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The Cure
Even though I have never been a fan, and I know little more about them than what I’ve heard on their various CD’s, I’ve been asked to write reviews for eight different albums by the Cure. My indifference makes me an outsider, so Cure fans hate my reviews, while everyone else simply ignores them. To me, it’s an ironic conundrum – writing these reviews provides a form of self-torture that is actually very Robert Smith-ian in its own way. If anything, that should help me to understand the band a bit better, and maybe it is working, because in the process, I’ve grown to like “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.” I bought this album upon its release in 1990, but I never appreciated it. To me, it droned on endlessly, meandering from song to song with no sense of structure to support any of it. I still think of it that way, except now I hear the droning as an advantage, and I appreciate its lack of structure for the diversity it provides.
A 2-CD set may be a bit much, especially when the ‘bonus’ disk contains little more than vocal-less demo recordings. By the time you hear Smith’s caterwaul on track 10 (“A Thousand Hours”), it’s genuinely disconcerting, so you may want to permanently glue the ‘bonus’ disk inside the package. The original album is a different story entirely. The leadoff track, entitled “The Kiss,” best encapsulates my change of heart. My impression from 1990 had me wondering “Christ, what is he kissing, a sea monster?” Today, it still sounds ominous, but for some reason, it also sounds somewhat enticing, like a sensual attraction toward something forbidden. “Catch” is completely different and actually catchy, especially for the Cure. It is also extraordinarily gentle for a band that is so obsessed with chaos. It even has violins!
The inconsistency that I suggested earlier causes the album’s mood to veer all over the place, and the predictably morose drone of “If Only Tonight I Could Sleep” is telltale of what I do not like about the band - a dull, uninspired one-chord drone, with the slight novelty of sitars and such providing only marginal interest. Luckily, things snap back to attention almost instantly with “Why Can’t I Be You.” Lyrically, the song fits the band’s formula, except they disguise their self-loathing with an upbeat, double-time rhythm and poppy horn charts (played on keyboard) that could have been borrowed from Madness. Speaking of surprises, did you ever in your wildest imagination picture the Cure as a funk band? Me either, but “Hot Hot Hot!!!” is almost convincing, in a pasty, ‘80s English sort of way. “Hey You” rocks out and even has a saxophone solo, while “Just Like Heaven” is almost happy, even!
Perhaps I subconsciously felt compelled to retain my prejudice against the Cure (was it ever a secret?), but little by little, “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” wore me down. The sheer quantity of material might have something to do with it, because 18 tracks is a LOT of music, and yet the band keeps things interesting throughout. Previously, I dismissed the Cure as a band capable of conveying one mood (depression) with expertise, but this album broadens their palette considerably. Here, they reach out for new territory and they deserve credit for it, especially since they succeed most of the time. They still sound like a dour bunch of doughboys, but at least I now know that they are capable of more than one mood.
Grade: 
 
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