Food Reviews

With a career as expansive and varied as the Cure’s it is nearly a fool’s errand to try and sum up their career on a single-disc retrospective. There’s just too many various moods and styles that they’ve covered over the years, but this 2001 disc is a perfectly fine sampler platter. Think of it less as a definitive document detailing Robert Smith and company’s whimsical darkness and fine pop mopery, and more like an introductory course.

 

Greatest Hits gives too short a shift to their spiky early days, so brilliantly heard on Staring at the Sea, which encapsulated their first decade, and perhaps leans too heavily on tracks already found on Galore, which condensed their next. Sure, songs like “Just Like a Heaven” and “Pictures of You” are their best-known and beloved ones now, but no love for “10:15 Saturday Night,” “Primary,” and “Play for Today”? I suppose something like this is made to cater to the widest, biggest potential audience so it focuses more heavily on their gothic pop mastermind years at the expense of their post-punk years.

 

The two new songs “Cut Here” and “Just Say Yes,” the latter a duet with Republica’s Saffron, are two examples of the band’s diametric modes. “Just Say Yes” is one of the swirling, colorful pieces of high-camp pop in the mood of something on the likes of Wish. While “Cut Here” finds the band in a form that wouldn’t have sounded entirely out of place on Faith.

 

Some versions came with a second disc that repeated the entire track list but performed acoustically. Greatest Hits is worth buying just to hear Smith and the rest tear through these eighteen songs in an unplugged manner. There’s a playfulness in the performances that is quite catching. If you haven’t already been converted to the grandiose and dark pop world of the Cure, then this is a nice launching off point for their stellar discography.

 

Download: “Let’s Go to Bed,” “Cut Here,” “Just Say Yes”

Fresh fruit.

What is your favorite food? favorite dessert? favorite fruit? or vegetable? I love to eat and I love everything... lolllll :o)