Essential Albums
- <i>The Head on the Door</i> represented The Cure’s first big breakthrough: Buoyed by bona fide pop melodies, the 1985 album marked a definitive break with the claustrophobic intensity of the goth icons’ early-’80s run. Four years later, <i>Disintegration</i> would enlarge their vision to stadium-sized proportions, confirming The Cure’s status as alt-rock titans. Where <i>Disintegration</i>’s predecessor, 1987’s giddy <i>Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me</i>, swung wildly between opposing feelings, <i>Disintegration</i> is a deep dive into a singular mood: dreamy, wistful, and deeply melancholy, imbued with all the drama of standing at the railing of a rain-slicked ship as it sails away and gazing at the lover left behind. <br /> <i>Disintegration</i> fully sharpened The Cure’s pop instincts: “Pictures of You,” “Lovesong,” and “Fascination Street” are as immediate and indelible as anything in their catalog. But the band have tempered their emotions, so that even the major-key tonalities of a track like “Plainsong” aren’t as blindingly bright as on the previous album; they’re a deeper, richer hue, like beams of sunlight penetrating aquamarine depths. <br /> The textures are remarkably lush: a sumptuous mix of guitars and synths so swirled together that it’s tough to say where one instrument ends and the next begins. That oceanic mood carries through in the way songs flow from one to another: The churning chords of “Last Dance” give way to the relative calm of “Lullaby,” and in the back half, the stretch from “Fascination Street” through “Homesick” comprises a kind of suite. There’s an echo of <i>Pornography</i>’s bleakness here, but this time, the descent into despair is strangely welcoming—it’s as though Robert Smith and his bandmates had discovered that on the coldest nights, wrapping up in one’s own loneliness is the only way to stay warm.
- By 1987 the Cure were among the most successful “alternative” rock bands in the world. Their previous album, 1985’s <i>The Head on the Door</i>, had been a massive hit and expectations were high. After years of single-minded leadership, Robert Smith was opening the band up to be more of a democracy and the additional input of his fellow bandmates led to such an overabundance of material that the group determined <i>Kiss Me</i> would need to be a double album. From the long instrumental passages that add to the album’s intense, epic mood to the ornate, ‘80s psychedelic flourishes that color the tracks, <i>Kiss Me</i> is a headphone listener’s dream. “Why Can’t I Be You?” and “Just Like Heaven” are the obvious radio-friendly pop songs, while “The Kiss,” “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep,” “How Beautiful You Are…” and “The Perfect Girl” reflect the heavy romance that replaced the group’s earlier unnerving despair. Emotions continue to dominate with overstated urgency, but it’s with a bit more sense of play.
- The Cure’s Robert Smith lucked out with perfect timing. Just as “alternative rock” was establishing itself as a market, due in part to a growing college radio network that could handle the quirks that terrified commercial, mainstream radio, Robert Smith was writing the most accessible material of his career. Here was a man who had been growing darker by the day, when he suddenly found his lighter side with a series of singles (“The Love Cats,” “Let’s Go to Bed”). But Smith had yet to find a way to bring it to the album format until 1985’s <i>The Head on the Door</i> solved that by subduing Smith’s excesses towards ornate instrumentation and over-emotive vocals with quick, concise pop tunes that still managed a terrifying clamour. “In Between Days,” “A Night Like This” and “Close to Me” virtually define the sweet and sour romance of Smith’s synth-laden, guitar-propelled Goth-pop and the teen angst he mirrored. “Kyoto Song” and “Sinking” serve as epics in miniature, employing the lessons of previous Cure albums but in more economical terms. Pure pop for Goth people.
- 1982
- The Cure’s third album, 1981’s <i>Faith</i>, features a core trio responding to the chiseled minimalism of its predecessor, 1980’s <i>Seventeen Seconds</i>, with a deeper emotional resonance and carefully orchestrated keyboards from leader Robert Smith. Recorded at a time when the band was experimenting with drugs and still establishing itself as an iconoclastic voice, <i>Faith</i> is a thoroughly assured collection of fully-realized compositions that flirt with questions of faith, fate and somber, sobering realities. Yet unlike the emotional excesses that would lead the band to their future extreme heights, the songs here are intense, yet restrained. “Doubt” steps on the accelerator and points towards the Cure sound most familiar to its later fans. However, most of the cuts follow a solemn form. “All Cats Are Grey” posts an eternal yearn in its slow, protruding chords, while “The Funeral Party” marches through a wintry field as the voices echo in what sounds like a futile, existential void.