Niiiiice. My fav tracks of his are Ideal Husband, True Affection, This is Sally Hatchet, Only Son of the Ladiesman, Real Love Baby and Hollywood Forever. I kinda fell off with Pure Comedy, it was like he took the worst song and idea on Honeybear (Bored in the USA) and tripled down, becoming a further caricature. So I never even ended up listening to God's Favourite Son, even though I really enjoyed the first two albums and played them a lot. He's a riot live.
I also got to interview him once. He was on like his fifth straight interview of the day, it was after Fear Fun had come out, and I asked him about the same shit everyone was asking him about, being depressed and buying a van and taking shitloads mushrooms. And he was like "man, no offence, but I'm gonna kill myself if I have to fucking talk about this shit again". So I changed tack and we had a great convo about Aubrey Plaza and the then-new video for Hollywood Forever.
As I said in my post, God's Favorite Customer is much more in line with the first two. He took the concept of Pure Comedy and put it back through the proper lens. You should try it out.
That is a cool story about the interview. The best interviews are usually the ones that avoid whatever the regular questions are.
I still have a lot of respect for Pure Comedy, even if still finding it a tough listen. It was a brave album to release, very honest and open, and IMO the writing, if taken on its own, is fantastic.
God's Favorite Customer is indeed a rebound to normalcy and has a number of great tracks, but IMO it doesn't even come close to those first two.
The Cure has become a top 5 band for me over the last year. My favorite era reflects the years of my favorite era of U2 (1980-1993).
In no order:
Push
One of my favorite riffs of all time, great guitar tone. Infectious melody that gets stuck in my head for weeks. And the chord progression while simple is just one of those perfect chord professions. Probably my favorite overall by The Cure.
Disintegration
If Push wasn’t my favorite on a particular day, then it would be Disintegration. The long instrumentals are perfect, and the vocals are some of Robert Smith’s best. I always used to get lost in the second half of that album, but every time that song would come on, it would pull me right back in. I credit it as probably the song that inspired my deep dive into their discography last year.
The Figurehead
The lyrics man. I don’t know if I can say anything to properly justify my appreciation for these lyrics. And great musically as well. But this is only even my second favorite on Pornography because of the existence of...
Cold
The organ and the pounding drums and the synth. The lyrics. This song has grown on my incredibly over the last year or so. It’s the perfect climax to an album I consider to be their third best, a proto-shoegaze wall of sound beast of an album.
Just Like Heaven
The interplay of the synth and the guitar are what’s just like heaven on this song. My favorite of the pop songs they’ve released for sure. Just fun and light and airy and infectious. It sounds like they were having a lot of fun when this was recorded.
All Cats Are Grey
The atmosphere is incredible on this one. And I love the lyrics and delivery, and the blurry production. Just has this cold humidity to it that makes me feel like I’m in Blackreach hunting red nirnroot. Maybe because of the actual cave lyric. Not sure. Love it though.
Plainsong
This was a hard choice as there are a lot of songs that were vying for this last selection. But it’s one of the most epic openings of any album ever, and all the blurry production I mentioned on All Cats Are Grey is here in spades as well. Usually when I just idly think of The Cure, the intro to this hits my brain like a ton of bricks.
13 Honorable Mentions:
A Forest
The Funeral Party
One Hundred Years
Dressing Up
In Between Days
Sinking
Why Can’t I Be You
Lullaby
Closedown
Friday I’m In Love
A Letter To Elise
To Wish Impossible Things
Bloodflowers
Album ranking:
The Head On The Door
Disinitegration
Pornography
Faith
Wish
Bloodflowers
Seventeen Seconds
Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
The Top
The Cure
Three Imaginary Boys
4:13 Dream
Wild Mood Swings
