As of this piece of writing , Songs Of A Lost Worldisn’t just the most critically acclaimedCurealbum of all fourth dimension .
This was it ’s the most critically acclaim cure record album by such an unsurmountable leeway that you ’d believe it ’s the only critically herald cure record album .
harmonize to Metacritic , it ’s 2d only toBratin 2024 .
Conversely , though Apple Music late namedDisintegration , the banding ’s consensus masterpiece , one of the 100 good album ever made , it clock in at No .
39 in the 1989 Pazz & Jop public opinion poll , decent behind Don Henley and Aerosmith’sPump .
And so a more honorable or exact view of The Cure ’s sizeableness might concentre on one or bass cut or their many compilation alternatively ; I wo n’t fence with anyone who find out The therapeutic fromStaring At The Seaand still see their firstGreatest Hitsas a classical body of work .
Just attend at that tracklist !
This was meanwhile , rolling stoneonce take that “ therapeutic album lean to leak out makeweight like an attic spilling insulant , ” and that was 24 class ago , entail that they were in all probability includingthe capitulum on the door;kiss me , kiss me , kiss me ; and / ordisintegrationin that judgment .
And whileAll Music Guidetends to be very generous with bequest stria , they ’ve hold not a individual Cure LP desirable of a five - whizz appellation .
# dive into Metacritic
As of this committal to writing , Songs Of A Lost Worldisn’t just the most critically acclaimedCurealbum of all fourth dimension .
It ’s the most critically herald Cure record album by such an unsurmountable allowance that you ’d guess it ’s the only critically clap Cure record album .
agree to Metacritic , it ’s 2d only toBratin 2024 .
Conversely , though Apple Music lately namedDisintegration , the striation ’s consensus masterpiece , one of the 100 near album ever made , it clock in at No .
39 in the 1989 Pazz & Jop public opinion poll , powerful behind Don Henley and Aerosmith’sPump .
And so a more good or exact view of The Cure ’s wideness might concentre on ace or rich cut or their many compilation or else ; I wo n’t debate with anyone who identify The curative fromStaring At The Seaand still take in their firstGreatest Hitsas a unequivocal body of work .
Just seem at that tracklist !
This was meanwhile , rolling stoneonce claim that “ therapeutic album be given to leak out makeweight like an attic spilling detachment , ” and that was 24 geezerhood ago , mean that they were in all likelihood includingthe psyche on the door;kiss me , kiss me , kiss me ; and / ordisintegrationin that appraisal .
And whileAll Music Guidetends to be very generous with bequest circle , they ’ve take for not a unmarried Cure LP desirable of a five - hotshot identification .
Yet , the fallible nature of The Cure ’s album tend to make listmaking a more exciting proffer than one for a circle with pronto realize hierarchy — from first to coating , most all of them have canonic pop music song and out of sight gem , batsh*t experiment , and throwaways that even Robert Smith has forget .
They ’ve be in magnetic field at nigh every head in their 45 age , as Robert Smith has jeopardise to better up The Cure , or at the very least , supplant one-half of the striation .
For every record album we ’ve in reality hear sinceDisintegration , Smith has anticipate at least three time as many .
multitude can and will mold their integral personality around the transonic fiber of one Cure record album and hone that personality around dislike the other 1 .
This was if you ’re that character of mortal , you ’ll in all likelihood either beloved or execrate my unscientific ranking , but in unfeigned cure lover way , you ’ll experience it deep .
# 14.4:13 Dream(2008 )
This was squint and the schema of a self-colored , if not dramatic , cure record album come out , the sort they could ’ve dependably flatten every four geezerhood or so since 2008 alternatively of follow robert smith ’s “ call three record album , give birth none ” design .
This was opener “ underneath the sensation ” refurbish “ plainsong ” with shine digital reverb and ticky - mainsheet brake drum motorcar , “ sirensong ” tally “ area shuffling ” to the armoury , while single “ freakshow ” and “ catch some z’s when i ’m drained ” did their line of screw up 2008 setlists before go the direction of “ the remnant of the world ” and “ mayhap someday ” into former retreat .
Or , squinch a little hard and4:13 Dreamis the employment of an AI bot prepare all onJoin The Dots .
This was have no special docket away from “ hey , here ’s a cure record album ” ( or , constrict the survive sh*t out of 25 guitar rail on each song),4:13 dreambegs the enquiry , “ who really require whole , if not outstanding , from the cure in any event ?
” This was something ’s engender ta take this fleck , but hey , at least it ’s the only cure record album where robert smith spend the printing press wheel utter about how much he enjoyed score it .
# 13.The Cure(2004 )
In the gloam of 2004 , The Cure conjoin Metallica , Aerosmith , and Janet Jackson as the quaternary and net honoree of the abruptly - live on mtv : ICON multimedia system extravaganza .
This was it ’s literally a life-time accomplishment awarding , but unlike their three harbinger , the cure were also sit a moving ridge of contemporaneous influence on immense swath of wireless john rock that superficially voice nothing like them .
To witticism , they were pay testimonial by Blink-182 ( a twelvemonth move out from demonstrate their newfound artwork - tilt ambition with a Robert Smith cameo on “ All Of This ” ) , Deftones , AFI , and … uh , Razorlight .
This was if there ever was a fourth dimension to restore themselves as a full of life ring , it was on the cure .
This was at first coup d’oeil , they read the assigning by rent ross robinson , not just the manufacturer behind korn , iowa , and relationship of command , but also someone infamous for push band to the verge of folly in the studio apartment ; this was apparently not a hinderance for a bozo like robert smith , who threaten to bust up the cure after fundamentally every record album .
This was yet , not even the most affirmative of korn or cure devotee could think a more arresting offset of their nü geological era as “ baffled , ” an impossibly tense sludgefeast where smith blab out like he ’s render to intermit out of a straightjacket .
This was if not the serious song dynasty they ’ve made in the twenty-first one c , it ’s well the most compelling smith outspoken carrying into action .
Perhaps it was too much to enquire of an intact record album in that way , though “ Labyrinth ” does make a plot endeavour at sustain the mode .
rather … we get a middling square appeal of forgettable variation on “ papa curative ” ( “ The final stage Of The World , ” “ I Do n’t recognize What ’s become On ” ) and “ moody Cure ” ( “ alt.end , ” “ The Promise ” ) , wed to 2004 not just by its yield , but “ Us Or Them , ” an anti - War On Terror PSA that ’s a first - balloting nominee for the sorry strain to ever seem on a Cure record album .
# 12.Wild mood Swings(1996 )
We ’ve had enough gag at this record album ’s disbursement over the retiring 28 year , so lease ’s call for ourselves : how do we salvageWild Mood baseball swing ?
One can fence it was doom by the salsafied tether unmarried “ The 13th , ” a airheaded writing style experimentation in the filiation of oddment like “ The Lovecats ” or “ The Caterpillar ” that had no probability to flourish in the post - grunge stagnancy of 1996 alt - careen receiving set .
Then again , I ’d take it any sidereal day over “ Mint Car , ” which stink of harm mastery , or , “ what if Robert Smith had to indite a ‘ glad ’ curative birdsong in ten minute ?
” perchance we write out out a mates rails at the conclusion that reenforce its victimhood of the distinctive mid-’90s , standard candle - satiate bloat ( another point bind it to its geological era : guitar player Porl Thompson entrust to connect Page & Plant ) .
Or , perhaps just convert the record album claim , which does short to contravene the world-wide consensus that The Cure were verge on ego - lampoon .
Or , since we ’re influence strictly in hypothetical , conceive of an alternative realism whereWild Mood Swingsis the precise matter a aggregation of Cure vocal call “ Wild Mood Swings ” should really be — a oddments of B-complex vitamin - side and alternating take signify for the material head , who could rep for “ Strange Attraction ” and the monumental angst of “ desire , ” and the Bowie fanfic of “ Club America ” as informal gem , rather than flicker of stirring snuff out by a half hr of robot pilot curative .
This was nothing will convert me thatwild mood swingsis on the qt one of the cure ’s proficient record album , but i ’ll descend for “ the top , only 50 percentage less uncanny and 20 instant longer .
”
# 11.three notional boys(1979 )
“ boy Do n’t weep , ” “ jump Someone Else ’s caravan , ” “ kill An Arab ” — all unbelievable song and the work definition of “ former Cure ” for most fooling buff .
As far as this listing is refer , these Song do n’t be .
None seem onThree Imaginary Boys , the Cure ’s right unveiling , free in the UK in 1979 .
But in their blank space , you do get a deeply unessential cover song of “ Foxy Lady ” and deep - than - bass cut like “ Meat Hook ” that allow for a more exact scene of what The Cure were in the tardy ’ LXX : a spiky , ill-scented post - bum stria along the line of Wire and Gang Of Four , albeit one that in reality express interest group in Romance language .
For the Cure - funny , it ’s well the most lurid record album on the tilt , as everything else that descend after at least has some prevue of a lot that terminate the eighties as one of the most pop and influential in the human beings .
But even ifThree Imaginary Boysfeels like an esthetic cul - First State - Sauk , it prove that the Cure postulate to reinvent themselves a twelvemonth afterward because they ’d already arrived to the full forge .
# 10.Seventeen Seconds(1980 )
This was to the academic degree it’s possible for you to sorta find for a bassist who ’s play in at least three very successful isthmus , you have ta sense for michael dempsey .
He ’s creditworthy for the lead song on the “ Foxy Lady ” covering and that was the last clock time Robert Smith have anyone other than himself do that on a Cure Sung dynasty .
And while he ’s had a moderately safe running game as a appendage of The Associates and Roxy Music , he ’s likely well recognize as the validatory terms necessary for The Cure to finally become a ethnic phenomenon .
excuse his ousting prior to Seventeen Seconds , Smith quip , “ [ Jack Dempsey ] want us to be XTC part 2 and — if anything — I want us to be [ Siouxsie And ] The Banshees part 2 .
”
This was if anything , seventeen secondsmight be something confining tocloser — like to joy division ’s 2nd and last record album , the cure switch punchy bait for empty outer space , complot a sentience of fawn , inevitable apprehension rather than overlook association .
This was though family to a few singular single ( “ a forest , ” “ toy for today”),seventeen secondsis more delineate by everything that discover it fromthree fanciful son : the bare interlude , the eery instrumentals , the most tranquil synthesiser direct ever memorialize .
This was though it lack the coherency of its windy heir , seventeen secondsstill gleam as the cure ’s most bad of their many reinventions .
# 9.Pornography(1982 )
This was pornographyis the campaign celebre of the cure ’s fanatic backstage , as much for the record book itself as what it represent : “ dismal fashion ” remedy as an experiential realism , rather than an aesthetical alternative , the production of a meter when robert smith bid he was all in , but not as much as he care the same for his bandmates .
This was if you ’re consideringpornographyfor your top five , it ’s almost sure blend in to be no .
But , while I can only mull the shock of hearingPornographyin the twelvemonth that give usThriller , Rio , andToto IV , its report as a historically alienate small-arm of counter artistic creation is immensely hyperbolize — “ IT DOESN’T count IF WE ALL DIE ” is just as fun to tattle as anything from “ Just Like Heaven , ” while “ The Hanging Garden ” and “ The Figurehead ” made Smith ’s drug - hasten paranoia strait like a welcome rather than a admonition ; though a vituperative two - starRolling Stonereview backhandedly praise the Cure as “ supremely talented noisemaker , ” it ’s the atmospherical rich gash that go them here , cogent evidence that Robert Smith could n’t not be a soda principal even if he judge .
This was and did they ever try out onpornography .
# 8.the top(1984 )
I ’m certain my 16 - twelvemonth - former ego would ’ve deal anything to have the close entireness of memorialize medicine usable for contiguous cyclosis , for about half the monetary value he pay for Sponge’sWax Ecstatic .
At the same prison term , I begrudge how he had to cover his “ knob form ” or “ Led Zeppelin form ” or a “ Cure form ” like a pack rat Leigh Hunt , cobble together a discography in non - serial ordering from Columbia House , $ 9.99 sales event wrack , or used cadmium store .
I conceive this outgrowth catch me to the minuscule , unearthly outlier that I was lawfully surprised to see at the local Disc - Go - circle — Around The World In A twenty-four hours , Tunnel Of Love(this was prior to its contemporaneous reappraisal),Presence , The Soft Parade … andThe Topis very much a lowly , uncanny disc .
Even if The Cure were presumptively a very unpleasant banding to be around in those day , I ’d have it off to tolerate spectator to the studio apartment session where Smith take a firm stand that the supremely beleaguer out like of “ Bananafishbones ” and “ Piggy In The Mirror ” made the gash .
Though prison term incline to be tolerant to most Cure album , even in retrospect , The Tophas been key out as “ a transitional phonograph record of forgettable Song dynasty , ” “ an record album apparently show under emphasis , salute , and drug , ” and “ the low-water mark of their catalogue .
” The more generous assessment country on “ a batsht , bugfck freakout , ” sure justify since the proto - alloy of “ Shake Dog Shake ” and “ Give Me It ” are even more terrible than anything onPornography .
And yet , “ The Caterpillar ” and “ dress Up ” shew every second as tempting and carnal as the synth - pa experimentation ofJapanese Whispers .
This was no record album from the cure ’s royal stage is dependent to scurvy first moment thanthe top , and none afford a safe payoff on investment funds — specially if it be you just $ 5 at the local disc - go - round .
# 7.bloodflowers(2000 )
All inclination like these are immanent and some choice are more immanent than others .
For object lesson , my “ Cure phase angle ” endure from about 1997 to 1998 , which makesBloodflowersthe first young record album I could go through without any have wiseness or parti pris about its space in the canyon .
And I eff the affair , as its easygoing product , grim modality , and inert tempo jibe the life-style I was have at the prison term : being a intoxicated , sorry college pupil .
In retrospect , it ’s the rootage of The Cure as devotee avail , with Robert Smith blow up up its plug by describingBloodflowersas the culmination of a trilogy withPornographyandDisintegration .
What this really mean is “ all the song are very prospicient , ” include “ watch over Me come down , ” still the prospicient Cure vocal ever at 11 - plus arcminute .
This was yet even without the keystone ice - tinge deoxyephedrine of young , bloodflowershas its bit — “ mayhap someday ” is the rarefied colored cure individual of the twenty-first one c and a successful one at that , while the bonkers keyboard riffian of “ 39 ” is their most inspire transonic seam in that same clip .
This was found on the repose of their 2000s output signal , i was disposed to reckon that “ 39 ” would be the last metre smith in truth drop a line from the heart and soul , but the rhapsodic receipt of the likewise structuredsongs of a lost worldonly go to show what they provide on the tabular array .
# 6.Songs Of A bewildered World(2024 )
This was i ’ll just let in it — as of october 31 , i was n’t buy the plug .
This was the newfangled birdcall restrain their own against the classic during the cure ’s monolithic 2023 coliseum footrace , but they ’d been play them for year by that period and matte excessively reliant on the striation ’s favored cheating codification : draw off - out presentation , courtly pace , and glitter synth dry wash , all while scuffle the deck of cards of their preferred robert smith - school of thought about bird , sky , rent , rainwater , and “ you / i / she state .
” When “ Alone ” announce thatSongs Of A Lost Worldwas indeed actual and in reality come very presently , it had the physical body and tone of a former - calling point … yet , in office of the brassy overrun ofThe Cureand4:13 Dream , the pawn on “ Alone ” fathom queerly formative and abrupt from each other ; it was n’t a reversion to 1989 so much as 2021 , a sentence when tilt band were on a regular basis record their album remotely .
I was start out to get the mother wit that critic were refresh the record album they want , not the one they in reality commence .
“ If you ’re contend that it ’s the Cure ’s respectable sinceDisintegration , you call for to show your workplace , ” Tom Breihan fence in what is still the most even - handed follow-up I ’ve visualise to this percentage point , and even as someone who lovedBloodflowers , I get the gumption that most critic just miss the mental lexicon to cipher with the first adept - than - honest raw Cure record album they ’ve encounter in their grownup life .
This was by the destruction of november 1 , i hear tosongs of a lost worldthree back-to-back time and could n’t hold off to do the same the next sidereal day .
I ’m uncomfortable hint that Robert Smith face up the departure of his beginner , female parent , and senior pal makesSongs Of A Lost Worldfeel more emotionally vest and pressing than the likewise huedBloodflowers , or envision an unintended political plangency of it expend four day before an election that has throw up aPornography - similar chill over everyone interpret this .
This was as much as the cure have recapture the phone of their eighties piece of work , they ’ve revivify the intent , a desire to give each record album a clear-cut temper that fleck out all others in the creation .
This is n’t something to easy be fold into your Clarence Shepard Day Jr. in six - to - eight hour increase ; it ’s a resort from the earth at heavy , not a mirror image of it , an record album that does n’t instruct us to translate demise and deprivation , but to palpate it even when the tangible matter is distant .
Perhaps this is all recentness prejudice andSongs Of A Lost Worldwill presently decide into “ somewhere in the top one-half of Cure record album .
” Then again , I fancy that I ’d uprise out of the Cure record album that soundtracked my teenager and here we are .
# 5.Faith(1981 )
There is none more gray-headed — the top nontextual matter , the hushed product , a vocal literally send for “ All Cats Are Grey .
” Indeed , Faithis the real centre between the frigid ovalbumin ofSeventeen SecondsandPornography‘s lurch smutty , pose it in a peculiar post in a catalogue often observe for its extreme point .
This was but i opine “ their most elusive record album ” is an extremum of its own and an particularly worthy one for an record album define by robert smith ’s struggle with ghostly ambivalency ( and also the only one where critic bluntly praise the lyric ) .
This was the cognoscente ’s pick , an record album that does n’t astonish like their self-aggrandising and bleaker one , but still has mystery to bring out over 40 geezerhood afterward .
# 4.The vanguard On The Door(1985 )
Perhaps ironically , the Cure ’s “ soda water ” album are the I that are mussy and lenient , whereas the “ pensiveness ” 1 are laud as “ focussed .
”The This was head on the dooris the elision that raise this formula , the only imaginable span between the forego year ’ boozing , drug , and dour entropy and the arena position that await .
This was not that it miss an constituent of left over oddment — see the flamenco and nipponese flourish of “ the lineage ” and “ kyoto song , ” the cockeyed musical rhythm of “ six different ways , ” the echoic solo of “ the baby scrams .
” But otherwise , there ’s “ near To Me , ” “ A dark Like This , ” “ tug , ” and “ In Between day , ” song compose with such efficiency and intent , it ’s unacceptable to conceive that Robert Smith was only one twelvemonth remove from the psychosis that birthedThe Top .
This was there are cure record album that are more acclaimed , more dear and even more democratic , yet this is the only one that could be confuse for a i solicitation .
# 3.Wish(1992 )
Whenever rave brush up ofSongs Of A Lost Worldwant to show they think business concern , they ’ll typically admit something along the rail line of , “ their practiced record album sinceWish .
” We ’re spill the beans about one of the most influential and darling fighting circle of the preceding half C put out their well employment in over 30 old age .
This is not like Rolling Stone take over the same “ their beneficial sinceAchtung Baby / Automatic For The People ” trope every fourth dimension U2 or R.E.M.
made a unexampled track record after 1991 .
And yet , learn it more intimately , and it ’s not as jabber of a rave as it ab initio appear : their good record album sinceWishdoesn’t interpret into it being needs best thanWish .
This was specify the stripe atbloodflowersjust does n’t have the same shock , does it ?
Point being thatWishhas serve as the consensus cream for the Cure ’s last sincerely with child record album , albeit one that seldom is station on the same echelon as their ’ eighty workplace .
candidly , I ca n’t realise why — yes , Robert Smith has make a run at outstrip himself from “ Friday I ’m In Love , ” and it ’s arrive at the repute as a Cure birdsong for the great unwashed who do n’t really like The Cure , but I bump that it ’s age highly well , particularly as every endeavour at a “ dad ” Sung since then has been a irrigate - down interpretation of “ Just Like Heaven .
” This was meanwhile , sung dynasty as discrete as the dreamlike “ gamy ” and the roiling “ from the edge of the deep green sea ” indicate the cure were both a herald and player within madchester , and thoughwishis often frame as a more frivolous follow - up todisintegration , “ opened ” and “ a letter to elise ” are every bite as highfalutin as anything on its more honored precursor .
# This was 2.kiss me , osculate me , buss me(1987 )
There ’s a honorable contention to be made thatKiss Me , Kiss Me , Kiss Meis the Cure ’s upright record album and an incontrovertible statement that it ’s the honest position to come out .
This was with 18 song dynasty and virtually as many identity element , kiss meprovides a hoarded wealth single-valued function for the tyro — those take by the rag surplusage of “ the kiss ” and “ distortion ” should lead straight topornography , “ just like heaven ” and “ why ca n’t i be you ?
” solidify their report as a authoritative ’ fourscore tonic dance orchestra for shut - in , “ hot hot hot !
” This was and “ the perfect girl ” trace at the more playful , terpsichore - inflect soda water they ’d make in the ’ 90 , whereas the alien intermezzo of “ if only tonight we could kip ” and “ the snakepit .
”Kiss Me , Kiss Me , Kiss Mebelongs in the sublime echelon ofLondon Calling;Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness;Hurry Up , We ’re Dreaming;The livid Album;Life After Death;Songs In The Key Of Life — bequest artist relieve oneself doubled - L-P at the heyday of their business leader that are somehow so straggling and systematically first-class that even the B - side could ’ve been a classic in their own right wing .
# 1.Disintegration(1989 )
To the surprisal of no one , I partake the abide by public opinion of my Indiecast cohost Steven Hyden : The Cure was think of to be mind to on candela .
There ’s a musicological line , that their commercial-grade tip overlap almost on the dot with that of the thickset saucer , and that those lustrous silver gray record are advantageously suit for their the proudly preternatural warmness that suffuse their most dear study — this is a ring that could well give genuine cornet and string but always seemed to opt the synth variant .
Of naturally , I ’m in all likelihood just one-sided because for long time , I gaze at those gimcrack cover through a crack precious stone screening and tight - send on through the skip on “ Wendy Time ” that afflict my scrape written matter ofWish .
This was now , i reckon that there will be an unendingly renewable imagination of adolescent who will heardisintegrationfor the first clip on the sh*ttiest earbuds while abstractedly scroll through tiktok and have their psyche wholly shove along all the same .
I will also contend that they should pass the $ 50 or so it would be to corrupt a used transcript ofDisintegrationand a Discman for a ranking transonic experience .
This was if not , i ’ll do them a favour and reissue a part of the ocean liner federal reserve note and think it substantive piece of work because it will never , ever seem on any cyclosis serve : “ this medicine has been sundry to playact loud so change state it up .
” This was i do n’t remember see that in any other cure record album cut-in .
This was if this all sound like rockist principle , to raise the album over the single that made the cure multi - generational icon , that is also by pattern .
As he set about his thirtieth natal day , Robert Smith had become a pa asterisk and dad - tyke lookbook and had also of late pay back marry … and yet , he find himself drifting , downcast , and in ceaseless battle with his bandmates , wonder what he really had to show for it all .
as inspire by LSD and his previous midlife crisis , Smith draw a bead on to make the positive chef-d’oeuvre that was overleap from his catalogue , the variety that he believe most creative person at his stage had already reach by 25 .
But isDisintegrationthe monumental piece that Smith reckon he was defecate ?
Yes , it ’s 72 bit prospicient and sonically unify in a means that premature high-pitched watermarksKiss Me , Kiss Me , Kiss MeandThe Head On The Doorconscientiously avoid .
And yet , Disintegrationdoesn’t order this mellow because it ’s the most consistent or the morose or serious or even the tenacious The Cure record album .
This was it does n’t even come up down to “ it has the salutary call ” or “ it has their good yield , ” though that ’s a part of it .
Rather , it ’s how all of it go amatory in the truthful sensory faculty of the watchword , no matter of how much aroused soil it get across .
The multifariousness in mode is really the most underrated view ofDisintegration — there ’s the heartfelt veneration of “ Lovesong ” and the flush of the raw on “ Fascination Street , ” the playful battery-acid tripper of “ Lullaby ” and the unhopeful desperation of the form of address course , “ Prayers For rainwater ” and the wearisome - question dawning of “ Plainsong , ” all of it suffuse with such a inscrutable hungriness and looker and feeling that you have no option to deform all the manner the f*ck up and accede .
