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Amazon.co.uk Review
This is the Cure album to start with. Robert Smith and company's best and most coherent statement, The Head on the Door is a successful, if schizophrenic, synthesis of the best of 1980s rock, boasting danceable Eurobeat anthems ("In Between Days"), world-music-flavored exotica ("Kyoto Song", the Latin- tinged "The Blood"), and more sullen statements of post-modern angst from the band that gave you such downer epics as Faith and Pornography. More than any other Cure album, Head rewards those who don't subscribe to the darker side of the group's ethos. The use of Spanish guitar and other colourful arrangement touches help to create a rich dynamic. The softer, more introspective cuts (like the claustrophobic "Close to Me", Smith's confessional classic) are also far more effective for them. --Don Harrison
From Amazon.com
This is the Cure album to start with. Robert Smith and company's best and most coherent statement, The Head on the Door is a successful, if schizophrenic, synthesis of the best of '80s rock, boasting danceable Eurobeat anthems ("In Between Days"), world-music-flavored exotica ("Kyoto Song," the Latin-tinged "The Blood"), and more sullen statements of post-modern angst from the band that gave you such downer epics as Faith and Pornography. More than any other Cure album, Head rewards those who don't subscribe to the darker side of the group's ethos. The use of Spanish guitar and other colorful arrangement touches help to create a rich dynamic. The softer, more introspective cuts (like the claustrophobic "Close to Me," Smith's confessional classic) are also far more effective for them. --Don Harrison
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
For me, this is one of the Cure's best albums. Alongside the cacophany of Pornography and melancholy of Disintegration, I think that this is the one that best highlights the various shades of light and dark that there are in the Smith cannon. Inbetween Days is the one where Robert mastered the classy pop song (he'd perfect it with Just Like Heaven 2 years later), though the fact it's followed by the beautifully instumented Kyoto Song tells you that while he might have learned a few things since Let's Go To Bed's crassy commercialism, he didn't forget how to write something as dreamily hypnotic as Just One Kiss. It's this broad pallett that encapsulates the spirit of the whole album, taking in Spanish guitars (The Blood), twisted funk grooves (Screw), complete desolation (Sinking), adrenaline-rushing positivity (Push) and perhaps the greatest example of Robert Smith's unique somehow-melancholy-yet-somehow-uplifting-at-the-same-time brand of pop (A Night Like This). Although there are many Cure albums more rewarding than this, this is the microcosm of all that made them so special in the 80s.
And to the extra disc... the Inbetween Days demo is divine, just Robert in his flat when the riff came to him and a fascinating insight into the birth of a great popsong. Inwood and Innsbruck are demos that hark to the fact that there were a lot of dark things still going on under the surface, despite the upbeat feeling to most of the album and the relative single b-sides. Indeed, for those who do not own Join The Dots (the b-side retrospective released a few years back) there are also tentative demos of lost classics like Stop Dead, A Few Hours After This, The Exploding Boy and A man Inside My Mouth. There is also a glimpse into the experimentation of the band's sound and how much further it could have been stretched with Lime Green (and the chance to hear Robert do the best Bowie impression ever with the intro!). The live tracks are a nice touch to finish off, especially the live version of Sinking. It's the sound of a band on a threshold, on top form and about to take on the world, and just maybe win...
And to the extra disc... the Inbetween Days demo is divine, just Robert in his flat when the riff came to him and a fascinating insight into the birth of a great popsong. Inwood and Innsbruck are demos that hark to the fact that there were a lot of dark things still going on under the surface, despite the upbeat feeling to most of the album and the relative single b-sides. Indeed, for those who do not own Join The Dots (the b-side retrospective released a few years back) there are also tentative demos of lost classics like Stop Dead, A Few Hours After This, The Exploding Boy and A man Inside My Mouth. There is also a glimpse into the experimentation of the band's sound and how much further it could have been stretched with Lime Green (and the chance to hear Robert do the best Bowie impression ever with the intro!). The live tracks are a nice touch to finish off, especially the live version of Sinking. It's the sound of a band on a threshold, on top form and about to take on the world, and just maybe win...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It really is an essential album for anyone thinking of listening to The Cure. The start of their peak recording material over the following 6 or 7 years. A brilliant, vibrant piece well though of by Smith and co. Love it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This was my first purchase of the cure in the mid 80's and this album was responsible for myself getting into the cure, a wonderful album which blew me away when i heard it.
Will always have a special place for me.
Will always have a special place for me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A perfectly weighted eighties album.
Every song in this album is distinct and creative. Often with eighties albums the production techniques and old synths date quickly, but I think this album still stands up 27 years... Read more
Published 1 month ago by OsianL
Start Here
Still the best entry point to appreciating The Cure in my view, The Head on the Door covers all Cure bases, from catchy pop (In Between Days, Close to Me) to doom-laden, phased... Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2009 by Supertzar
One of the best Cure albums, but that's faint praise
I don't think The Cure made good albums. They just sound too samey and are boring to listen to. I can hear merit in some of the albums, and I don't think they're technically bad,... Read more
Published on 12 May 2009 by BS on parade
pop trash
people always rate this as their favoirite cure album. it could be described as ' the cure do new romantic' but they do it better than all of their comtemporaries (Maybe not Adam... Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2008 by Mr. A. Thompson
Best. Album. Ever.
This has to be the greatest album I have ever bought, can't fault it at all. Possibly the best cure album ever made.
Published on 30 Nov 2007 by Joey,
The Best of Bob
OK, I confess: despite my admiration for Robert Smith's undoubted talent, I've not been any more than a fair weather fan of the Cure and have only bought a handful of albums over... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2007 by Martin Warminger
the best Cure album by a mile
Catchy and cheerful are not 2 words you would usually associate with the Cure, but this album gives them in spades.
Wonderful tunes, that put them right up there with the Smiths. Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2005 by Mike Bostock
pop-tastic cure!
I have to agree with the other reviewers that this is the best Cure album to start with. It's very accessible but also shows the darker side of the band on "Kyoto Song" and... Read more
Published on 3 Jan 2005 by "dimorphodon"
the cures' finest (half) hour
I went to France with my family in 1984 a Duranie and met a girl who lent me a few cure tapes she had with her and I returned desperate to know more. Read more
Published on 20 Nov 2003 by nick gummerson
Containing an almost perfect track, but listen to the rest..
If you dont buy this record for any other reason, and you have a soul, obtain it and listen to the last track entitled "Sinking". Read more
Published on 3 May 2003 by Second Skin
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