what Cure album should I get next?

I think The Top has dated very badly.

You could be right about The Top, however.

I would suggest either _Pornography_ or _Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me_ as your next purchase.

That's sounds like high praise, but remember, they only released two albums in the 1990s.

I personally wouldn't get The Top either. The first couple of songs are okay, but overall, it's pretty forgettable.

I can't remember which one Faith is (I have ...Happily Ever After, so I can never remember which one is Faith and which one is Seventeen Seconds), but I'd recommend getting Seventeen and Pornography next, because those three all represent a certain phase in the band's existence. I'll also second Kiss Me.... I think there's a lot of filler on there, but it does also contain a lot of the Cure's best work.

Seventeen Seconds + Faith = more drinking, increasing cocaine use

Pornography - drinking, any drug on the table including heroin, infighting

Let's Go To Bed / Lovecats era - Robert Smith does cocaine 24/7, starts dropping acid with Steve Severin, does The Glove record, then

The Top - Reactionary "I'm still angry and serious" album, heavy hallucinogen and heroin abuse, drinking continues

Head On The Door / KMKMKM / Disintegration / Wish - cocaine, cocaine, cocaine, drinking, cocaine

Wild Mood Swings - E, booze

Obviously, Smith's best work is done under the mirror's influence.

OH MUST I. ;-)

Dan's recommendations = sound. Follow them duly. Alex in Mainhattan's note about The Top should be disregarded (he is very right about Wish, though). Disintegration probably remains my singular favorite, though Faith is the very close runner up.

The Cure famously(!) gave up drugs (apart from alcohol and Lol baiting) for the Head on the Door album.

Great drug summary, Chris. It all makes so much more sense now vs. when I was a straightedge teen.

Wow -- I have to heavily disagree, I wouldn't change one damn thing about that album. It and Disintergration are radically different (in Cure terms) in approach, style, etc. but both are so perfectly sequenced that imagining them any other way is impossible for em.

Lately I'm really quite fond of Japanese Whispers.

Lately I'm really quite fond of Japanese Whispers.

Lately I'm frilly bright fronds of Korean Hollers.

Are you forgetting that I loathe "A Thousand Hours", Ned?

In short, "Fight" is the worst song The Cure released prior to Wild Mood Swings.

Those suits? Pure coke.

liz, obv. you have recommendations now for just about any cure record in existence. it seems like there's maybe an appreciation for more lo-fi kind of stuff for nz'ers?? maybe thats not true, but i'm saying that b/c of things duane and di have put on tapes for me, i dont know if your tastes might run along the same veins. blah, what i'm getting at is that you might like the curiosity album. kind of hard to find maybe but if you'd like to, e-mail me and maybe i could send you a tape or something.