A thread for the Cure reissues

Well, judging from the absence of "Killing An Arab", "Plastic Passion", "Pillbox Tales", "Do The Hansa" and (the studio / B-side of "Jumping Someone Else's Train" version of) "I'm Cold" (let alone, heaven forbid "I'm A Cult Hero" or "I Dig You"), it seems that Fat Bob / Fiction ae still happily playing the same games with fans of the band as they were 25 years ago; and what's sauce for the goose....

Oh yea, I'd forgotten just how B-L-A-N-K and late seventies the artwork is, like Barney Bubbles or the punk end of Hipgnosis.

Now roll on 17 Seconds, Faith & Pornography, I can't wait to hear the rare tracks from those feckers.

What's the story with that anyway, I have Boys Don't Cry on cassette which I bought when I was about 14 which has that song on it, later I bought the CD when Wish came out and they reduced the whole back catalogue to about £5.99 a CD and it had a different track listing, omitting World War.

Why did they do that?

Uh, Stewart, these are all on the Join the Dots box.

Aaah but that's my point in a nutshell you see Nedworth: just as with 3IB / Boys Don't Cry and "World War", you can't quite get absolutely everything without having to buy both!

Fwiw, since I still have all my original singles etc. (including a 12" promo of "Grinding Halt" / "Meat Hook", the Cult Hero single and a signed copy of "Jumping Someone Else's Train"!) the only things on Join The Dots that really interest me are "Pillbox Tales" and "Do The Hansa"!

Why couldn't they have included those on 3IB?

I would happily have bought that then - and probably not bothered with either the boxset or the deluxe versions of any of their other albums.

Bastards.

Otoh I see they're evidently not bothered about duplicating any of the rare-ish stuff I have already got on Curiosity (the second side of the initial cassette version of Concert) 'though!

Bastards.

I put it in my letter to Santa and I'm making do in the meantime with that RAM stream I mentioned on another Cure thread ( http://www.rhino.com/fun/listeningparties/78895_album.ram )

touché!

To just miss a couple of key tracks out of one of the reissues, when that reissue contains any number of duplications and must still have room to include those missing tracks, just strikes me as cynical and exploitative.

More than anything however, I think I'm just enjoying throwing my rattle out of my pram really.

No, just to include the relevant period's tracks from Join The Dots on each of the the relevant reissues.

It's really very simple.

xpost

But as has been noted, THEN you annoy the people who bought Join the Dots. Like me. ;-)

But as has been noted, you'd buy both anyway.

While I admire the Cure for being more thoughtful towards their fans (i.e that Greatest Hits album that came with a second CD of all the songs played acoustically), I hope 3IB has been remastered. In fact, SACD would be a huge gesture (even though I don't have an SACD player). In the case of remastering, it's a legit re-release since only, assumedly, the hard-core fans ("completists") are going to be interested in both remastering and demos or other extras.

As I've noted on other threads, it continues to astound me that, with the enormity of the bootleg market (as perpetuated by the Beatles' bootleggers), major labels continue to ignore the opportunity to fully exploit catalogs before they get thoroughly distributed by the likes of Bit Torrent and other P2P mechanisms. The Cure B-sides had been circulating in amateur format for at least 3 years before JTD came out, and trading B-sides by completists was one of the first things to be truly exploited by the advent of the home CDR. I assume, and hope, that the increase of electronic distribution will influence labels to get off their asses and get the filthy lucre while they can still charge for it.

If they had not been so clear about how the set wouldn't be duplicated on the reissues, I don't know about that.

But it's OK for them to have made you fork-out for a box-set as well as all the reissues, when there was more than enough empty space left on those reissues to have included all the tracks on the box-set?

We clearly see things differently!

But your greater point--why not just have one huge box set for the completists that has ALL unreleased/rarities and then just reissue the originals straight up (and remastered)--seems valid. Personally, I like revisiting the original with relevant demos in one package a la 3IB or the way they are doing the Pavement reissues. Hell, I'd be grateful if the f*ckers who've re-released 18 versions of the Who's "Tommy" had done as such.

Indeed. Or better still, a box set which is also available as a series of individual albums; maybe arranged so that each one can be seen as a companion disc to each of the original albums.

Neither do I particularly - but actually there is just one additional track on the 'album' disc of 3IB isn't there? What's that all about?

Hmmmm. They haven't given / found a title* to that little bit of echoing footsteps and the demonic laugh at the end of the album, have they?

[* not that they gave a title to any of the tracks on the version of the album I've got!]

It's on my vinyl copy of BDC, which I notice is French. Was it not on the UK issue of BDC. (I know that's not why you're pissed off, but I was just wondering).

8. Boys Don't Cry (Chestnut Studio Demo 5/78)
9. It's Not You (Chestnut Studio Demo 5/78)
10. 10:15 Saturday Night (Chestnut Studio Demo 5/78)
11. Fire In Cairo (Chestnut Studio Demo 5/78)

alone. The Chestnut tapes are much harder and more energetic than what ended up on TIB, the best document of Smith's admittedly naive teen angst. TIB is just so sonically deflated; it's a "charming" and fairly unique sound, and it works in places ("Cairo", "TIB" and especially "Accuracy"), but the early stuff is compositionally really patchy (every time I look at the tracklist for TIB I see fewer and fewer gems).

Chris Parry had referred to "Jumping Someone Else's Train" as a swan song for Dempsey at one point; it works as a condensed example of what the Cure accomplished in the "trad" sphere, before Gallup joined and Smith started expressing himself.

There wasn't a UK issue of BDC was there? BDC was the US (& elsewhere?) version of 3IB.

What a dillema!

I feel the need to catch-up, but the wait seems excruciating.

Will he also re-release Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me?...That, and the 3IB re-release are next on my list.

I wish I'd have seen this when you posted it, Ned. I totally could have ruined the surprise for you. Sadly, I seem to have well over half of the rare shit they've stuck on the reissues so far.

I notice that Bob was prudent enough to leave off 'See The Children', thank god.

See now putting that on it would have kicked ass! I'd love to own that song on CD.

Will he also re-release Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me?

I suppose it's kind of a no-brainer so I'm assuming it will be the case, but I'm really looking forward to "Hey You" on CD. It's one of my favorite songs on that record which I don't even listen to all that often because I'm too lazy to break out the vinyl for stuff I also own on CD.

A (slightly) extended version of "Hey You!!!" is on Join The Dots CD2.

Ned, d'you know where "The Weedy Burton" got its name from?

I took great pleasure in playing "How Beautiful You Are" very loudly last night for the first time in years, and was shamefully proud of the fact that I seemed to know every last word. If only I could remember, y'know, important stuff...

I'm looking forward to 17 Seconds. Anyone know when this will be? I really have no idea what outtakes there are from this era, although at the time I heard some VERY different versions of the songs with different lyrics on a bootleg that was relatively easy to get in the early 80s. Can't recall the name.

This early Cure action led me to play a selection of the later albums from KMKMKM onwards at the weekend. Hmmm - what a rubbish band they became! How can anyone stand stuff like Fascination Street. Soooo boring.

oh shiiiiiiiiit! INCOMING! (it's a Nedbomb...)

Yep. High single with those B sides was crazy value for money

Anyway, re:Wish, can I just say the Higher Mix of "High" is maybe a top 10 Cure track for me. Outdoes the album/single version completely, which to make room for the jangle has the keyboard arpeggios mixed far too low :(

I was listening to it this morning and thought the same thing! I hadn't heard it probably for 25 years. Can't say that about the remixes for "FTEOTDGS", "Doing The Unstuck" and "A Letter To Elise" though. They kind of suck the life out of the originals. The remix for "Friday" is ok.

Drums/perc and the bassline on Higher Mix are straight "A Japanese Dream".

I still think it's a crime that "Doing The Unstuck" wasn't released as a single after "Friday I'm in Love". I"m sure it would've gotten more airplay than "Elise" and it would've sounded so good on the radio! They were at their commercial peak and the record company only released 3 singles. Both albums before that had four. Makes no sense to me.

I find "A Letter to Elise" rote, so otm

"A Letter to Elise" is single quality, one of the best songs on this album and I think it was the right move. A fourth single should have been released like others have said.

The reissue cemented my back-in-the-day opinion that “Apart” is a beast of a song and it made me happy to read Robert rediscovering it during the remastering process

Love the instrumental demo from of To Wish Impossible Things - never really one of my faves. Has all these extra guitar parts which they would ultimately replace with vocals and that somewhat cheesy viola

I still think it's a crime that "Doing The Unstuck" wasn't released as a single

Robert is still mad (per the tweetalong the other day) that the record company went for Elise when he wanted Unstuck

I WANTED ‘DOING THE UNSTUCK’ AS THE THIRD SINGLE FROM THE ALBUM, BUT WAS IGNORED BY THE GREAT POWERS… BAH! #TIMSTWITTERLISTENINGPARTY #WISHLISTENINGPARTY

— The Cure (@thecure) November 25, 2022

it's def the more crankable jam

He’s right to be mad!

DOO DOO DOO DOODOOOOO

— The Cure (@thecure) November 26, 2022

Wow didn't even know that! Sucks Robert couldn't put his foot down, when he was making them so much money. "Elise" could've been a great fourth final single, à la "Pictures Of You".

Elise *was* the single

Elise was not the fourth final single

The reissue cemented my back-in-the-day opinion that “Apart” is a beast of a song and it made me happy to read Robert rediscovering it during the remastering process

The reissue cemented my back-in-the-day opinion that “Apart” is a beast of a song and it made me happy to read Robert rediscovering it during the remastering process

I completely agree. I've been rediscovering it myself these past few days and I like it better than back in the day. Very moving.

Ha x-post

I just got this bad boy in the mail.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Still haven't received the vinyl or the cassette / cd bundle I had to order from two separate vendors. Hope they show up soon.

Wish 3CD set is currently $4 on Amazon at the moment. Mistake?

Don't see it. Gone?

Yeah, it's gone, now back up to $21. I knew it was a mistake.

Mystified why AMG has never bumped Wish from a 2.5 to something even slightly higher. The next three are all 3s.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 4 August 2022 22:32 (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Aha, only just now realised they changed it to 4 in November (with new review).

Forgot to bump this thread instead -- following Show last year, Paris is coming back:

https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/the-cure/paris-cd/603497825103.html

(Presumably WMS next up, so the question is whether that or the new album actually comes out first.)