The Cure: Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me - 1987
What's this? A double album? Had The Cure gone all prog rock? For me, and probably many others, a double album of The Cure may seem a little off-putting. However, this offering contains easily enough variety to offset that, although it is still too damn long (I'm just not a fan of double albums). It is, though, The Cure's most carefree and enjoyable album, by far.
The Kiss is thumping and robust while Catch is plaintively melodic. If Only Tonight We Could Sleep is an Eastern-influenced slow number complete with sitar, as if George Harrison and his mates had come into the studio. Why Can't I Be You? is a Love Cats-ish jaunty, brassy number and How Beautiful Are You is full of blaring horns and saxophones. Is this really The Cure? Why, Hot Hot Hot !!! even finds them going deliciously funky.
The Snakepit is catchy and Smiths-esque in that mid-late eighties jangly guitar style. Icing Sugar sounds like early Roxy Music in places, with its saxophone sound.
Other tracks, while still containing that trademark post punk sound, are augmented by swirling strings and melodic acoustic guitars. This is definitely The Cure's Sandinista! - a cornucopia of different styles that some would say lacks cohesion but can also be accurately described as attractively eclectic.
