WILD MOOD SWINGS (aka the worst Cure album by a country mile)

Do Not

lol

I gotta rep for "The 13th", "Trap", "Treasure" and "Bare" too. "Jupiter Crash", "Gone!" and "Round & Round & Round" are also decent enough but not strong enough to make up for the rest of this fucking thing.

I'm kind of a sucker for Jupiter Crash, especially the lyrics.

I listened to Bare the other day. It was actually quite good, in a VERY understated, low-key, not-anywhere-near-as-sublime-as-early-Cure-low-key-closers-but-still-affecting way. I only listened to it because it surely had to justify its length somehow. Have rarely if ever gotten as far as Trap or Treasure. May rectify this.

"This Is a Lie" sounds good in my memory at least.

I like the 3-against-2 polyrhythms in it but they don't really do anything with it; it just kind of sits there not bothering to become really awesome.

Half the songs on this album do this really irritating thing where they build up to a point where they're about to become really awesome... and then stop. One of the reasons I like "Trap" so much is because it doesn't sound abbreviated.

("This Is A Lie" would have been better with a different vocal arrangement IMO.)

At the end of the day, this album is sunk by the 1-2 punch at the start. After that it can wibble all it likes but it's already broken every heart in the room.

The "Trap"/"Treasure"/"Bare" ending would have been a very good EP.

And, WTF with all of the great b-sides???? "Adonais", "Ocean", "It Used To Be Me", "Home", "A Pink Dream", "Waiting"... all better than practically every song on this album!

(also I would have been much more impressed had they put the Ultra Living remix of "Gone!" on the album than the original)

This is a great album. Voted "Mint Car", of course, but "This Is a Lie", "Strange Attraction" and "Gone!" are also fantastic songs. One of the best Cure albums ever, and by far their most underrated!

This is the one album where the ppl who are all "The Cure ceased to exist after 1989" are actually correct.

pooollll blooooodflooooweerrrrssss

I'd do a "worst song on Bloodflowers" poll just so I could campaign for "Where The Birds Always Sing".

I think I've only ever listened to this album once, and it was when it came out (so... 14 years ago?). I don't feel comfortable participating in this poll, but I remember it sucking pretty uniformly.

:D and I'd vote for that pesky opening track just because. Out of SPITE. xp

I remember having a bad hunch about this album so I don't think I actually listened to it until...like 1999 or so. Probably for the best.

I love how Club America sounds like it might be another accomplished guitar-heavy rave-up for about 45 seconds, then a not-terrible song for 2 and a half minutes, and then there's that middle-eight to crush all hope...the tone's all wrong. Mood swings don't SUIT The Cure. They can do single moods fantastically, but only if they commit to them. Club America is a tonal mess and the rest of the album follows suit.

Debating btw "13th" and "Trap"

The only good reason to own this album is The 13th, the last hurrah of Robert Smith as exquisite weird pop purveyor.
I sort of like even Want, but the rest of the lp basically is a wreck.

PRobably gonna get pelted for this, but I love Mint Car and it will be first dance at my wedding.

Want is good too, but I haven't heard the rest of the album.

I love Mint Car and it will be first dance at my wedding.

Grounds for divorce. (Then again I'm not marrying you so never mind.)

Used to own this, and I can recall the first six songs (to varying degrees of enjoyment) and NONE of the last eight.

I reviewed this for my college paper! (don't remember what I gave it; not a good review)

Don't really get the "Mint Car" hate. it's a shameless rewrite of the last album's "hooray for love!" stuff, but there are worse things they could rewrite. stuck between "want" and "the 13th" though honestly all of them seem so inessential. If "the 13th" wins its for inspiring the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N9piZjt_k8

wish they did more with sophie muller

"The sun is up, I'm so happy I could scream"

I could never get enough of that kind of songs. "Mint Car" is one of the best ever Cure songs, only beaten by "Let's Go To Bed" and "Friday I'm In Love". I LOVE HAPPY TWEE SONGS!

And "Wild Mood Swings" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "The Cure"

Btw. this should have been called "This is a Poll" :)

No it shouldn't have.

'want' by a very significant margin. though to be honest, i think i haven't heard a number of these songs more than once.

I love this record. It's general mood is not what you expect from the Cure, but that's part of why I like it so much. Just got the 2xLP not too long ago for cheap. Not sure why there is any distaste for this record.

Because it's terrible?

only clicked on this thread for reliable Geir lols

(xp)

I mean, if you want a list of the problems by song:

"Want" is good but gets chopped off right when the song becomes interesting.
"Club America" is a shambling mess of bad ideas executed poorly.
"This Is A Lie" is a nice-enough instrumental arrangement ruined by some truly atrocious vocals and lyrics.
"The 13th" is an unambiguously good song, but it's kind of a problem when you have to go past the first three songs to find something that isn't truncated, completely ill-conceived or just mangled by poor editing/execution.
"Strange Attraction" is a self-indulgent piece of poisonous horseshit.
"Mint Car" is an attempt to do wide-eyed, sweet and charming that winds up sounding plodding, trite and overwrought.
"Jupiter Crash" has some nice musical ideas in it but isn't allowed to develop into anything.
"Round & Round & Round" works well as a live jam but sound completely enervating on the album.
"Gone!" does actually work but has such a bonkers vocal on it that it's almost guaranteed to turn most people off.
"Numb" is a good song that may lie a little too far on the static side to really grab people's attention; that's probably intentional given the subject matter but it would have been more effective with cleverer lyrics.
"Return" is a frightmarish attempt to do mania that basically trips all over itself and doesn't succeed in being anything but hyper-annoying.
"Trap" is a good song that actually develops within the framework of its running time and doesn't have a wholly embarrassing vocal on it.
"Treasure" is a nice, quiet song that does capture the wistful mood of the lyrics very well.
"Bare" is one of the only songs on the album that feels like it has space to breathe due to its longer running time; it's also one of the few tracks allowed to grow organically as opposed to being smashed from one part to another or cut off right when things sound like they're going to become interesting. Unfortunately, the placid, mellow timbre of the song makes it kind of boring.

Those are all terrible reasons to dislike those tracks.

I like Mint Car but I also don't. I voted for it and wish I hadn't.

(LJ, I'm betting that if you listen to the last 3 songs in isolation from the rest of the album, you will like them a hell of a lot more.)

Apologies to Robert, but it's all downhill from "Want" (an admittedly stunning opener) on this album.

I remember having a bad hunch about this album so I don't think I actually listened to it until...like 1999 or so. Probably for the best.

― Ned Raggett,

I avoided it until at least 2003.

I've never even heard this. I quit the Cure after Wish.

FTR this is the only post-Wish album worth avoiding, although it's better to get the Japanese edition of The Cure than the US/UK one.

true, but that's still a frustrating experience (as was the last record)

haha I am on record as someone who strenuously disagrees with that so I'm not going to get into all of that again

I'm with akm more or less, though I understand your reasons for disagreeing and also will not get into it.

I was torn because I felt compelled to vote for the WORST song on the album to fit with the general tenor of the question.

agreed that this is the worst Cure album.

i was going to try and listen before voting but that didn't happen. "Treasure"

god this was awful. this was the off-the-bus point for all the huge cure fans i knew.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

What the hell is wrong with people

^

One of the best Cure songs ever is of course the best song on this album :)

"This Is a Lie" was a bit robbed tho.

wtf. 3 votes for Strange Attraction?

I would have figured "The 13th" over "Mint Car" but I'm not surprised the singles and the opening track got the most votes from an album people probably had a hard time listening to. So the 4 votes for Jupiter Crash is what I find surprising.

Guilty of voting "Jupiter Crash". This was partly because it was one of the only songs here I could still bring a portion of to mind, and it wasn't a recoil moment so it got the vote. But it's a really half-hearted vote.

I guess that's the most merciful thing for me about this album - despite being horrifying while it's on, it's also pretty forgettable when it's over.

"Home" really is much much better than almost everything on this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1loAO9y3dA

Love "The 13th".

But I haven't listened to any Cure album that came after this abomination. From Disintegration to this, in two albums!

Boris was way more integral to their sound than Robert knew

I thought "Wrong Number" was on this one. I really love that song!

Will always love "Mint Car". Fantastic song.

WTF happened with this album. how was it so bad? the dropoff in quality from Wish is astonishing, it's like a completely different band.

I thought "Wrong Number" was on this one. I really love that song!

Appeared the following year on a singles comp. (Or was it 1998...)

WTF happened with this album. how was it so bad?

I blame the Lol lawsuit. Kinda.

really? as in they were distracted? maybe Lol was the secret genius all along.

Haha nothing quite like that, but it did seem to disrupt what had been a fairly steady creative process; in combination with Boris's departure...

It's several things:

- really poor, muddy engineering on most of the songs
- a new mushy, imprecise drummer who was not acting as the same type of mechanical foundational rock as the previous drummer, adding a lot of unsteadiness into the songs and hamstringing many of them from growing
- extra-music band issues pulling focus (aka "the Lol lawsuit") combined with the lightning rod for the band's negative energy going away, leaving that no place to go but into the music

Didn't Robert stop drinking between Wish and WMS? Probably a positive step, but also a major, fundamental change that would take time to incorporate and adapt to.

I spent some time listening to some 4:13 Dream songs today and it's startling how much crisper and more precise the drumming is from those sessions than it is on WMS, where it kind of sounds like Jason alternated between hitting everything on his kit and doing sub-Lol rock drum patterns.

So, I'm confused--'Wild Mood Swings' left no impression on me (age 16 when it was released, presumably bought it, as a huge 'Disintegration' fan, and the target age of most Cure manic-depression). But I finally bought the 'Join the Dots' compilation, and was shocked to find that the b-sides from this album I don't at all remember are great--quintessential Cure, but with some nice spaciousness/breathing room in the mixes, and great string quartet elements on most tracks. "Home," "It Used To Be Me," "Ocean," "Adonais" are very top-shelf Cure with some interesting and not terribly dated production flourishes, and "A Pink Dream" and "Waiting" are pretty good.

So now I've ordered this album to give it a listen, but looking it up here it is apparently dross. So what happened? Did they just pick all the wrong tracks, when they had at least a 'Wish'-level solid 25-minute start if they'd used these b-sides? Or have I suddenly become way too forgiving of mediocre The Cure, after tending to consider them a very hot-or-cold quality level act (though great, overall) for the last 25 years I've been listening?

(Also--is there anything else post-'Wish' that's worth hearing?)

Maybe some illustrations in order:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssq79gTlpkY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHPl35Sty10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvWQwSzcUVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCqowNeWMHA

No, the sad thing is that the B-sides are actually so much better than most of what actually went on the album itself... it's one of the biggest issues Cure fans have with the LP... it could have been so much better!

When I get the CD, I guess I'll take the best three or four tracks from there and combine it with these b-sides and pretend that's the album. . .

Yes, the b-sides for this album are so disproportionate to the album's quality.

I think, of all their albums, only Wish had better b-sides.

Yeah the b sides are better than the album. I don't know what happened with this record; if it was record company interference or just very bad judgement by the band

Ok, so I couldn't resist--already ordered the album so guilt assuaged, I downloaded the album, so I could try to understand.

On (obvious very quick) first listen, it sounds like they'd lost confidence in their dramatic, darker, more aggressive sound; and thought instead they could make an album of "Lovecats" and "Friday I'm in Loves," which perhaps the label liked, and then it all went wrong from there, ending up sounding very 1996 in all the wrong ways. . .

Just based on sounds--on the consistent, foregrounded (at least for The Cure) use of strings--I wonder if they had an entirely different album in mind at first? Almost all of the very good b-sides have this feature, and the few salvageable (though not as strong as the b-sides) album tracks have the same prevalent strings.

That's actually somewhat true. RS had originally conceived Wild Mood Swings to be a more acoustic-based album, which explains the non-album material (see also the "Strings Mix" for 'This is a Lie' which was released as a b-side).

The album's sessions also began with the thought of Simon deciding to leave the group. Subsequently, RS plays bass on a few of the session's tracks. This is all detailed in the booklet notes in Join the Dots.

A lot had happened since Wish - Porl and Boris left, the Lol court case, Gallup was thinking about leaving... The Cure had been a broken band before, but they really struggled through this record. Their stock - in the UK at least - was also the lowest it had ever been. At that point in their career they were seen as being '80s relics.

Ok, so I know it's a bit silly, but. . . I'm loving this collection of songs, as an alternate "could have been" 1996 Cure album. Sequencing, even segues were a breeze, as if these tracks were meant to go together, had they just decided to focus in a little instead of wild-mood-swinging. Threw a little cover art together, nominated one of the tracks as title track, and it came together IMO as an album I think I'd like as much as 'Wish,' at least:

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/folder.jpg?w=800

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie'
'Wild Mood Swings' Reconsidered

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

To me, it kind of sounds like the answer to the question (that probably nobody was asking, but still) "what if The Cure had been a 4AD band". Perhaps shows some belated influence of having Shelleyan Orphan open for them in '89? Anyway, it's really good, IMO.

Cool! I'll make a playlist and try it. Never gave Wild Mood Swings a chance really, but I listened to the orange b-sides album that came with Kiss Me way more than the actual album.

I hate Dredd Song but aside from that, this is the album they should have put out

I've never listened to the WMS b-sides so I'll check those out

as far as I can remember the real highlight of the last few albums was Underneath the Stars

WMS is a really interesting transitional Cure record, in some ways it reminds me of The Top (which is my personal favourite).

I really love the lighter moments like Round & Round & Round, the 13th, Strange Attraction, etc.

That sense of weightless fun is something missing for me from every subsequent album.

'Underneath the Stars', funnily enough, dates from around the time of Wish, I think. Even so, there's tracks on 4:13 Dream I like more, and Wild Mood Swings has its moments too.

B sides from the 'Wish' sessions >>>>>>>> all post 'Disintegration' output (even if they're all a bit on-the-nose!)

Yes, 'Underneath the Stars' was actually a revision of the song 'Uyea Sound' which was recorded during the Wish sessions and got released on the limited cassette only Lost Wishes.

If anybody already owns the music and would be interested in this version (with some segues and stuff), drop me a line and I'll share a link. It's really growing on me--given the consensus (here at least) seems to be that 'Wild Mood Swings' was a swing and a miss, kinda wish they'd put out something like this instead, or also.

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/folder.jpg?w=800

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie'
'Wild Mood Swings' Reconsidered

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

I also made my own version of Wild Mood Swings some years back and it's the only way I've listened to the album ever since. It goes:

01 Want
02 Waiting
03 Home
04 This is a Lie
05 Ocean
06 Jupiter Crash
07 Treasure
08 The 13th
09 Adonais
10 A Pink Dream
11 Mint Car
12 Gone!
13 Trap
14 Numb
15 It Used to be Me
16 Bare

I'm listening to Lost Wishes as I type this and it's absolutely glorious.

Ha I wonder how many people are in the same boat--made an edit, and never went back to the actual album? Hopefully Smith et al wouldn't be offended too badly. . .

I did the same thing with the self-titled 2004 album, as the b-sides from those sessions were a lot stronger than the proper album as well.

'Jupiter Crash' is one of the songs I would cut, tbh.

'Want', 'The 13th' and 'Mint Car' would all be easy inclusions!

I like 'The 13th,' just didn't fit the sound that started coalescing. I'm keeping it as a bonus track "non-album single" hehe.

Want probably fits, but I just wanted to get it down to a shorter run time, had to be harsh. Mint car is fun--another good non-album single for me ; )

Yeah, shorter run time is always good... pretty much every Cure album from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me onwards is far too long, IMO. I've always preferred the vinyl config of Disintegration, for example!

'Jupiter Crash' is one of the songs I would cut, tbh.

You are not in the majority here.

I may very well not be, but that doesn't stop me from disliking the track.

Well, I wrote about four long paragraphs and I accidentally reloaded the page and lost all that I had written.

Basically, I said The Cure and their American label misread the American audience, who they were heavily invested in at the time. They recorded an album that wasn't consistent stylistically, instead dabbling in many very different styles, which is what Smith wanted but not something that is usually well-received. It was an answer to a lot of critics who said the band had grown stale. Apparently, they always had fun playing in private as a band, but had to put on an image they felt obligated to stick to because that is what people expected of them. They finally seemed to be really enjoying themselves in front of an audience around the time Wild Mood Swings was released, though.

The album definitely suffered from an identity crisis. I remember they played Round & Round & Round on an American late-night TV show instead of the singles around that time. I think early on, management had no idea how to advertise the album.

It took me a year to buy the CD (around 1997) and the singles. I hated the album but thought "Treasure" and "Bare" were some of the best songs they had ever written. "Waiting" was good, too.

In retrospect, "Jupiter Crash" is probably one of their most inventive songs, starting with the very non-Cure drum pattern down to the lyrical content. A lot of the album was about going into uncharted territory for the band, which they successfully did. There are references to all of Smith's influences. I always thought the acoustic guitar and strings sections was his attempt at Nick Drake-style songs.

My Wild Mood Swings-era track list would be:

1. Adonais
2. Waiting
3. Numb
4. A Pink Dream
5. Jupiter Crash
6. Treasure
7. Ocean
8. Bare

^^^ that's a great tracklist

Thank you!

That tracklist or "album" should really be called something like "Ocean," because most of the songs' lyrics and sounds have some type of ebbing and flowing imagery, as if the songs are seeping in and out life, like slowly opening and closing your eyes resisting death.

It's the death of a part of oneself and a relationship, in my opinion.

:-)

The actual tour was very good indeed. (As I mentioned, I didn't actually hear the album until some years later, but I had no problem at all seeing them again live.) Loved the broken-down funhouse set. The show I caught

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/1996/irvine-meadows-irvine-ca-7bd7eac0.html

I remember Tommy Vance on VH-1 introducing the video to "Mint Car" upon its release as a single back in '96, and him branding the band as "sad" ...

I'm with Turrican and would totally cut "Jupiter Crash." I am surprised to see it in everyone's revised WMS tracklists. The only good thing I can say about it is it isn't as terrible as "Strange Attraction" - which is just offensively bad. I'd keep:

Want
This Is A Lie
The 13th
Mint Car
Return
Bare

"Mint Car" and "Return" rank among the worst songs The Cure have ever recorded. Also, people are sleeping very hard on "Trap".

'Return' hasn't aged well for me at all, but 'Mint Car' remains giddy fun and 'Trap' rules.

not a Cure fan by any stretch but the top two songs in this poll are among my favourites by them

i mean, why would you hate on Mint Car?

"Mint Car" is an attempt to do wide-eyed, sweet and charming that winds up sounding plodding, trite and overwrought.

works for me

'Want' was on a free cassette with Select magazine back in 1996 and I remember really liking it.

"Want" was a poor man's poor man's "Open" (yes, you read that correctly), and the same goes for "Mint Car" as a concept explored in "Doing the Unstuck." I believe these were discussed at the time of their release. I suppose new Cure fans or those unfamiliar with their work would be more likely to like them.

"The 13th" as a single seems to be the weirdest part of that album.

"Want" is 100% a poor man's "Open" but it's decent enough as a song in its own right even though I'd always rather listen to "Open".

It is. They're great live, too.

"Want" was a poor man's poor man's "Open" (yes, you read that correctly), and the same goes for "Mint Car" as a concept explored in "Doing the Unstuck." I believe these were discussed at the time of their release. I suppose new Cure fans or those unfamiliar with their work would be more likely to like them.

Mmmyeah, I disagree with this since I couldn't be any more familiar with their work and I like both 'Want' and 'Mint Car' plenty. I probably prefer 'Want' to 'Open', if I'm to be really honest.

Surely we can all agree that "Club America" is a terrible, terrible song?

As a song it's not particularly great, but it has some neat ideas - I like the guitar riff for example. It's one of those tracks where there's something in it, but it still needs a lot of work.

club america is bad clunky britpop, i really have no idea how it happened

I would argue that the "something" it has is a unique combination of "nonsense" and "horseshit"

No, the "nonsense" and the "bullshit" is what prevents the "something" that it has from reaching its full potential.

club america is bad clunky britpop, i really have no idea how it happened

― adam, Monday, July 17, 2017 6:10 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hmm, I don't know about britpop, but it was the mid '90s...

'Want' is a revisiting of 'Never Enough' and RS has gone on to admit as much.

I personally have a very soft spot for 'Gone!' which is one of the band's oddest singles. Obviously an attempt at rehashing the "quote en quote jazz" feeling of 'The Lovecats' but with a bit of mixing in the uplifting spirit of 'Doing the Unstuck' in place of 'The Lovecats' overt silliness.

I'd still agree that this is their worst album, though - even taking into consideration the tracks that I like on it. The Cure and 4:13 Dream have some great tracks on 'em that sadly get overlooked because they're in "past their prime" territory.

I fell in love with "Gone!" after a while; it's one of the few experiments on the album that cohered into something I enjoyed. Also, the Ultraliving remix is fantastic.

i listened to the whole damn thing today, i think the keepers are "want," "mint car," "jupiter crash," "numb," "treasure," and "bare." plus the b-sides discussed above. that's pretty respectable for a consensus worst album! still it'll likely be at least another decade+ before i listen to this record again

the video for 'mint car' was one of the only videos I ever paid to rent via some on-demand pay for video jukebox I had through cable at the time.

The "Buskers Mix" of 'Mint Car' that was on the single has long been my favorite version. Too bad it was not on Join the Dots.

I'm so glad so many are defending 'Mint Car', that song has had so much unnecessary shit thrown at it over the years...

So I actually like Wild Mood Swings. It's certainly not my favorite Cure album, but it's not the worst either (I'd give that distinction to the self-titled). It has a few really good songs on it and a number of other songs which I simply find enjoyable. (They've been getting some hate in this thread, but I enjoy "Club America" and "Strange Attraction.") My biggest criticism of the album would be that it's too long. I know it was released during the peak of the CD era, when 60+ minute run times were expected, but for me anyway, once I hit that stretch of single word titled songs on the back end of the album, it's easy to become aware of just how long I've been listening to the album. I've never bothered to come up with an alternate track listing myself, but I think it might have been for the best if they'd cut out a song or two to drop it down to the 45 minute range.

Basically, I said The Cure and their American label misread the American audience, who they were heavily invested in at the time. They recorded an album that wasn't consistent stylistically, instead dabbling in many very different styles, which is what Smith wanted but not something that is usually well-received. It was an answer to a lot of critics who said the band had grown stale. Apparently, they always had fun playing in private as a band, but had to put on an image they felt obligated to stick to because that is what people expected of them. They finally seemed to be really enjoying themselves in front of an audience around the time Wild Mood Swings was released, though.

My theory is that the reception to this album wrecked the band's self-confidence. Everyone focuses on the band's dark side, but they could also be very quirky and strange. After Wild Mood Swings, however, it seems like the Cure started to focus on sounding like what other people thought the Cure should sound like and were less interested in taking chances. It's hard to imagine them coming up with something as unexpected as "The 13th" ever again.

My theory is that the reception to this album wrecked the band's self-confidence. Everyone focuses on the band's dark side, but they could also be very quirky and strange. After Wild Mood Swings, however, it seems like the Cure started to focus on sounding like what other people thought the Cure should sound like and were less interested in taking chances. It's hard to imagine them coming up with something as unexpected as "The 13th" ever again.

(I like Club America too.)

Yeah, that makes sense when you look at the albums that came after - the band suddenly become backwards-looking.

Like, Bloodflowers was talked up as being part of a "trilogy" with Pornography and Disintegration ... Ross Robinson tried to make The Cure an intense experience like Pornography and 4:13 Dream was essentially Wish part two.

i think a lot of the songs on the s/t are extremely weird in a way they hadn't been before. ofc the record also includes "taking off"

There's one or two things that have felt like, or hinted at, new ground for them... 'Lost', for example, but they never seemed to explore these avenues further.

So, going through my CD singles for the Wild Mood Swings songs and playing some of the non-album single edits and as yet uncompiled remixes and really rather enjoying them.

As I said above, the "Buskers Mix" of 'Mint Car' is totally great. Much more sparse, very nice.

Still hate the proper version of 'Strange Attraction.' It's just. . . too hokey. However, the "Strange Mix" removes the chorus completely and really strips back the arrangement drastically to make for, I think, an actually enjoyable version of the song.

The "Critter Mix" of 'Gone!' is so weird and unlike the proper version, I can't help but like it, simply based on how out of left field it is.

The two different mixes of 'The 13th' ("Two Chord Cool Mix" and "Killer Bee Mix") just seem to be different mixdowns of the album version, so not much difference to mention. It does remind me of just how totally blindsided I was upon hearing the song for the first time. Still one of their weirdest moves, I'd reckon.

I'd argue Bloodflowers, the self titled album from 2004 or 4:13 dream are worse Cure albums than this one.

I'd argue that all three are better!

Self-titled album, yes.

The other two, absolutely not.

Particularly Bloodflowers and 4:13 Dream.

i have been listening to the Slicing Up Eyeballs Top The Cure songs on Spotify. when i have been hearing Wild Mood Swings songs at random it has been a pleasant surprise especially "Mint Car." but i have not gotten to the last half of that playlist yet.

4:13 Dream is the best from 1996 onward with Bloodflowers just behind or Turrican OTM. not a fan of the self titled album but it's probably still better than Wild Mood Swings.

I think WMS is (mostly) great, the good bits of the self-titled album are very good indeed, 4:13 Dream is interesting in parts but the whole thing feels quite flat and Bloodflowers is mostly a dreary unrewarding slog.

All the b-sides and non-album songs associated with the self-titled album are all excellent, without exception.

For reference, the songs are:

'Fake'
'Truth Goodness and Beauty'
'Why Can't I Be Me?'
'This Morning'
'Going Nowhere'
'Your God is Fear'

Asides from Hongro shitposting that this is one of the best cure albums ever I agree with most of his comments in this thread and I'm finding that worrisome.

But yeah twee cure ain't bad at all. Even if it was tongue in cheek I'd loved more songs like mint car in their discography.

Bloodflowers is mostly a dreary unrewarding slog

^THIS x ∞

the b-sides to this record are amazing!

i mean i knew that but i always wanna yell about it

"Home" is so, so, so good.

This has stayed in my rotation all month. And after spending more time with 'Connect the Dots,' probably contains most of my favorite Cure b-sides. . .

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie'
'Wild Mood Swings' Reconsidered

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

Is 'Wrong Number' a b-side to this album? I love that one. It got released in Galore a year later but I've no idea if it was part of the Wild Mood Swings sessions or recorded after.

Then they also released 'More Than This' for the X-files OST in 1998. If those two songs were in WMS + Dredd song it would make this album at least 20% better.

'Wrong Number' was after. It was its own standalone single.

I'd edit those two down a couple of minutes tho... there's no reason why those two songs need to be 5min+ long.

And yeah, 'More Than This' is one of their better 90s tunes. Shame it's pretty much forgotten by this point.

Yeah those 3 are amongst my favorite 90's Cure songs and none of them are really that well known which is a shame. I mean the video for Wrong Number is one of their best ones just because how psychedelic and crazy it is and it only has like 50,000 views on youtube! Why?

Was Wild Mood Swings anyone else's first Cure album? Talk about Doing Cure Wrong.
Sound advice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mblx_jYFZmQ

Wild Mood Swings was one of my first Cure albums in the late 90s when I bought a handful of their CDs used (the others were Wish and Staring at the Sea).

the only song on this album that's bad is "club america"

i know it's wrong to love "strange attraction" as much as i do but i don't want to be right. low key my favorite robert smith lyric too

lmao i love "jupiter crash" soooo much too

after i realized the smashing pumpkins adore was a perfect record as a kid i gravitated toward albums that were mostly hated by their fanbase, and i ended up listening to wild mood swings a lot as a result... the other cure records i had were kiss me and disintegration so it's not like i was unfamiliar with prime cure. but there's a playfulness to this album that always charms me (especially "gone!" i feel like i'm the only person who has any strong feelings about this song whatsoever, but jazzy r&b the cure is so fun to me), and whenever it pulls me in i get shattered all over again by how good the ballads are. "numb"! "treasure"! "bare"! jeez

like wish but to a much greater extent, it could've been one of the great cure mood pieces had they worked the ballads and the b-sides into one sequence. but i love it for what it is still

hard to overstate however how a song as good as "waiting" should never be a b-side

I always liked "Trap."

brad i rep hard for "gone!" it's usually a toss up between that, "more than this", and "jupiter crash" for my favorite thing of this era. here's the critter mix for "gone!" i mentioned upthread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibYvdmpSwDg

i know it's cool to discredit jason, but any live recordings you can find from the swing tour are worth your time. "disintegration" on that tour was rarely better.

am also a big fan of "proper mess" albums like this. it's not the best anything, but it's damned entertaining to me.

re jason - i remember reading somewhere that the swing tour was the last time they played without a click track - what I’ve heard definitely sounds a bit more lively

never found a way into WMS but i saw them play Jupiter Crash once and found it charming- and Want was a worthy LP opener

"Want" is quite good indeed.

Yeah "Gone!" is groovy as hell, and the album in general is underrated. "Mint Car" is transcendent tho--maybe the most euphoric pop song ever, and the fact that it's by this band makes it even better

“Mint Car” was the first Cure song I ever heard when I was like 9.

I immediatly loved the tone in the vocalist’s voice, but didn’t excite me enough to listen to more of their music until many years later when I heard “lullaby”.

Mint Car is glorious; The 13th is even better!

I thought The 13th was a completely genius comeback single when it came out and couldn't understand why the entire universe seemed underwhelmed and a bit embarrassed by it.

I think I got the vibe about this when I heard the single, with the line "Yeah, I Feel That Good" and decided that was the least good line in a song, ever. Not even "terrible", just useless.

(unless I'm thinking of some other song on some other album)

Here is the best defense of this album that I have ever read. She almost makes me want to listen to it again, this article was just released and a bit long.

https://www.popmatters.com/cure-wild-mood-swings-genre-jumping

Just finished reading thread and never gave my experience. When WMS came out I was not in the mood for new Cure. I think I bought and played it once and then filed it away. I never really gave it a chance. I know I played it when I got back into the Cure but it's not a good album. It is way too long and doesn't flow well. I do think there are some good songs on it but really hard to reach for this album when you have 12 others you can play instead.

That defense is an amusing read but it's not a good album. The B-sides on the other hand are amazing as been told on this thread.

Which is why I will be curious as to the reissue, whenever it comes along.

Kiss Me‘s best songs, like “Why Can’t I Be You” chase away dizzy pop and bounce into a snarky funk that dissolves into ethereal serenades. “One More Time” slides into jazzy ditties and “Hot Hot Hot!!!” scats toward Beatnik Rap that then bursts into the sludgy psychedelia of “Shiver and Shake”.

uh, what

I love how you can see a wall of bills advertising the “Mint Car” single in Mike Leigh’s 1997 film Calendar Girls, which then segues into a brief conversation among the two protagonists who talk about no longer following the band

I still like this, still listen on occasion. It's in my "headcanon" as the Cure's last album--not near the heights of about everything through 'Disintegration,' but to my ears, better than 'Wish' and certainly far, far better than the 'Wild Mood Swings' that was actually issued:

This has stayed in my rotation all month. And after spending more time with 'Connect the Dots,' probably contains most of my favorite Cure b-sides. . .

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie'
'Wild Mood Swings' Reconsidered

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

― Soundslike, Tuesday, August 15, 2017 12:34 AM (five years ago)

going back to this for the first time in ages and it's such a weird listen, it feels quite unrooted in time. a lot of it just continues on as a much less consistent version of wish but they're also throwing a ton of wildly divergent stylistic experiments at the wall, most of which don't come together that well despite some of them having potential. you can tell they barely existed as a band during the recording.

recording with live strings & horns was a good idea to expand their sound, i just wish they'd had better songs to go with them

"strange attraction" is almost brilliant, it just needs to be fleshed out a bit more? it's fascinating because it's so distinctly 90s, but in a way where it probably already sounded a little dated by the time it came out. still pretty good

"return" is similarly onto something but it doesn't quite pull it off, needs a bigger hook or something idk

really the big problem is that they didn't make the whole thing sound like "strange attraction" or even just commit to the stylistic experimentation enough

It’s amazing how much the four albums post Wish have been erased from the set lists in their shows - even by 2010 they’d stopped playing more than 1-2 songs from the self title.

i get why they never play anything from this except "want" occasionally - that's the one that feels the most successful as a traditional cure track

i think "underneath the stars" is probably the best track from any of those four albums

I'm not a huge Cure fan, but "Wish" and "Mint Car" would easily make my top ten

i said that already itt, oh well

"mint car" is just fine but it's not as relentlessly hooky as its predecessors

listening to some of the b-sides now and how did they leave "a pink dream" off the album??? like it's not a "2 late" level hidden gem but it's really nice and would have really improved the album

I loved the 13th and hoped it marked a return to something like Head On The Door. Not to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJnaw5p1VXA

their cover of "young americans" from this period is wild lol, where is the dance album they should have made?

i think the thing with "strange attraction" is it's just slightly too plodding, just needs to be sped up slightly

Round and Round and Round live was surprisingly great and made me do a complete 180 on the recorded version

i think "underneath the stars" is probably the best track from any of those four albums

agree, and wasn't it actually a Wish-era composition? The rest of the album is arguably worse than WMS though.

I will gladly argue that with you

Or rather against you

Any 4:13 Dream is great

Seeing them do a lot of songs from 4:13 just a couple of months before it was released really helped me love it easily. Powerful as hell night.

It’s amazing how much the four albums post Wish have been erased from the set lists in their shows

I was very interested in the Bloodflowers nod on last year's tour by regularly playing "The Last Day of Summer," it's a slightly unexpected choice perhaps but absolutely tracks with the dreamier/sadder (as opposed to angrier) vibes on the new album.

(My secret hope that we finally get a formal release of "Spilt Milk" on some kind of Bloodflowers reissue; I think it's a far sharper song about midlife self-questioning than "39.")

their cover of "young americans"

@swolejeezy2603 4 years ago
The beginning sounds like the music on a Tarzan CD-ROM from Disney Interactive

Looking back, this seems like a failed Kiss Me mark II to me. The slow songs plodded, and the pop songs just sounded like they were trying too hard. Mint Car sounded so forced. The only thing I ever go back to on it is Treasure, which is up there with their best for me, and can still (almost) make me cry, although that may be for a few personal reasons.

where is the dance album they should have made?

due to our linear perception of time, not from this period

I bet there’s an albumsworth of bobvoiced dance tracks from the years after though. The Junior Jack and B&J joints are around eight minutes each iirc

due to our linear perception of time, not from this period

"The 13th" is my favorite Cure track of all song. I can't defend it, but it's true. I think it's the horns.

three new ITB remixes done by Bob (with one ear in a tin can, morelike) in 2018 is more along the lines of "twenty-three years later" than "from this period" tbf. and good luck dancing to them.

love The 13th.

I bet there’s an albumsworth

hey this guy did the research already (just add CHVRCHES)

Ignore that link, and blame the mod who didn't delete it. Click this instead.

hey friends,

i have a copy of this pressing of this album. i don't want it, but i do want someone who will cherish it to have it. i am interested in trading something for it; doesn't have to be music/media (though my hifi cartridge is in need of replacement).

it's a pristine copy and i am the original owner. i'm not interested in selling it and i refuse to take money for it.* this is a standing offer and when it is gone, i will update again here. please use the ilx 'contact user' webmail thingy if interested. i would prefer not to deal with international postage, but will if the terms are sweet enough.

*and i think the band's song "shiver and shake" is about you if you would want to cash out. no offense, just sayin.

lol irl mint car!
https://i.imgur.com/RlrHHWy.jpeg

also that album has a new home, thank you for playing. "gone!" still rules. that is all. have a good day.

(is it really their worst album, as thread title implies?)

Yes

kids don't rank these days, they tier. and it is bottom tier.

Treasure getting 0 votes = was robbed, especially given it's *this* album

OTM

agreed that this is the worst Cure album.

i was going to try and listen before voting but that didn't happen. "Treasure"

― Bee OK, Monday, August 3, 2009 11:11 PM (sixteen years ago)

I guess I forgot to hit submit.

I tried and failed going without capitalizing sentences, just didn't work for me. I made enough other mistakes as it is.

For instance: that was supposed to be make.