The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me Poll

Like Cockatoos, no hesitation

i got my grandmother to buy this record for me for christmas the year it came out

Either "Walking On Sunshine" -- er, "Why Can't I Be You?" or "How Beautiful You Are."

"Like Cocatoos" is the most brroooodtacular and also the best.

you are a smart smart lady

I got my parents to let me buy this album by telling them I heard a song from it at a church dance (which was true).

Has anyone read the short story that "How Beautiful You Are" is based on (according to the liner notes)? I hope it is better than that song, which isn't a bad song, but I don't know that I'd want to read a story of it.

I thought it was a Baudelaire prose poem.

The bass line is a corker, at any rate.

even though it felt soft at the time
i always used to wake up sore

The only songs on here that aren't perfect are "Icing Sugar" and "A Thousand Hours".

I am tempted to register many sockpuppets so I can vote for everything

probably 'just like heaven', though i also really like 'if only tonight we could sleep'

even so, the rest of the band was now laying down tracks at such a prolific rate that it quickly became obvious there was much more material than a single vinyl album could contain. "we never imagined we'd do a double album until we were about two thirds of the way through our time at Miraval," remembers Smith. "we had completed so many tracks, and were starting to have very animated discussions about which ones should be on the album. trying to squeeze stuff onto a single 45 minute record would have resulted in a release4e that was either too 'poppy or too 'atmospheric' - neither of which would have been quite right."

man i haven't listened to this in a long time, but it sure is good. "how beautiful you are" is the only song i ever cited in a philosophy exam essay, so i'm voting that.

"The Kiss" is their best opening track in a catalog full of killer opening tracks. Voting for it without hesitation.

Just Like Heaven; it's pop Cure at its absolute best. From the opening bassline I'm sold.

This is maybe the only double album I own where I never skip a single song. One of my top 5 albums of all time, without a doubt. Voted for Like Cockatoos, but, really could vote for any of them.

great poll and so far impossible to decide. Dan is crazy wrt "1000 Hours" and especially the fantastic "Icing Sugar"

The only one I skip is "Fight"

A Thousand Hours would've been my second choice

I'm tempted to go with "The Kiss" or "Shiver and Shake", but the 16-year old in me won't allow me to vote for anything other than "Just Like Heaven".

"The Kiss" is their best opening track in a catalog full of killer opening tracks. Voting for it without hesitation.

This is almost exactly what I was thinking when I clicked open the thread.

We should do a side 1/2/3/4 poll instead (even though it would be just as impossible)

I remember when John bought this album and played it for me; the last time I had as strong an avaricious reaction to music was when my brother first played his Controversy album for me in 1981.

I don't know what my mom thought about my obsession with this album; I used to play "The Kiss" over and over and over, then I started playing side 3 over and over and over, then I started playing side 2 over and over and over, then finally I taped it and gave the original back to John so he wouldn't pummel it and just listened to it over and over and over and over again.

I have to vote "Like Cockatoos" on this, except for that my real vote is going to "The Snakepit", by which I mean I'm voting "Hot Hot Hot!!!" which of course is a smokescreen for my vote for "The Kiss" the translates to "How Beautiful You Are..." because how could I possibly not vote for "Just Like Heaven" and "Catch" is a must-have but "Torture" is so alluring and grimy and nothing is as visceral as "All I Want" and I can't live without "One More Time" and FOR FUCK'S SAKE THIS WHOLE ALBUM IS FANTASTIC, EVEN THE TWO SONGS I DON'T LIKE ALL THAT MUCH ARE INDISPENSIBLE

My first Cure album and the soundtrack of that summer. This record changed my life.

I saw them on this tour, and the show we went to was broadcast on Radio 1. You could clearly hear my sister screaming "Robert!" between songs.

I am tempted to register many sockpuppets so I can vote for everything

― Lots of praying with no breakfast! (HI DERE), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 05:09

haha ^^^ this

voted for 'like cockatoos' though.

I have this album, need to give it a thorough audition. Now seems as good a time as any.

Voted for Hot Hot Hot (but it really *is* Just Like Heaven)

We should do a side 1/2/3/4 poll instead (even though it would be just as impossible)

OK, we can do a mock poll on this thread. Not sure if this will format properly:

A1 The Kiss 6:14
A2 Catch 2:44
A3 Torture 4:18
A4 If Only Tonight We Could Sleep 4:53

B1 Why Can't I Be You? 3:14
B2 How Beautiful You Are 5:14
B3 The Snakepit 6:59
B4 Hey You !!! 2:22

C1 Just Like Heaven 3:30
C2 All I Want 5:19
C3 Hot Hot Hot !!! 3:33
C4 One More Time 4:30
C5 Like Cockatoos 3:39

D1 Icing Sugar 3:49
D2 The Perfect Girl 2:34
D3 A Thousand Hours 3:23
D4 Shiver and Shake 3:28
D5 Fight 4:27

A The Kiss
B The Snakepit
C Just Like Heaven
D Shiver and Shake

Side B is the weakest, and the choice there was easy, but otherwise this is really tough!

A If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
B How Beautiful You Are
C Like Cockatoos
D A Thousand Hours

:D @ this album so far, especially Torture into If Only Tonight, awesome stuff

The drumming on this album is brilliant. They never really recovered after Boris left.

Oh shit, my copy doesn't have "Hey You!" on it :(

"You're just three sick holes that run like sores" is a lyric calculated to make one recoil. It stings.

A If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
B The Snakepit
C Like Cockatoos
D Shiver and Shake

A If only tonight we could Sleep
B How Beautiful are you
C Just Like Heaven
D Shiver and Shake

not ranking, but icing sugar is grebt.

A The Kiss
B The Snakepit
C what the hell this is impossible
D Fight

Haha, so you're a fan of the boiling, building agony-mounters! :D

(The Snakepit is awesome, but I'm not yet sure it's awesomer than, say, The Wailing Wall)

I've reached The Perfect Girl and this is a super album.

A1 The Kiss 6:14
B3 The Snakepit 6:59
C1 Just Like Heaven 3:30
D3 A Thousand Hours 3:23

On side A, I vacillate between "The Kiss" and "Catch".
On side B, it's "How Beautiful You Are..." and "The Snakepit".
On side C, it is literally all of them. fucking hell
On side D, it's "The Perfect Girl", "Shiver and Shake" and "Fight".

Like Dan this was my Cure gateway, but I gotta admit that the protracted introductions bore me now (Christgau: "Samey samey samey is the strategy--repeat repeat repeat repeat the same four-bar theme for sixteen, twenty-four, forty-eight, sixty-four bars"). I suppose I can defend them as proto-trance or something, but I won't bother, with the exception of "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep," whose Around the World in a Day version of Far Eastern music depends on samey samey samey.

I think the builds of "The Kiss" and "The Snakepit" are flat-out genius, rivalled in their catalog only by "Faith" and "All Cats Are Grey".

I still find absolutely charming their dilettantish approach to "world" music and different styles (fake French accordeons, fake sitars, sloppy funk work-outs etc).

I still think the video to "Why Can't I Be U?" is one of the funniest things ever filmed.

This album is the sound of a band having fun in the studio.

I love "Catch" and "Torture". KMKMKM is my favorite Cure album. I love that it's long, I wish they'd found a way to include "A Japanese Dream" and "Breathe" too.

Torture, Hey You and Fight are the only bum notes on this album. The length, the sprawl, the scope are key to the album. HOTD sounds like a set of tinny demos in comparison

The Head on the Door is one of the absolute best records The Cure ever made, so I couldn't possibly agree.

To each their own. I’d rank it at the bottom of their pre-92 imperial phase

Did you mean Chain of Flowers and Breathe? I thought A Japanese Dream was pre-87

HOTD is the best Cure album though.

Eh.

"A Japanese Dream" was the B-Side to "Why Can't I Be You". (x-post)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npIBmz_i8_A

Oh yeah, that is good. I was thinking of The Upstairs Room.

I can hear the cockatoo wings.

Nice capsule; hard disagree on Shiver and Shake but otherwise on board. I remember waiting and waiting for this to come out, it was too much to digest.

Just Like Heaven may be the best song ever written.

(NB: only a writer would write the line, “Daylight licked me into shape”)

The concept dates back to antiquity, people used to think bears were born as formless masses and the parents literally licked them into shape.

Shoulda been a single. THIS mix!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWHXQU23V4o

The concept dates back to antiquity, people used to think bears were born as formless masses and the parents literally licked them into shape.

― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel)

Sure! I just meant the verb.

that's the verb you use for that idiom, to lick something into shape... I must be missing something

No, I am. I didn't know this idiom existed, much less to be used in a pop song. Thanks!

ah man "torture" is amazing

i actually like "Hot Hot Hot!!!" the song is just so funky and fun. they were just throwing things at the wall and made a double album out of it. didn't like it as a single and agree with piscesx that "How Beautiful You Are" should have been the single instead. "A Thousand Hours" need to be on the album as it fits in at the perfect time. "Torture" is stunning, so heavy. i would probably only rank "Shiver and Shake" and "Hey You" in the meh category. the later might just be a product of being left off of the original CD version and never really found it's way back. my two cents in 2020 and good piece Alfred.

today i would probably vote for "All I Want."

We happen to be sitting in our living room, watching a TV production of their 40th Anniversary concert (Hyde Park, London), with closed captioning on. I’ve really never paid attention to his lyrics before, but a lot of them kinda read like “dummy” lyrics... I dunno.

Every song on this is so good, except for "A Thousand Hours" which I hate

i actually like "Hot Hot Hot!!!" the song is just so funky and fun. they were just throwing things at the wall and made a double album out of it. didn't like it as a single and agree with piscesx that "How Beautiful You Are" should have been the single instead. "A Thousand Hours" need to be on the album as it fits in at the perfect time. "Torture" is stunning, so heavy. i would probably only rank "Shiver and Shake" and "Hey You" in the meh category. the later might just be a product of being left off of the original CD version and never really found it's way back. my two cents in 2020 and good piece Alfred.

― Bee OK, Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Thank you. I prefer the Mixed Up version of HHH!!! but the vocal is an intestinal cramp.

you’re an intestinal cramp

*groan*

I love this record and I really love the b-sides disc it came with. My favourite orange thing in the world.

https://www.popsike.com/pix/20120318/251020704065.jpg

omigod

Oh that is beautiful

I would cut Torture and Fight (both cheesy in similar ways) but the rest is perfect. Why Can’t I Be You also grates.
It took me a while to get into them but these days, besides the obvious ones, 1000 Hours (Dan you are crazy) and Icing Sugar are amongst my faves.

FOR HOW MUCH LOOOONGER CAN I CATERWAUL LIKE A SAD VULTURE INTO THIS WIIII-HIIIIII-HINND

https://ssl.adam.com/graphics/images/en/19578.jpg

I would ditch Snakepit, Shiver and Shake, Torture, and Fight. Only saving Hey You because the album title is in the lyrics and Hot Hot Hot because of the kervorkian remix.

saving Hey You because the album title is in the lyrics
the album title is literally the first line of the first track, "The Kiss"

Bonus, then I’m happy to ditch Hey You too! Are there other albums where the title appears in the lyrics to different songs?

All this debate underscores my point -- thanks to Alfred for singling it out -- that the band essentially provided a full array of choices and left you to decide what works best.

xp: Yes, Wish is another album that has two potential title tracks.

"The Snakepit" and "Torture" are among the best songs on the album, IMO.

At one point I'd turned this album into a very angry/disjointed playlist:

The Kiss
Torture
How Beautiful You Are...
The Snakepit
All I Want
Like Cockatoos
Shiver and Shake
Fight

^^^ 100% baller IMO

Also, I played "Fight" in high school English class after we discussed "Do not go gentle into that good night" and got a bunch of the honors metalheads into the album.

Yeah I dunno. I find Fight pretty cringey these days. And Torture is mostly ruined by that dated horn preset.

Snakepit, If Only Tonight and Cuckatoos are all-time though.

"Torture" has a cracker of a bass line.

Boris/Simon/Pearl are so good on this album

Listening to this straight through for the first time in ages and I severely underrate this album

every song on this is flawless even the bad ones

I listened to that bright orange 12" of b-sides more than the actual album. Also I really loved the cover art during this era of the Cure, aside from the music. My favorite of all their logos!

Amazed I still have my vinyl copy of this after regrettably purging so many good quality records and CDs during my teen years.

It's my favorite Cure album. I think "A Japanese Dream" and "Breathe" should've been on it instead of "Shiver and Shake" and "A Thousand Hours", but it was an embarrassment of riches really.

hi!

speaking of b-sides that should've replaced lesser album cuts, "a chain of flowers" is actually one of their best songs, full stop.