hsut@pur-ee.UUCP (Yuk Hsu) (09/20/85)
Only a week late, the unasked for review of the new Cure album "The Head on the Door"... First, a little discography (sorry if there are more Cure fans on the net than I thought, and EVERYBODY already has a list of Cure albums.) The first Cure album was "Boys Don't Cry" (US version of the British "3 Imaginary Boys"), a nice collection of 3 minute bouncy, well-crafted pop songs. Even then, Cure singer Robert Smith's tendency towards depression and despair manifested itself (discreetly) on such pieces as the eerie Subway Song. "Seventeen Seconds" was a wonderful album with richer textures and colors, and the emphasis has shifted from bouncy pop songs to a darker style. "Faith" is the first truly depressing Cure album, with such masterpieces of doom and despair as The Funeral Party, Drowning Man, The Holy Hour and Faith. "Seventeen Seconds" and "Faith" are available in the US as a double album called "Happily Ever After" :-) :-). Then the Cure went all the way with the powerful "Pornography", with heavy emphasis on electric instruments and keyboards (in contrast to the acoustic ensembles of "Boys Don't Cry".) The lyrics are also the darkest and most despairing of the group's albums so far. "Pornography" is a tour de force, well worth the time of anyone interested in intelligent, evocative music. Then the Cure went on vacation and made a bunch of dance singles which I've been told to stay away from (and I did). These are collected in the album "Japanese Whispers". "The Top" marked a return to wonderfully depressing music, although with a much wider variety of songs than on any of their previous albums. Some old Cure fans were unhappy about the divergence, but I thought "The Top" had some classic Cure songs despite its (relative) inconsistency, such as the religious Wailing Wall and Piggy In the Mirror. Naturally, I was more than curious to see what the Cure would do next. Well, "The Head on the Door" looked really promising from its song titles (Blood, Sinking, Screw --- vintage Cure titles!!), but the album was actually somewhat less than inspiring. The sound has been lightened up considerably, with a return to the widespread use of acoustic instruments. A lot of the songs resemble the first album in sound, though without the first album's charm and innocent exuberance. Robert Smith's vocals do lift the weaker pieces from banality, though. In Between Days, the "hit UK single" according to the sticker on my album, is a little pop song about unrequited love (or is it a menage a trois Smith sings about?) Kyoto Song has some clever bits, and some typically cryptic Cure vocals: "It looks good It tastes like nothing on earth It's so smooth it feels like skin It tells me how it feels to be new..." The Blood recalls The Wailing Wall (from "The Top") in its intricate guitar work and subject matter (the reference is to the blood of Christ). The second side has the heavier (and better) songs, in my opinion. The Baby Screams has lyrics almost right out of the Cure's masterpiece "Pornography", but Smith accompanies it with lighter, happier music that recalls the first album. A Night Like This is the closest to the pre-Japanese Whispers Cure that's on this album. The richly textured keyboards also appear on Sinking, which with ANLT are probably my favorite songs on the album. So "The Head on the Door" is not one of the best Cure albums, but hardly a disaster. For a taste of the "real" Cure, "Pornography" or "Faith (or even "The Top") would be better choices, though. Bill Hsu pur-ee!hsut