Imaginary Albums #6: The Cure

There are largely two somewhat disparate versions of The Cure: the dark, gloomy goth band (as heard on the early 80s trilogy of Seventeen Seconds/Faith/Pornography); and the alternative radio-friendly pop band (as heard on mid-80s LPs like The Head On The Door and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me). 1989's Disintegration, arguably their best album, managed to successfully blend both sides of Robert Smith. The record has 4 pretty great singles, catchy if not exactly rousing pop songs like Head's "In Between Days"; but much of the album's extended running-length is comprised of long, atmospheric, brooding pieces. It's an impressive opus, but a little schizophrenic.

This project aims to make Disintegration sound more like a pop album in the vein of its two predecessors. Reintegration keeps the four hits, but uses the shorter single versions rather than the longer album tracks; I also retained two of the slightly less morose deep cuts, albeit both edited for length on the CDR I burned myself.

The other half of Reintegration pulls together various b-sides which are a little more poppy than the balance of Disintegration. I've played a little fast and loose here, anachronistically using not just Disintegration b-sides, but a few b-sides each from 1987's Kiss Me and 1992's Wish. But all are in the ballpark aesthetically, and sound like they could have all been recorded for the same album.

Here's a Spotify version of the end result (obviously without the edits I made to the longer album tracks which close out each "side" of the imaginary LP).