Music Review: The Cure, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me And The Head On The Door, Remastered And Expanded Editions

I admit, I've long taken The Cure for granted. Their dark, swooning tunes were a soundtrack through my high school years in the late 1980s, along with Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Erasure and the like. The synthesizer was king and androgyny was in vogue. Yet the band's oh-so-'80s outer trappings – front man Robert Smith's pale, lipstick-adorned face, hair vaguely resembling a spider in a web – later obscured for me what were some gorgeous, heartfelt pop songs. It wasn't until recently that I started really looking back at The Cure – and unlike most childhood crushes, they're even better than I remember.

Rhino Records' ongoing reissue series of the Cure's albums demands we take the Cure seriously. They place the band's epic music in context, dishing up lovingly remastered CDs complete with an entire CD of bonus tracks and a lengthy booklet of essays and photos. Unlike some of their synth-rock contemporaries, The Cure's music in its gloomy grandeur has barely aged at all. The latest two reissues by Rhino, 1985's The Head On The Door and 1987's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, sound magnificent in their remastered form, and still have the power to spook and awe.

Coming on the heels of band shake-ups and personal traumas for Smith, Head On The Door marked the expansion of The Cure into the lusher, layered and more listener-friendly sound they'd become famous for. The bleak sound of early albums like Pornography and Faith becomes more kaleidoscopic and hook-filled. Even while the subject matter remains rain-soaked and remorseful, there's a peppy bite to songs like "Close To Me" and "Inbetween Days." A comment by Smith in the liner notes to Head On The Door really sums up what they were going for: "I was trying to create a sort of attractive tension by marrying slightly bitter words to really sweet tunes," he said. That "attractive tension" pulses throughout these two albums, which remain a creative high point in the Cure's 25-year career.

Head On The Door was a solid critical and commercial hit. But even bigger things were to come. The band's seventh album, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was the Cure's popular breakthrough in 1987, with hits such as "Why Can't I Be You?" and "Just Like Heaven" – perhaps the band's most iconic, timeless song of all. The simmering beats of Head On The Door erupt in this jittery, lovelorn double album. It's a sprawling, diverse and kind of frantic masterpiece that rarely feels retro, nearly 20 years on. Smith's as giddy here as he's ever been, in the funky bounce of "Hot! Hot! Hot!" or the lusty abandon of "All I Want," with Smith snarling that he wants to "just hold you like a dog." Dark and dreary? The band even cavorts around in silly Halloween costumes in the enclosed CD booklet photos, poking fun at their image. It's one of the few double albums that never sounds bloated.

Article Author: Nik Dirga

An American journalist who now lives in New Zealand, Nik Dirga writes whenever the mood strikes him about books, music, movies, pop culture and more.

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