Listening to The Cure play live via the webstream at Lollapalooza 2013 I was almost transported back to one of the many Cure shows I saw live in the 80s. They played all the hits and sounded and looked (mostly) like their old selves.
My favorite Cure memory was the tour where they had just broken out and everybody was sporting the infamous Robert Smith ‘big hair’. But Smith took the stage with a complete buzz cut—cutting all the wannabes down to size before the first note was ever heard. It was a perfect rock ‘n roll moment!
There isn’t really a Cure album I don’t like, but the one I feel is really underrated is their six studio album, The Top, released in April 1984. It wasn’t as big a commercial success as some of their other works, but it captured the familar angst of the Faith album and musically took some risks that were pretty unfamiliar in the current music market. There were also rumors about Robert Smith’s depression at the time—and while the vibe of this record is decidedly low, I still feel musically it was some of their best work.
When I first heard it, the dissonance was almost more than I could take—like the rock version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring—it wasn’t immediately pleasing to my ear. But over time it really grew on me and remains one of my favorites from the era, capturing the lighter side of what was then known as ‘death rock’ and landing a place in my permanent archive. I’m including three tracks here—the streaming does not do them justice—get yourself the remastered version and do some active listening. The album stands up as a whole work, with every song playing an integral part to the story.