WILD MOOD SWINGS (aka the worst Cure album by a country mile)

I remember having a bad hunch about this album so I don't think I actually listened to it until...like 1999 or so. Probably for the best.

― Ned Raggett,

I avoided it until at least 2003.

I've never even heard this. I quit the Cure after Wish.

FTR this is the only post-Wish album worth avoiding, although it's better to get the Japanese edition of The Cure than the US/UK one.

true, but that's still a frustrating experience (as was the last record)

haha I am on record as someone who strenuously disagrees with that so I'm not going to get into all of that again

I'm with akm more or less, though I understand your reasons for disagreeing and also will not get into it.

I was torn because I felt compelled to vote for the WORST song on the album to fit with the general tenor of the question.

agreed that this is the worst Cure album.

i was going to try and listen before voting but that didn't happen. "Treasure"

god this was awful. this was the off-the-bus point for all the huge cure fans i knew.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

What the hell is wrong with people

^

One of the best Cure songs ever is of course the best song on this album :)

"This Is a Lie" was a bit robbed tho.

wtf. 3 votes for Strange Attraction?

I would have figured "The 13th" over "Mint Car" but I'm not surprised the singles and the opening track got the most votes from an album people probably had a hard time listening to. So the 4 votes for Jupiter Crash is what I find surprising.

Guilty of voting "Jupiter Crash". This was partly because it was one of the only songs here I could still bring a portion of to mind, and it wasn't a recoil moment so it got the vote. But it's a really half-hearted vote.

I guess that's the most merciful thing for me about this album - despite being horrifying while it's on, it's also pretty forgettable when it's over.

"Home" really is much much better than almost everything on this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1loAO9y3dA

Love "The 13th".

But I haven't listened to any Cure album that came after this abomination. From Disintegration to this, in two albums!

Boris was way more integral to their sound than Robert knew

I thought "Wrong Number" was on this one. I really love that song!

Will always love "Mint Car". Fantastic song.

WTF happened with this album. how was it so bad? the dropoff in quality from Wish is astonishing, it's like a completely different band.

I thought "Wrong Number" was on this one. I really love that song!

Appeared the following year on a singles comp. (Or was it 1998...)

WTF happened with this album. how was it so bad?

I blame the Lol lawsuit. Kinda.

really? as in they were distracted? maybe Lol was the secret genius all along.

Haha nothing quite like that, but it did seem to disrupt what had been a fairly steady creative process; in combination with Boris's departure...

It's several things:

- really poor, muddy engineering on most of the songs
- a new mushy, imprecise drummer who was not acting as the same type of mechanical foundational rock as the previous drummer, adding a lot of unsteadiness into the songs and hamstringing many of them from growing
- extra-music band issues pulling focus (aka "the Lol lawsuit") combined with the lightning rod for the band's negative energy going away, leaving that no place to go but into the music

Didn't Robert stop drinking between Wish and WMS? Probably a positive step, but also a major, fundamental change that would take time to incorporate and adapt to.

I spent some time listening to some 4:13 Dream songs today and it's startling how much crisper and more precise the drumming is from those sessions than it is on WMS, where it kind of sounds like Jason alternated between hitting everything on his kit and doing sub-Lol rock drum patterns.

So, I'm confused--'Wild Mood Swings' left no impression on me (age 16 when it was released, presumably bought it, as a huge 'Disintegration' fan, and the target age of most Cure manic-depression). But I finally bought the 'Join the Dots' compilation, and was shocked to find that the b-sides from this album I don't at all remember are great--quintessential Cure, but with some nice spaciousness/breathing room in the mixes, and great string quartet elements on most tracks. "Home," "It Used To Be Me," "Ocean," "Adonais" are very top-shelf Cure with some interesting and not terribly dated production flourishes, and "A Pink Dream" and "Waiting" are pretty good.

So now I've ordered this album to give it a listen, but looking it up here it is apparently dross. So what happened? Did they just pick all the wrong tracks, when they had at least a 'Wish'-level solid 25-minute start if they'd used these b-sides? Or have I suddenly become way too forgiving of mediocre The Cure, after tending to consider them a very hot-or-cold quality level act (though great, overall) for the last 25 years I've been listening?

(Also--is there anything else post-'Wish' that's worth hearing?)

Maybe some illustrations in order:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssq79gTlpkY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHPl35Sty10

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

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

No, the sad thing is that the B-sides are actually so much better than most of what actually went on the album itself... it's one of the biggest issues Cure fans have with the LP... it could have been so much better!

When I get the CD, I guess I'll take the best three or four tracks from there and combine it with these b-sides and pretend that's the album. . .

Yes, the b-sides for this album are so disproportionate to the album's quality.

I think, of all their albums, only Wish had better b-sides.

Yeah the b sides are better than the album. I don't know what happened with this record; if it was record company interference or just very bad judgement by the band

Ok, so I couldn't resist--already ordered the album so guilt assuaged, I downloaded the album, so I could try to understand.

On (obvious very quick) first listen, it sounds like they'd lost confidence in their dramatic, darker, more aggressive sound; and thought instead they could make an album of "Lovecats" and "Friday I'm in Loves," which perhaps the label liked, and then it all went wrong from there, ending up sounding very 1996 in all the wrong ways. . .

Just based on sounds--on the consistent, foregrounded (at least for The Cure) use of strings--I wonder if they had an entirely different album in mind at first? Almost all of the very good b-sides have this feature, and the few salvageable (though not as strong as the b-sides) album tracks have the same prevalent strings.

That's actually somewhat true. RS had originally conceived Wild Mood Swings to be a more acoustic-based album, which explains the non-album material (see also the "Strings Mix" for 'This is a Lie' which was released as a b-side).

The album's sessions also began with the thought of Simon deciding to leave the group. Subsequently, RS plays bass on a few of the session's tracks. This is all detailed in the booklet notes in Join the Dots.

A lot had happened since Wish - Porl and Boris left, the Lol court case, Gallup was thinking about leaving... The Cure had been a broken band before, but they really struggled through this record. Their stock - in the UK at least - was also the lowest it had ever been. At that point in their career they were seen as being '80s relics.

Ok, so I know it's a bit silly, but. . . I'm loving this collection of songs, as an alternate "could have been" 1996 Cure album. Sequencing, even segues were a breeze, as if these tracks were meant to go together, had they just decided to focus in a little instead of wild-mood-swinging. Threw a little cover art together, nominated one of the tracks as title track, and it came together IMO as an album I think I'd like as much as 'Wish,' at least:

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/folder.jpg?w=800

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie'
'Wild Mood Swings' Reconsidered

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

To me, it kind of sounds like the answer to the question (that probably nobody was asking, but still) "what if The Cure had been a 4AD band". Perhaps shows some belated influence of having Shelleyan Orphan open for them in '89? Anyway, it's really good, IMO.

Cool! I'll make a playlist and try it. Never gave Wild Mood Swings a chance really, but I listened to the orange b-sides album that came with Kiss Me way more than the actual album.

I hate Dredd Song but aside from that, this is the album they should have put out

I've never listened to the WMS b-sides so I'll check those out

as far as I can remember the real highlight of the last few albums was Underneath the Stars

WMS is a really interesting transitional Cure record, in some ways it reminds me of The Top (which is my personal favourite).

I really love the lighter moments like Round & Round & Round, the 13th, Strange Attraction, etc.

That sense of weightless fun is something missing for me from every subsequent album.

'Underneath the Stars', funnily enough, dates from around the time of Wish, I think. Even so, there's tracks on 4:13 Dream I like more, and Wild Mood Swings has its moments too.

B sides from the 'Wish' sessions >>>>>>>> all post 'Disintegration' output (even if they're all a bit on-the-nose!)

"The 13th" is my favorite Cure track of all song. I can't defend it, but it's true. I think it's the horns.

three new ITB remixes done by Bob (with one ear in a tin can, morelike) in 2018 is more along the lines of "twenty-three years later" than "from this period" tbf. and good luck dancing to them.

love The 13th.

I bet there’s an albumsworth

hey this guy did the research already (just add CHVRCHES)

Ignore that link, and blame the mod who didn't delete it. Click this instead.

hey friends,

i have a copy of this pressing of this album. i don't want it, but i do want someone who will cherish it to have it. i am interested in trading something for it; doesn't have to be music/media (though my hifi cartridge is in need of replacement).

it's a pristine copy and i am the original owner. i'm not interested in selling it and i refuse to take money for it.* this is a standing offer and when it is gone, i will update again here. please use the ilx 'contact user' webmail thingy if interested. i would prefer not to deal with international postage, but will if the terms are sweet enough.

*and i think the band's song "shiver and shake" is about you if you would want to cash out. no offense, just sayin.

lol irl mint car!
https://i.imgur.com/RlrHHWy.jpeg

also that album has a new home, thank you for playing. "gone!" still rules. that is all. have a good day.

(is it really their worst album, as thread title implies?)

Yes

kids don't rank these days, they tier. and it is bottom tier.

Treasure getting 0 votes = was robbed, especially given it's *this* album

OTM

agreed that this is the worst Cure album.

i was going to try and listen before voting but that didn't happen. "Treasure"

― Bee OK, Monday, August 3, 2009 11:11 PM (sixteen years ago)

I guess I forgot to hit submit.

I tried and failed going without capitalizing sentences, just didn't work for me. I made enough other mistakes as it is.

For instance: that was supposed to be make.