Wildest Mood Swings

Started by Bloodflower9, November 02, 2006, 06:25:14

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Bloodflower9

If Wild Mood Swings had been made a double album, incorporating the B-sides as well, would you consider the album better or worse than the real version? What would you rate such an album?

Personally,

Wild Mood Swings: 6.5

Wildest Mood Swings (b-sides, et al.): 9

lostflower4

I think the B-sides would have fit nicely into a double album, and I'm sure there are even more songs we've never heard that could have been added.

It took me a long time to actually like the album itself. I became a fan shortly after Wish was released. After having 4 years to "catch up" on the back catalog, this album was a huge shock. I was literally thinking "WTF?" the day it came out. ???

I still have some issues with the production and such, but I definitely don't hate it like I used to. And I think many of us will agree that the accompanying Swing Tour was really fantastic.

So yes, I'd rate it a bit higher if the B-sides were taken into consideration, although I'd give the album alone higher than 6.5. Perhaps 8 or something, it's hard to say. Maybe 9 with B-sides...


crowbi_wan

I'd say an EP consisting of Want, Jupiter Crash, This Is a Lie, It Used To Be Me, and Numb sounds better.  The only songs from this era worth anything in my opinion.  

Bloodflower9

I've just finished listening to WMS again, and I'll admit that a 6.5 is a bit harsh. I'll bump it up to a 7.5, but I don't have it in me to give it anything much higher than that.

The WMS b-sides were the best The Cure ever did and I really think the album would have sold better and been better received if it had been a double. KMKMKM has a number of songs that are iffy at best, but is looked back on as a classic. I would definitely rate a double-album version of WMS higher than KMKMKM (though if you throw in a few of the b-sides -- I love A Chain of Flowers and To the Sky -- then I might be inclined to recant that).

crowbi_wan

I'd have to say that the Wish singles had the best b-sides.  I really don't know how The Big Hand and This Twilight Garden didn't make the cut.  Scared As You is another fine track. 

About some songs on KMKMKM being "iffy".  There are a couple that don't do it for me.  However, there's a great song on either side of the weaker tracks.  Great songs on WMS are few and far between.     

:smth078 WMS

   

Bloodflower9

Ah! Do not mistake my comments as KMKMKM-bashing. I'm very fond of the album. I merely think that songs like Hot Hot Hot!!! and Hey You! are weak. Some of my favourite Cure tracks are on KM (The Kiss, Just Like Heaven, How Beautiful You are..., et cetera), but I think there were some songs that just shouldn't have made the cut.

I completely overlooked the greatness of the Wish b-sides.... I don't know if I prefer them to the WMS b-sides, but they are definitely great songs. I haven't the foggiest idea of how This Twilight Garden didn't make the cut, but Wendy Time did. That's another album that could've/should've been a double.

splitmilk34

I have a tough time really rating Wild Mood Swings.  Sometimes I like the songs (and I was quite enamored with it the 1st time I heard it), and sometimes I think "Ugggggh!"  I think it would be better to add the B-sides and take out some of the album tracks (Gone! for instance). 

Wild Mood Swings - 6.6
WMS with BSides - 9.4
"... sleeping less every night"

Tof

Wild mood swing is not my favorite album, but yes with the B-sides this album would be better !!!
Tof

japanesebaby

this is probably a completely wrong kind of answer, but how about the old-fashioned magic of the b-sides? it's of course completely gone now, since there are no 'a-sides' or 'b-sides' anymore, whether it was an album or a single - there's only one side of the disc anymore, just one dimension.... and yes i know, i'm being pathetically old-fashioned (=i'm simply old??  :?) and i know it's maybe all awfully/annoyingly nostalgic (which isn't always pretty, really). so, sorry for that. but i just did grow up with real a-sides and real b-sides and i just still love that concept, even though it's long gone now. i've always loved vinyl records, i still do. i mean, i love them as objects, as beautiful things to hold in your hand and look at and the way you listen to them, how you have to turn it around in the middle (i don't really love the clicks and pops there....). i love the idea how having two separate sides could shape the album/record sometimes. or how the songs could be projected, when it came to having one-song-only a & b-sides on 7" singles.
i remember when i got the b-sides box set and read the opening quote from robert:

"the first thing i always did when i got a new single [...] was flip it over and play the other side. i always hoped the b-side would give me another version of the artist, something as good as the a-side but somehow different. i expected great b-sides from the artist i loved..."

i just thought that was so true, i just couldn't have agreed more. it made me so happy to read it: it was about the value of that suspense of how that non-album track is going to sound like (because wasn't that often the reason why you even went and bought the whole thing, just to find out how the 'rare' tracks' going to be like?). and like the whole concept of b-side is/was actually dependent on the act of physically flipping the record over - how the idea of "the other side of the record" was very tangible - it really was "the other side", not just "the other song". and so, it's not quite the same anymore, with cd singles...

so like i said, i know this is probably the wrong kind of answer from the start. and there are there fabulous b-sides like 'this twilight garden' and 'it used to be me' and others and maybe it's possible that some of them would have put those albums in question up a notch or two, had they been included there. maybe. but what also makes them such gems for me is the fact that they really are b-sides, these precious rare half-secret gems, a little bit away from the eyes of the public... and still,  paradoxically, every time i hear things like 'this twilight garden' i do think first: "oh no this is so perfect, how come they excluded it from 'wish'..." - but that actually enhances the magic of the song, it's even better... because it really was left out, it was left unattached. and so, when i think of it again i just cannot really seriously imagine how it ever could have been on the album after all - because it's a great b-side, that's why it is so great.

the greatest cure b-side for me was always '2 late', for me it was always like almost impossibly perfect little thing. still today, every time i hear it it's still just as full of grace as ever. and could it ever have been included on 'disintegration'? i think that  would have completely destroyed that song, if they had tried. but what a perfect song. because it's a b-side.

i just love b-sides - as b-sides.  ;)

m
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

splitmilk34

Perfectly said, japanesebaby.  I have never been fortunate enough to own a record player or records.  But I do remember when I got "Join the Dots" and I listed to all 4 discs in their entirety twice in once sitting (including the intolerable "Wrong Number (smith mix)" ... that was one of the most magical moments between the Cure's music and I.  I felt like a kid on Christmas, or that I had just discovered buried treasure.  B-sides are wonderful because they are B-sides, and hopefully we'll discover many more (ahem... Boy I Never Knew... ahem).   :D :smth020
"... sleeping less every night"

Darth Blood

mmm  WMS its a difficult album to hear... its more a song compilation than an album... maybe my option is...
less songs on the album, and more b-sides... the point is... a more carefully selection on the album tracks... and maybe less MIXES on the singles... so you get more b sides... b sides can exists by their own not presicely as an album concept... and to me all that tracks on the album makes it conceptless...


:rocker
Darth Blood

nausearockpig

I used to make up tapes of the "complete albums" when i was younger.
i would fastidiously get all the songs from each album and the accompanying b-sides and put together an album [cassette -remember those kids???] that contained the b-sides in with the singles that they were a part of.. ie part of KMKMKM would be Just Like Heaven followed by Snow In Summer followed by Sugar Girl - then back into the rest of the album... made for an interesting listen..

and at my old job [where i would listen to music constantly - which would annoy the crap out of my staff [hahaha]] i used to have all of The Cure's songs in chronolgical order - b-sides mixed in with albums, so at any time i could listen to any "Full Album". fun stuff...

Lady

I agree...the b-sides are better than the album's tracks!
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Janko

I DONT AGREE.
THE DOUBLE ALBUMS ARE NOT SOMETHING YOU DO TOO OFTEN AND DOUBLE ALBUMS ARE MADE FOR LIVE STUFF NOT FOR REGULAR ALBUMS...
I THINK CD'S MESSED THINGS UP BECAUSE BANDS HAD TO MAKE 70 MINUTES OF MUSIC INSTEAD OF 40 MINUTES

40 MINUTES OF 90% GREAT MATERIAL IS WAY WAY BETTER THAN 70 MINUTES OF 50% CREAP FILLERS...

WELL THIS DOESNT APPLY FOR THE CURE BUT I THINK THAT IF W.M.S. HAD SOMETHING LIKE 10 SONGS AND WAS 45 MINUTES LONG IT WOULD BE BETTER ITO WOULD BE LIKE HEAD ON THE DOOR...

OPENING WITH WANT AND GOING THROUGS CLUB AMERICA, STRANGE ATTRACITION, JUPITER CRASH, MINT CAR, 13TH, THIS IS A LIE, GONE!, TRAP AND CLOSING WITH TRESURE...

OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT...   
Fatter than Bob, balder than Porl, as sober as Simon, as amusing as Jason

revolt

In the CD era there are very few excuses to make a double album... I mean, 78 or 79 minutes is way enough time to include all the good/great songs you have recorded...

WMS is already too long as it is. The only way to make it better would be: less songs overall and replace some of the weakest tracks with some of the stronger B-sides... And PLEASE re-do the record cover, which is just plain ugly.