Cure Head On The Door: Deluxe Edition CD

Additional Tracks; Deluxe Edition

The Cure: Robert Smith (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Porl Thompson (guitar, keyboards); Laurence Tolhurst (keyboards); Simon Gallup (bass); Boris Williams (drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Ron Howe (saxophone).
Producers: Robert Smith, Dave Allen, Howard Gray.
The Cure: Robert Smith (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Simon Gallup (bass guitar); Laurence Tolhurst, Porl Thompson, Boris Williams.
Personnel: Robert "Big Bert" Smith (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Porl Thompson (guitar, keyboards); Laurence Tolhurst (keyboards); Boris Williams (drums, percussion).
Photographers: Ebet Roberts; Nick Knight; Richard Bellia; Andy Vella.
After recording one of their darkest albums, 1983's The Top, the Cure regrouped and shuffled their lineup in 1984 and ended up changing 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. ~ Tim Sendra
With THE HEAD ON THE DOOR Robert Smith and the boys achieve a distinctively Cure-like pop sensibility. These 10 songs combine the dreary dreamscape that is Smith's mind with melodies that are about as catchy as Goth music gets (just try not clapping your hands to "Close to Me"). Included on the album are "In Between Days" and "A Night Like This," each a successful single, and each a staple of the Cure's live show.
Also noteworthy are the haunting lyrics of "The Blood" and "Kyoto Song," which Smith sings in his trademark high-pitched howl. Despite the gloom, this album represents perhaps the Cure's first real pop effort. It also represents a transition from the sparse instrumentation that characterizes the early Cure sound, to the fuller, more complex incarnation typical of the almost psychedelic soundscapes of later albums.
After recording one of their darkest albums, 1983's The Top, the Cure regrouped and shuffled their lineup in 1984 and ended up changing 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 "SinkinSpin (p.107) - 4 star out of 5 -- "[A] 1985 poptopian tour de force."
Uncut (p.91) - "[M]agnificently realised..."