The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Maybe it was youthful exuberance or perhaps it was the fact that the band itself was not pulling all the strings, Three Imaginary Boys is not only a very strong debut, but a near oddity (it's an admittedly "catchy" record) in the Cure catalog. More poppy and representative of the times than any other album during their long career, Three Imaginary Boys is a semi-detached bit of late-'70s English pop-punk. Angular and lyrically abstract, it's strong points are in its utter simplicity. There are no dirges here, no long suites, just short bursts of energy and a rather strange cover of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady." For some, this is the last good Cure record, many fans of this album being in no way prepared for the sparse emptiness and gloom that would be the cornerstone of future releases. For the most die-hard Cure-head, however, it's an interesting sidenote, hard to place in the general flow of the band's discography. Cure leader Robert Smith has voiced many times over his mixed feelings about the record, most notably the cover art (the three "representative" appliances on the cover, the lack of a real track listing – all the songs are represented with arty type pictures – and in no real order) and the production, which at times is admittedly a little muddy, but even that lends it a certain youthful charm. What the Cure would do next wasn't entirely obvious to the listener of this album, but there are some definite hints.

Review by Chris True, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Falling somewhere between official release and compilation, Boys Don't Cry was released in February 1980 in hopes of increasing the band's exposure outside of the U.K. It captures the first phase of the band well, showcasing the angular new wave that had garnered them acclaim in England. The major difference separating this from the debut full-length (and thus qualifying it as an "official" release) is that unlike Three Imaginary Boys, the first three singles ("Killing an Arab," "Boys Don't Cry," and "Jumping Someone Else's Train") are included. A good starting point for getting up to speed on this era of the band, it works best when paired up with Three Imaginary Boys; then you'll get the complete picture.

Review by Chris True, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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It's hard to believe that the Cure could release an album even more sparse than Three Imaginary Boys, but here's the proof. The lineup change that saw funkstery bassist Michael Dempsey squeezed out in favor of the more specific playing of (eventually the longest serving member outside Robert Smith) Simon Gallup, and the addition of keyboardist Mathieu Hartley resulted in the band becoming more rigid in sound, and more disciplined in attitude. While it is not the study in loss that Faith would become, or the descent into madness of Pornography, it is a perfect precursor to those collections. In a sense, Seventeen Seconds is the beginning of a trilogy of sorts, the emptiness that leads to the questioning and eventual madness of the subsequent work. Mostly forgotten outside of the unforgettable single "A Forest," Seventeen Seconds is an even, subtle work that grows on the listener over time. Sure, the Cure did better work, but for a new lineup and a newfound sense of independence, Robert Smith already shows that he knows what he's doing. From short instrumental pieces to robotic pop, Seventeen Seconds is where the Cure shed all the outside input and became their own band.

Review by Chris True, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Certainly not the "darkest" the Cure would eventually get, Faith is, as represented by the cover art, one of the most "gray" records out there. Melancholy and despondent (the feel of funerals and old churches just oozes from this record) without the anger that would over take Pornography, Faith comes off as not just a collection of songs, but as a full piece. "The Holy Hour," "All Cats Are Grey," and the spectacular "Faith" are slow atmospheric pieces that take the softer elements from Seventeen Seconds, and – when sidled up next to faster tracks like the single "Primary" and "Doubt" – paint an overall picture of the ups and downs contained within a greater depressive period. But it's not all gloomy keyboards and minimalist percussion, Faith is also a milestone for Robert Smith lyrically, branching out into questions of faith and spirituality he never quite touched on so well ever again. A depressing record, certainly, but also one of the most underrated and beautiful albums the Cure put together. They would not touch on this sort of lush sadness so well again until 1989's Disintegration.

Review by Chris True, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Later hailed as one of the key goth rock albums of the '80s and considered by many hardcore Cure fans to be the band's best album, Pornography was largely dismissed upon its 1982 release, witheringly reviewed as a leaden slab of whining and moping. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between: Pornography is much better than most mainstream critics of the time thought, but in retrospect, it's not the masterpiece some fans have claimed it to be. The overall sound is thick and murky, but too muddy to be effectively atmospheric in the way that the more dynamic Disintegration managed a few years later. For every powerful track like the doomy opener "One Hundred Years" and the clattering, desolate single "The Hanging Garden," there's a sound-over-substance piece of filler like "The Figurehead," which sounds suitably bleak but doesn't have the musical or emotional heft this sort of music requires. Pornography is an often intriguing listen, but it's just a bit too uneven to be considered a classic.

Review by Stewart Mason, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Though it is best experienced across the later video/DVD release, the Cure's first ever live album, from U.K. concerts during the 1984 The Top tour, catches the band in exhilaratingly uncompromising mood. The band's first full album since their post-Pornography breakup, The Top found Robert Smith still striving to shake off the mantel that had once cloaked the Cure in such blackness – "Shake Dog Shake" and "Give Me It," both from the new album, emerge as highlights here, no matter how desperately you want to hear the older songs that complete the collection. Compared to all that the Cure would become, Concert is often regarded as a dour album. Audiences, too, needed to be reconditioned, and the playful symphonics that would shortly become the band's stock-in-trade simply wouldn't have worked at this point. What you get instead, then, is a rough, punk-edged sound, one that reaches absurd proportions on the closing "Killing an Arab," but which jars "Primary," "The Walk," and "A Forest" as well. It's not a wholly disruptive sensation once you become accustomed to it, but anyone whose vision of the Cure was forged from their studio output or, indeed, the various subsequent live albums should approach Concert with care. The initial U.K. cassette run, incidentally, added a full album's worth of bonus tracks in the form of the archive-scraping Curiosity. Of invaluable aid and interest to collectors, it is an even rougher portrait of the group than the main attraction, but includes definitive airings of "At Night" and "Funeral Party," plus the otherwise unavailable "Forever."

Review by Dave Thompson, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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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. The big change this time around is his ability to fuse the paranoia and neuroses of former work (Pornography) with his newfound use of pop melody and outside influences (i.e., world travels, sounds, instruments) to moderate success ("Wailing Wall," "Piggy in the Mirror"). A more psychedelic descent than Pornography, The Top is a transition, never really feeling like a full-length release, but it does meld all former phases of Rob and company, which would fully gel on The Head on the Door. At best an imperfect record, The Top is a necessary step in the evolution of the band.

Review by Chris True, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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After the fallout both psychologically and physically of Pornography, it looked unlikely that anyone would hear from the Cure ever again. Surprisingly, from 1982-1983 Robert Smith and (now keyboardist) Lol Tolhurst put out some of the catchiest singles of their career. "Let's Go to Bed," "The Walk," and "The Lovecats" were not only singles that got the Cure radio play and made them a household name, but more importantly marked the next phase in the music of the Cure, which would reach its peak with albums like Head on the Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Dropping the stripped-down darkness of Faith and Pornography, the songs on Japanese Whispers (the aforementioned singles from that era, including all the B-sides) are light, dancy, and at times jazzy. Adding new keyboard sounds, old-timey percussion, standup bass, and some damn silly lyrics rejuvenated Robert Smith and sent him on a course that would cement his role as one of the most interesting musicians to emerge from the '80s underground. Japanese Whispers is one of those rare releases when a singles collection works just as well as a standard-issue album.

Review by Chris True, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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After recording one of their darkest albums, 1984's The Top, the Cure regrouped and shuffled their lineup, which changed their musical direction rather radically. While the band always had a pop element in their sound and even recorded one of the lightest songs of the '80s, "The Lovecats," The Head on the Door is where they become a hitmaking machine. The shiny, sleek production and laser-sharp melodies of "Inbetween Days" and "Close to Me" helped them become modern rock radio staples and the inspired videos had them in heavy rotation on MTV. The rest of the record didn't suffer for hooks and inventive arrangements either, making even the gloomiest songs like "Screw" and "Kyoto Song" sound radio-ready, and the inventive arrangements (the flamenco guitars and castanets of "The Blood," the lengthy and majestic intro to "Push," the swirling vocals on "The Baby Screams") give the album a musical depth previous efforts lacked. All without sacrificing an ounce of the emotion of the past, which songs as quietly desperate as "A Night Like This" and "Sinking" illustrate. With The Head on the Door, Robert Smith figured out how to make gloom and doom danceable and popular to both alternative and mainstream rock audiences. It was a feat the band managed to pull off for many years afterward, but never as concisely or as impressively as they did here.

Review by Tim Sendra, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Staring at the Sea: The Singles collects all of the Cure's biggest U.K. hits and best-known songs from the late '70s and early '80s. Spanning from "Killing an Arab" and "Boys Don't Cry," to "The Lovecats," "In Between Days," and "Close to Me," Staring at the Sea captures some of the finest – and most influential – post-punk music. At their best, the Cure were nervy, intellectual, catchy, and foreboding, all at once. No matter how carefully crafted the Cure's individual albums were, their finest moments occurred on singles like these, when they distilled their essence into surprisingly catchy, but decidedly left-of-center, pop singles. Staring at the Sea not only selects highlights from their uneven early albums, it collects many of the group's terrific non-LP singles. It's a definitive retrospective of the Cure and is one of the finest albums of the '80s.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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Simultaneously more accessible and ambitious than any of the Cure's previous albums, the double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me finds Robert Smith expanding his pop vocabulary by tentatively adding bigger guitars, the occasional horn section, lite-funk rhythms, and string sections. It's eclectic, to be sure, but it's also a mess, bouncing from idea to idea and refusing to develop some of the most intriguing detours. Even if Kiss Me doesn't quite gel, its best moments – including the deceptively bouncy "Why Can't I Be You?" and the stately "Just Like Heaven" – are remarkable and help make the album one of the group's very best.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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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.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

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The Cure - Assemblage (1991) 12 CD Box Set

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