all-time, so I'm a bit bias.

Reacting to xzanfar post, when he cut it at Mixed Up,

My favorite band of the 80s

I would have guessed New Order.

I could see that with my history of this board but The Cure own my heart.

The Cure and New Order in the early/mid 80s seemed very linked

I think it's clear the Cure and Joy Division influenced each other.

https://post-punk.com/when-joy-division-opened-for-the-cure/

i always considered the cure and depeche mode on par as dominating the 80s and they were label mates!

What? In what universe?

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, May 22, 2022 7:53 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

(He says, quite literally wearing a shirt from that tour.)

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, May 22, 2022

Seconding -- that lineup's most fully realized album.

I was an INTENSE Cure fan in the mid-late 80s, heard Wish once and knew I was done.

Wish is the last album anyone needs to hear from the Cure. All the big 80s bands should have quit in 92/93 (Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure, PSB). Yes they have written good songs here and there since then, but nothing that changes their legacy has happened after 93.

Seconding -- that lineup's most fully realized album.

IMO Wish was a surprisingly strong effort from a band whose relevance was waning - 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) - HotD, KM3 and Disintegration all much more satisfying and consistent albums

All the big 80s bands should have quit in 92/93

I'm not that big a Depeche Mode fan, but Ultra still shows them in a growth arc.

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.