The The Cure

Without a doubt, The Cure is one of the most essentials bands from the 80s with an iconic image that is on pair with superstars of that time such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran and Boy George. Surging as part of the post punk and dark-rock movement, The Cure and especially their leader, Robert Smith, had the cunning ability to create -within their large catalog- multiple hit songs that have become absolute pop classics, without compromising its credibility. The Many Faces Of The Cure showcases the parallel paths of the band members, some of Robert Smith collaborations with other artists, the mostly unknown post-Cure projects by the band’s drummer / keyboardist Lol Tolhurst and by bassist Simon Gallup and of course, their songs, both performed by the band itself and by a large number of artists who have respectfully created fantastic new versions.

Expanding the latent arena rock sensibilities that peppered Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by slowing them down and stretching them to the breaking point, the Cure reached the peak of their popularity with the crawling, darkly seductive Disintegration. It's a hypnotic, mesmerizing record, comprised almost entirely of epics like the soaring, icy "Pictures of You." The handful of pop songs, like the concise and utterly charming "Love Song," don't alleviate the doom-laden atmosphere. The Cure's gloomy soundscapes have rarely sounded so alluring, however, and the songs - from the pulsating, ominous "Fascination Street" to the eerie, string-laced "Lullaby" - have rarely been so well-constructed and memorable. It's fitting that Disintegration was their commercial breakthrough, since, in many ways, the album is the culmination of all the musical directions the Cure were pursuing over the course of the '80s.

Recorded in the midst of Robert Smith's tenuous tenure with Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Top is arguably the most hedonistic record the Cure ever produced. Essentially Smith and Lol Tolhurst working with studio musicians (this being the period when the Cure's lineup was never assured), it's an album obviously recorded under stress, drink, and drugs. More wildly experimental musically than anything before it, it laid the foundations for the Cure's pattern of unpigeonholable albums that were to erase their reputation built by Pornography and eventually culminating in Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. That said, it's still very much a Cure record. Heavy on the percussion and quaint keyboard effects that were so big in the '80s, the melodies ("The Caterpillar," "Shake Dog Shake") are unmistakably Robert Smith…