Gratest Hits

Import edition features one additional track, Pictures of You. As Greatest Hits--and particularly the busking pavement jazz of Lovecats--reminds us, the best Cure singles were very often tangential exercises; halcyon playtime divergences offering a Goth-free contrast to some of the weightier studiousness of some of those early albums. Or, as smudged frontman Robert Smith says of this 18-track collection, Songs that are sung with a smile. This wasn't always true--witness the refrigerated fogginess of the classic A Forest, the Blair Witch Project of it's day. What this compilation does is focus attention on the Cure's perennial unpredictability--the nursery school bonkers-ness of The Caterpillar, the breathless claustrophobia of Close to Me, the New Order-lite of The Walk, the brass-section embellished thrust of Why Can't I Be You. Oddly, chart-wise, the Cure's Lost Weekend began immediately after Friday I'm in Love, their most ebullient melodic moment and the ultimate clocking-off to kick-those-heels! anthem. But at least the inclusion of two new songs Cut Here and Just Say Yes (with Saffron from Republica) indicate that the Cure remain a healthy ongoing concern.