Advantages: Unlike anything you've ever heard before Disadvantages: Messes with your head a bit
...'The Top' is The 7th album by The Cure, released in 1984.
Just incase someone has been on a different planet for the past 25 years, The Cure are Britain's top Goth band, headed up by crazy-haired, lipstick-wearing Robert Smith. They are famous for high profile songs such as The Lovecats and Friday I'm In Love.
When The Top was released, the wacky meter that Robert Smith must surely have on his wall, suddenly hit an all time high. We were now presented with song titles such as Bananfishbones and Piggy In The Mirror and lyrics such as
"Slit the cats like cheese
Then eat the sweet sticky things
Suck harder!
Suck harder!
Suck your insides
Insides out!"
(from the track 'Give Me It').
At the same time, this album is incredibly dark, as if we are hearing the thoughts of a tortured man who has been haunted by nightmares and terrible...
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Advantages: Innovative, Challenging, Highly Original Disadvantages: Schizophrenic Mood Changes
...every word and note on the album; and a manful job he does too!
The background to “The Top” is worth mentioning. Smith wrote the songs whilst he was touring as part of The Banshees and at the end of a madly busy year, he came to finally record “The Top” (whilst exhausted) after being ordered to rest completely by a doctor. Hot on the heels of the throwaway pop project that was “Japanese Whispers”, most people expected a relatively lightweight electro-pop album from The Cure in 1984. The attendant single release (“The Caterpillar”) was an innovative piece of summery folk-pop but by no means set the tone for its parent album.
Opening track “Shake Dog Shake” is harrowing listening. A darkly psychedelic voyage inside the subconscious mind of Smith, it came resplendent with some sinister, yet highly original lyrical content;
“Wake up...
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Advantages: A Well Produced Plethora Of Pop Disadvantages: Six Different Ways Should've Been A B-Side
...sing-along it might appear on first listen;
“Yesterday I got so scared
I shivered like a child
Yesterday away from you
It froze me deep inside
Come back come back
Don’t walk away…”
After the sub-three minute pop glory of the opener comes the mildly sinister, yet highly accessible “Kyoto Song” – a song about drowning nightmares and sexual indiscretion. A simple, yet enveloping arrangement gives the track licence to smother the listener. The top-notch song writing that set the band apart at the time, is still noticeable two decades on;
“A nightmare of you
Of death in the pool
Wakes me up at quarter to three
I’m lying on the floor of the night before
With a stranger lying next to me”
Track 3 is the Spanish sounding “The Blood.” A song that was apparently written about a premium strength red wine, which doubles up as paint stripper! Smith’s...
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helpful 11.12.2003
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