The Cure's Deluxe Discography
Trivia
Three Imaginary Boys were recorded virtually with NO BUDGET: the band simply snuck into Morgan Studios once the Jam had finished their sessions, and, using the Jam's gear, recorded through the night till dawn. |
The first The Cure album I bought was Disintegration (mostly because of the strength of "Love Song"), and continued to buy their albums until I lost interested (probably around Bloodflowers-era). So basically, I never picked up The Cure's previous albums - that is until Rhino Records, in association with Fiction, re-released all The Cure's albums in 2-disc deluxe format, starting in 2004.
I have pretty much all the deluxe editions, except for The Top, and I thought it would be helpful to review these sets for anyone who might be interested in investing or re-investing in these albums.
I will be concentrating on the first release, Three Imaginary Boys, today. The original debut album was released in 1979 in the UK. The US got a repackaged version called Boys Don't Cry (the original album didn't contain "Boys Don't Cry," "Plastic Passion," "Jumping Someone Else's Train", "World War", and "Killing an Arab").
First of all, if you're a hardcore fan, these sets are essential to your collection. The 2nd discs are full of rare studio and home demos and live tracks, most of which were never previously released. If you're a casual fan and already owned the original vinyl or CD, you might want to spend your hard-earned cash on something else (considering that each set retails about $25) and those rare tracks are more or less toss-away tracks for casual fans.
If you never bought the Cure's album but have always loved them, these re-releases might be checking out. Each album have been remastered with a booklet. All the liner notes were written by Johnny Black and photographs are from the private collection of vocalist, Robert Smith. All the photographs a delight to see, because many (if not all) of these photographies were ever seen by the public.
Listening to the album for the first time, I was really surprised how raw and punky The Cure was back then. My favorite song is "10:15 Saturday Night" which opens up the album. It's clearly an important song, at least one of the oldest Cure song.
Robert Smith said:
10:15 Saturday Night was written at the table in our kitchen, watching the tap dripping, feeling utterly morose, drinking my dad's home made beer... My evening had fallen apart, and I was back at home feeling very sorry for myself!
The lyrics really does capture that feeling sorry for yourself feeling.
"10:15"'s demos are also VERY DIFFERENT from final studio version. There are two demos on the 2nd disc: the Home Demo and the Studio Demo. The home version is radically different, containing a Hammond organ and bossanova drumbeat.
At this rate, it doesn't look like Rhino is working on Disintegration as there is a huge gap in 2007 without any Cure deluxe release. Shame, because I was looking forward to seeing all the various demos & b-sides for "Love Song".
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11/15/2007 00:05:54 vu 
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