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

I'd still agree that this is their worst album, though - even taking into consideration the tracks that I like on it. The Cure and 4:13 Dream have some great tracks on 'em that sadly get overlooked because they're in "past their prime" territory.

I fell in love with "Gone!" after a while; it's one of the few experiments on the album that cohered into something I enjoyed. Also, the Ultraliving remix is fantastic.

i listened to the whole damn thing today, i think the keepers are "want," "mint car," "jupiter crash," "numb," "treasure," and "bare." plus the b-sides discussed above. that's pretty respectable for a consensus worst album! still it'll likely be at least another decade+ before i listen to this record again

the video for 'mint car' was one of the only videos I ever paid to rent via some on-demand pay for video jukebox I had through cable at the time.

The "Buskers Mix" of 'Mint Car' that was on the single has long been my favorite version. Too bad it was not on Join the Dots.

I'm so glad so many are defending 'Mint Car', that song has had so much unnecessary shit thrown at it over the years...

So I actually like Wild Mood Swings. It's certainly not my favorite Cure album, but it's not the worst either (I'd give that distinction to the self-titled). It has a few really good songs on it and a number of other songs which I simply find enjoyable. (They've been getting some hate in this thread, but I enjoy "Club America" and "Strange Attraction.") My biggest criticism of the album would be that it's too long. I know it was released during the peak of the CD era, when 60+ minute run times were expected, but for me anyway, once I hit that stretch of single word titled songs on the back end of the album, it's easy to become aware of just how long I've been listening to the album. I've never bothered to come up with an alternate track listing myself, but I think it might have been for the best if they'd cut out a song or two to drop it down to the 45 minute range.

Basically, I said The Cure and their American label misread the American audience, who they were heavily invested in at the time. They recorded an album that wasn't consistent stylistically, instead dabbling in many very different styles, which is what Smith wanted but not something that is usually well-received. It was an answer to a lot of critics who said the band had grown stale. Apparently, they always had fun playing in private as a band, but had to put on an image they felt obligated to stick to because that is what people expected of them. They finally seemed to be really enjoying themselves in front of an audience around the time Wild Mood Swings was released, though.

My theory is that the reception to this album wrecked the band's self-confidence. Everyone focuses on the band's dark side, but they could also be very quirky and strange. After Wild Mood Swings, however, it seems like the Cure started to focus on sounding like what other people thought the Cure should sound like and were less interested in taking chances. It's hard to imagine them coming up with something as unexpected as "The 13th" ever again.

My theory is that the reception to this album wrecked the band's self-confidence. Everyone focuses on the band's dark side, but they could also be very quirky and strange. After Wild Mood Swings, however, it seems like the Cure started to focus on sounding like what other people thought the Cure should sound like and were less interested in taking chances. It's hard to imagine them coming up with something as unexpected as "The 13th" ever again.

(I like Club America too.)

Yeah, that makes sense when you look at the albums that came after - the band suddenly become backwards-looking.

Like, Bloodflowers was talked up as being part of a "trilogy" with Pornography and Disintegration ... Ross Robinson tried to make The Cure an intense experience like Pornography and 4:13 Dream was essentially Wish part two.

i think a lot of the songs on the s/t are extremely weird in a way they hadn't been before. ofc the record also includes "taking off"

There's one or two things that have felt like, or hinted at, new ground for them... 'Lost', for example, but they never seemed to explore these avenues further.

So, going through my CD singles for the Wild Mood Swings songs and playing some of the non-album single edits and as yet uncompiled remixes and really rather enjoying them.

As I said above, the "Buskers Mix" of 'Mint Car' is totally great. Much more sparse, very nice.

Still hate the proper version of 'Strange Attraction.' It's just. . . too hokey. However, the "Strange Mix" removes the chorus completely and really strips back the arrangement drastically to make for, I think, an actually enjoyable version of the song.

The "Critter Mix" of 'Gone!' is so weird and unlike the proper version, I can't help but like it, simply based on how out of left field it is.

The two different mixes of 'The 13th' ("Two Chord Cool Mix" and "Killer Bee Mix") just seem to be different mixdowns of the album version, so not much difference to mention. It does remind me of just how totally blindsided I was upon hearing the song for the first time. Still one of their weirdest moves, I'd reckon.

I'd argue Bloodflowers, the self titled album from 2004 or 4:13 dream are worse Cure albums than this one.

I'd argue that all three are better!

Self-titled album, yes.

The other two, absolutely not.

Particularly Bloodflowers and 4:13 Dream.

i have been listening to the Slicing Up Eyeballs Top The Cure songs on Spotify. when i have been hearing Wild Mood Swings songs at random it has been a pleasant surprise especially "Mint Car." but i have not gotten to the last half of that playlist yet.

4:13 Dream is the best from 1996 onward with Bloodflowers just behind or Turrican OTM. not a fan of the self titled album but it's probably still better than Wild Mood Swings.

I think WMS is (mostly) great, the good bits of the self-titled album are very good indeed, 4:13 Dream is interesting in parts but the whole thing feels quite flat and Bloodflowers is mostly a dreary unrewarding slog.

All the b-sides and non-album songs associated with the self-titled album are all excellent, without exception.

For reference, the songs are:

'Fake'
'Truth Goodness and Beauty'
'Why Can't I Be Me?'
'This Morning'
'Going Nowhere'
'Your God is Fear'

Asides from Hongro shitposting that this is one of the best cure albums ever I agree with most of his comments in this thread and I'm finding that worrisome.

But yeah twee cure ain't bad at all. Even if it was tongue in cheek I'd loved more songs like mint car in their discography.

Bloodflowers is mostly a dreary unrewarding slog

^THIS x ∞

the b-sides to this record are amazing!

i mean i knew that but i always wanna yell about it

"Home" is so, so, so good.

This has stayed in my rotation all month. And after spending more time with 'Connect the Dots,' probably contains most of my favorite Cure b-sides. . .

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'

Is 'Wrong Number' a b-side to this album? I love that one. It got released in Galore a year later but I've no idea if it was part of the Wild Mood Swings sessions or recorded after.

Then they also released 'More Than This' for the X-files OST in 1998. If those two songs were in WMS + Dredd song it would make this album at least 20% better.

'Wrong Number' was after. It was its own standalone single.

I'd edit those two down a couple of minutes tho... there's no reason why those two songs need to be 5min+ long.

And yeah, 'More Than This' is one of their better 90s tunes. Shame it's pretty much forgotten by this point.

Yeah those 3 are amongst my favorite 90's Cure songs and none of them are really that well known which is a shame. I mean the video for Wrong Number is one of their best ones just because how psychedelic and crazy it is and it only has like 50,000 views on youtube! Why?

Was Wild Mood Swings anyone else's first Cure album? Talk about Doing Cure Wrong.
Sound advice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mblx_jYFZmQ

Wild Mood Swings was one of my first Cure albums in the late 90s when I bought a handful of their CDs used (the others were Wish and Staring at the Sea).

the only song on this album that's bad is "club america"

i know it's wrong to love "strange attraction" as much as i do but i don't want to be right. low key my favorite robert smith lyric too

lmao i love "jupiter crash" soooo much too

after i realized the smashing pumpkins adore was a perfect record as a kid i gravitated toward albums that were mostly hated by their fanbase, and i ended up listening to wild mood swings a lot as a result... the other cure records i had were kiss me and disintegration so it's not like i was unfamiliar with prime cure. but there's a playfulness to this album that always charms me (especially "gone!" i feel like i'm the only person who has any strong feelings about this song whatsoever, but jazzy r&b the cure is so fun to me), and whenever it pulls me in i get shattered all over again by how good the ballads are. "numb"! "treasure"! "bare"! jeez

like wish but to a much greater extent, it could've been one of the great cure mood pieces had they worked the ballads and the b-sides into one sequence. but i love it for what it is still

hard to overstate however how a song as good as "waiting" should never be a b-side

I always liked "Trap."

brad i rep hard for "gone!" it's usually a toss up between that, "more than this", and "jupiter crash" for my favorite thing of this era. here's the critter mix for "gone!" i mentioned upthread:

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

i know it's cool to discredit jason, but any live recordings you can find from the swing tour are worth your time. "disintegration" on that tour was rarely better.

am also a big fan of "proper mess" albums like this. it's not the best anything, but it's damned entertaining to me.

re jason - i remember reading somewhere that the swing tour was the last time they played without a click track - what I’ve heard definitely sounds a bit more lively

never found a way into WMS but i saw them play Jupiter Crash once and found it charming- and Want was a worthy LP opener

"Want" is quite good indeed.

Yeah "Gone!" is groovy as hell, and the album in general is underrated. "Mint Car" is transcendent tho--maybe the most euphoric pop song ever, and the fact that it's by this band makes it even better

“Mint Car” was the first Cure song I ever heard when I was like 9.

I immediatly loved the tone in the vocalist’s voice, but didn’t excite me enough to listen to more of their music until many years later when I heard “lullaby”.

Mint Car is glorious; The 13th is even better!

I thought The 13th was a completely genius comeback single when it came out and couldn't understand why the entire universe seemed underwhelmed and a bit embarrassed by it.

I think I got the vibe about this when I heard the single, with the line "Yeah, I Feel That Good" and decided that was the least good line in a song, ever. Not even "terrible", just useless.

(unless I'm thinking of some other song on some other album)

Here is the best defense of this album that I have ever read. She almost makes me want to listen to it again, this article was just released and a bit long.

https://www.popmatters.com/cure-wild-mood-swings-genre-jumping

Just finished reading thread and never gave my experience. When WMS came out I was not in the mood for new Cure. I think I bought and played it once and then filed it away. I never really gave it a chance. I know I played it when I got back into the Cure but it's not a good album. It is way too long and doesn't flow well. I do think there are some good songs on it but really hard to reach for this album when you have 12 others you can play instead.

That defense is an amusing read but it's not a good album. The B-sides on the other hand are amazing as been told on this thread.

Which is why I will be curious as to the reissue, whenever it comes along.