The Most Underrated Cure Album Ever

Started by Bloodflower, December 09, 2006, 04:34:28

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Bloodflower

The Top.

I love this album. I think it's better than The Head on the Door, better than Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

What do you consider to be the Cure's most underrated album?
Another Curefan for The Dark Christmas album.

crowbi_wan

Bloodflowers. I didn't give it much of a chance when it came out.  WMS had soured me on The Cure for a while and Bloodflowers just wasn't what I wanted to hear to get back into them.  I've listened to this album quite a bit the last few years and think it's brilliant.  It's not the bands best work, but an outstanding album that didn't get a lot of notice due to lack of hit singles.  One thing that fascinates me about Bloodflowers is the way Robert wrote the songs, imposing some restrictions.  He limited the bpm to between 80 and 120, only worked in a few keys (so he could swap parts between songs to see what worked best), and limited the amount of times he could repeat a phrase to two.  Funny that this is why I like this album now, because when I first listened to it I thought it all sounded the same.  Go figure...       

Bloodflower

Bloodflowers is excellent (I devoted my username to it, after all). I tried ordering the Cure albums from best to worst, and I think Bloodflowers came in third, which is incredible, considering it beat out the likes of Wish and Faith.

Bloodflowers is a very relaxed album in some parts (Out of This World, There is No If), and very frantic at other (Watching Me Fall, 39, Bloodflowers), and mournful throughout. It is an album that I can't bring myself to make into a compilation in the way that I have with Wish, WMS, KMKMKM, and the Head on the Door. Bloodflowers feels very much like a single unit, and I'm not sure if I've ever sat down to listen to Out of this World without listening to the whole album.

And the songs! Oh, the songs.

Out of This World continues The Cure's tradition of incredible openers, and it is one of my favourite Cure songs.

Maybe Someday is a great rock song, and I love the flighty keyboards in the background. Not my favourite Cure song, but definitely in my top fifty (which is quite saying something).

The Last Day of Summer is one of the best songs the Cure has written in years. Very mournful, a great acoustic song. A top twenty song.

39 took me awhile to get into, but I love it now. The lyrics are wonderful and I love the bass.

And finally, Bloodflowers. The drums in the beginning are excellent. The build-up is excellent as well, and while I slightly prefer the more serene verses, I can find no fault with his song. A top ten.

Oh, and if you're wondering, I think this was what I ordered the albums as.

1. Pornography/Disintegration (I will never be able...
2. Disintegration/Pornography (...to decide which is better.)
3. Bloodflowers
4. Faith
5. Seventeen Seconds
6. Wish
7. The Top
8. The Head on the Door
9. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
10. Wild Mood Swings
11. The Cure
12. Three Imaginary Boys

And I wouldn't rank any of these albums, except for TIB, below 9.
Another Curefan for The Dark Christmas album.

bluewater


The cure. I think bloodflowers is overrated...  :oops: I know i´m not a traditional
curefan cause i rarely listen to bf and i listen to their silly cure album more nowadays.
I like it "when they lose it" and make fun and sound paranoid and silly. I think
pornography is their best record and 17 seconds the second best. Faith is a bit... underproduced like bf to me... But i understand the traditional fans who like bf... of course, since i know many of those fans.

-bw
Life's too short to listen to lossy music

japanesebaby

Quote from: bluewater on December 09, 2006, 15:08:36

The cure. I think bloodflowers is overrated...  :oops:

as much as i do love and cherish bloodflowers i think this is true: i honestly cannot consider it being discussed as an  underrated album - i think none of the 'trilogy' albums can really be considered underrated anymore - i don't mean they are everyone's favorites (although for many they are - which might say something...) but after all they are THE 'trilogy' albums!
so even if people donn't always personally enjoy them, many still repsect them and see their value.... mostly. 

anyway, if the question here was "which albumyou used to think maybe not so highly at first but then later recognized and learned to respect" - then i think bloodflowers could be a winner. i had a bit similar experiences with it that crobi mentioned, which was that at first it didn't really strike me although i had a definite feeling this one really needed to be listened a lot, that it was a really good album. but it took a little time to grow with it.
anyway, in the end bloodflowers didn't end up being an underrated album - quite the contrary.

i tend  understand that with the question of "which one is the most underrated" we might need to start with albums which actually are widely known to be "well, maybe not so their best... uhhh" kind of cases - albums that are most often mentioned and discussed because of their "flaws" and not because they were quite widely recognized as masterpieces.
so, for me that means the question might swirls around TIB, the top, WMS, the cure.
which one of them would be "the best", which one deserved least reprimands.
i'd be bound to say it's either the top or the cure... 
i'm not 100% sure but maybe the cure. with a different production it maybe would have been....

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

Bloodflower

I consider Bloodflowers to be underrated because of the negative backlash there has been to the album since it came out. Sure, at first it was hailed as the return, but now?

http://www.musicfanclubs.org/cure/songs.html

Out Of This World: 8.98
Watching Me Fall: 9.18
Where the Birds Always Sing: 8.95
Maybe Someday: 9.37
The Last Day of Summer: 9.43
There is No If: 9.26
The Loudest Sound: 9.12
39: 8.68
Bloodflowers: 8.76

Album as a whole: 8.79 (not an average)

---

That gives it underrated status for me. There isn't a single one of those rankings that I think shouldn't be higher. Bloodflowers is one of my favourite Cure songs of all time, and here it is ranked as "meh".

Heresy, methinks.
Another Curefan for The Dark Christmas album.

charlotte sometimes

the top! we know: drugs, drugs, drugs, but it is very good album! i love songs like shake dog shake, GIVE ME IT, bird mad girl! and dressing up - i love it!

gioez

I think that The Top and WMS are the most underrated albums of the Cure.
WMS, because, on my opinion, some WMS b-sides are great and they obscure the LP. But really I consider WMS not so bad like most of people say.
About The Top, I agree with other fans.

Finally I think that The Cure is the most overrated album: in Italy is the all time more selled LP of The Cure!!!! :smth017
[move][b][glow=red,6,28]100 Years[/glow][/b][/move]

snakepit

The Top, with great songs like "Birdmad Girl", "Dressing Up", "Piggy in the Mirror" and "The Top", and Kiss Me, with great songs like "How beautiful you are", "Torture"(in live ) "like Cockatoos" (in live) and Fight (in live too !).
I think these two albums are better in live, because the production, on the official album, isn't as good as albums like Pornography or Disintegration.  :)

drowning

the most underrated cure album ever ( i know for most its no cure album ) is "japanese whisper"

i LOVE the dream, the upstair rooms, just one kiss.

i hear this album reglar sometimes a month, and i love it everytime !!!!

the song the dream made my easter party in 1989 !!!!
song this is a song which reminds me on my teenage years a lot, and one special girl

wickedchild

I agree that Bloodflowers is completely overrated even if I can understand why fans like it
It contains some great songs (Out Of This World is amazing) but I never go over 39 and Watching Me Fall (Labyrinth being a much better version of the same song by the way  8))
Also, I don't consider Bloodflowers as part of the Trilogy cos, call me Old School, I still think the Trilogy is Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography

Talking about underrated records, Wild Mood Swings could have been a great record if Robert had chosen a different song sequence and replace some of the tracks by some of the B-sides  :smth011

snakepit

I think Bloodflowers is one of the worst Cure album, with any inspiration, not even one good song. Even songs like "Out of this world" or "Last day of summer" are very anoying and superficials... But i respect the opinion of others fans !  :roll:

clubsmith82

Wild Mood Swings is their most underrated album, but i do think that if it hadn't have been released during that stupid, pointless Britpop era it would have been recieved a lot better by the critics. There's nothing wrong with WMS, its a great pop record, the 13th is a classic, eccentric Cure song, something i love them for. Mint Car is a bit daft ok, but Strange Attraction is one of Robert's best love songs.

I think 2004's The Cure is OverRated, its rubbish. To me they made that album more for critics and the like rather than themselves. If the next album is anything like the 2004 disappointment, they will lose me completely. A 46 year old man shouting I Cant Find Myself was just so pretentious..., Before 3 was too heavy and too repetitive, Taking Off is a total rehash of Just Like Heaven  and nowhere near as good. Likewise the Promise is a total reworking of the Kiss, again, nowhere near it.

Bloodflowers is great.

Bloodflower

I admit that I tend to skip over a few tracks on The Cure album, but I don't think it's that bad. I really like The Promise, rehash of The Kiss or not (and I don't feel it is); I really like The End of the World, just because I think it's a good little pop song; I really like alt.end as well, for the same reasons; I think Lost is great too -- it's not my favourite Cure opener (not even close...) but I think it's a good song nonetheless; and I think the b-sides (Your God is Fear, Why Can't I Be Me?, etc.) are all great.

I do admit, however, that I hope their next record is much less like The Cure than I think it's going to be.
Another Curefan for The Dark Christmas album.

strange_day

Bloodflowers, of course..........and since we like a bit of controversy id say its the best Cure album next to Disintegration  ;)