Post by nausearockpig on Oct 9, 2023 4:18:09 GMT 1
yeh that's pretty weird. did you have Entreat or anything or any version of the record at all before buying it? I guess with the singles you'd have most of the songs (maybe nine?) in either studio or live forms?
I shoulda bought the picture disc and the green 12" of PoY cheap when I had the chance. Didn't. I'm stupid.
If you have a lead on Brisbane 21 August 1992 - CT version, for the love of Bob, let me know. Please!
No updates to live listening, as I just finished a 999-song USB flash drive for my car's $29 BOSS 'no moving parts' stereo:
For my Cure car listening experience, I have all my "Deluxe edition CDs" lined up chronologically, except for the first two albums. They are in order of original purchase back in 1989 and 1990.
The first Cure album I purchased (besides a Just like Heaven cassette single) was Mixed Up with the silver foil CD cover. Then I purchased "Staring at the Beach" their singles collection. I ripped the latter in WAV and boosted the audio as these early CDs were very faint for some reason. (AAD I think the transfer was called.)
I have some odd bootlegs collections (ObsCUREties) and a smattering of 1998 concerts (the Bizarre Festival with a lovely version of Sinking, the 1997 Irving Plaza show, Shepherd's Bush) and a few older shows like Werchter 1981.
I round out the collection with Bloodflowers 'unified', where I tracked down the songs left off the U.S. version CD. I hate it when they do that.
Finally I finish off the collection with a smattering of Cure cover songs by artists from all over the world. For some reason, Central and South America had a lot of Cure cover albums.
Driving in my car this week, I listened to the Deluxe Edition of the Cure's debut album. I've had the single CD edition, and had played through this when I first bought it. But to really listen to it as a standalone work took until 2023.
I was struck by how the band used silence. The arrangements were spare, saying what they needed. But there was no need to fill every second of every song with a "wall of sound", or just flourishes for the sake of filling out the record.
The fact that the band played every one of these songs at double speed during their live setlists make this a unique listening experience. You can really feel the drums and bass driving the songs.
The second disc gives a feel for what it was like as the young band (teenagers really) played in some of the grimiest, scummy nightclubs across the UK and the European continent. I imagine Robert Smith dodging beer bottles thrown at him during some of these live tracks. Some songs were obviously included for the feel rather than audiotape quality.
Now as I start listening to Seventeen Seconds (their second album), the difference in production and tone is obvious. But this first album is something I would have been proud to have listened to had I been aware of the band in 1980. I think I owned the 8-track Queen soundtrack to Flash Gordon at the time. Anyway, a portent of things to come...
Wait, that's a bad example of a quiet debut song. I was late dropping my four-year old off at preschool. Another Day is one of my favorites from this debut Cure album:
Also I like I'm Cold and wish I could hear it in concert.
Been listening chronologically through the eighties Deluxe edition albums. Some things from the 80s don't get replays, like "The Glove" Deluxe edition.
I'm into "The Top" now, which was called Robert Smith's solo album. People think it's pretty good for the most part, RS said it would have been better with other people's input but he was going through a phase.
I like hearing the sound of a top spinning to a stop at the start of the title track.
Also from The Top is Sadacic (big dummy that I am, figured out it was Cicadas spelled backwards years after I bought the album):
The highlight for me on the Deluxe editions are that the "unfinished bonus tracks" sound pretty much finished. Here's Lime Time from The Head on the Door:
One of the odd things of getting older is that a Cure track that does not resonate when it first came out (Never Enough, Want) takes on other meanings as you hear it with different ears.
I feel this way about the "worst track" on The Head on the Door. No, not Six Different Ways, although that one makes me feel like I'm getting on a roller-coaster ride. No, I'm referring to Screw. Or more specifically, the Studio demo for Screw:
What a great bass number! Now it makes me want to dance.
Been listening chronologically through the eighties Deluxe edition albums. Some things from the 80s don't get replays, like "The Glove" Deluxe edition.
It’s always fun to read your review posts.
Sad to hear you don’t like Blue Sunshine deluxe. I really enjoy hearing Jeanette Landray’s & RS’ respective vocal interpretations. I think the demo versions with his vocals are some of the most beautiful recordings in his oeuvre, lol. I like the story of how Jeanette came to do the vocals because she was a dancer at the time, not a vocalist.
Blue Sunshine is not on my 2023 playlist. I used to listen to RS vocal demos, but that's all the use I got out of the project.
I was thinking of Roxy Music last month and ordered a bunch of their used CDs. I played through their 1980 album Flesh and Blood. I was not impressed, cheesy love songs was my take:
Sounds like something played in British malls and bad pubs. I guess there really is nothing like The Cure...
Continuing my review of live Cure shows I have listened to before...
We're getting in danger of reaching present day, as there are many shows in the past three years I simply have not had time to listen to at all. But 2019 shows are mostly familiar to me.
2019-06-30 Pilton - Worthy Farm (England) "Glastonbury Festival" was hard to look up. Listed under "Pilton" and not Glastonbury, as one would expect. (Not sure what a Pilton is, probably where they invented Shepherd's Pie.)
After the main setlist of From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Robert asks "give me 2 minutes to get into my pop frame of mind". This is the standard 2019-??? setlist, so not much to say here. If you like it, it was played...
I was walking a nature trail listening to Avalon by Roxy Music. One of their album tracks is a song that made me break out laughing, "To Turn You On". So opposite to The Cure, aside from "Let's go to bed" which RS said he released as a joke.
It got me to thinking that there are three approaches to sex in British pop. I have labored (laboured?) all day making the following very silly video:
I hope it's funny, but the punchline is only something a Cure fan would get.
I was walking a nature trail listening to Avalon by Roxy Music. One of their album tracks is a song that made me break out laughing, "To Turn You On". So opposite to The Cure, aside from "Let's go to bed" which RS said he released as a joke.
It got me to thinking that there are three approaches to sex in British pop. I have labored (laboured?) all day making the following very silly video:
I hope it's funny, but the punchline is only something a Cure fan would get.
Hahahahaha!!!
I don’t think #1 could do *anything* to turn me on.
Um, I have to admit the lyric from #3 has always made me think of premature…. you know what.
I bought the CD in 1997. Apparently it was burned directly from the old vinyl record! Horrible faded sound quality, no way to describe it but the songs were charming as I had never heard some of them (such as Give Me It) live.
For my car USB flash drive in 2023, I pulled out the old CD and ripped it into WAV format. I boosted the volume and normalized the audio, then re-arranged the track listing based on the CD liner notes themselves, which helpfully told you (on the vinyl version) where the songs were performed. All over England.
What a world of difference from that to hearing all of the audience recordings, or a good chunk of them, at any rate.