Every Cure Album, Ranked
The Cure spent 45 years swinging between funeral music and pop hits, so rank the swing itself. Studio albums only, in full, with nothing left out for being bad. Boys Don't Cry is the 1980 reissue of the debut, singles swapped in, so the debut counts and it does not. Japanese Whispers collects three singles and their B-sides, so it is a compilation. Mixed Up is remixes, and the live records and hits collections go with it. A ranking written before a record existed could not have placed it, and does not count against it. A record reached the first tier on a top 5 from 3 of the rankings that could place it. Four did, and the rest of the catalogue makes up the second tier. Order within a tier follows commitment to one side of the swing rather than the count. The five surveyed are Far Out, NME, MOJO, PopMatters and Uproxx. The link goes to the oldest edition Spotify carries of that record, chosen by edition and never by the date the page prints.
The Cure — Pornography (1982) is #1 on “Every Cure Album, Ranked”.
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The Cure — Pornography (1982)
A band at the end of its rope, recording in a studio it barely left and aiming at something it could not repeat. A Strange Day gets closest to a melody and still arrives buried under a mix that leaves no air anywhere. Top 5 on every ranking surveyed except Uproxx, which placed it ninth.
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The Cure — The Head on the Door (1985)
Ten songs, thirty eight minutes, and the moment the gloom and the singles stop being two different careers. Push holds its instrumental for the first two minutes before Robert Smith opens his mouth, which is a patient move for a pop record. It lands a top 5 on all five rankings surveyed, and the longest song on it stops at 4:57.
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The Cure — Disintegration (1989)
Grief built at a size the band had never attempted, six years after they learned how to write hits and decided to spend the credit. Plainsong opens on wind chimes and a chord that takes half a minute to settle, and nothing hurries after it. Five rankings surveyed, five top 5 placements, and its sheer size doubles as the argument against it.
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The Cure — Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)
Eighteen tracks on the double LP, and no editing, which is the point and the flaw at once. The Kiss runs 6:17 and holds its angry guitar figure until about the four minute mark before a word arrives. The linked 1987 CD drops Hey You!!! for running time; the full eighteen waited for the 2006 reissue. Top 5 on four of the rankings surveyed, with MOJO the exception at eighth.
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The Cure — Seventeen Seconds (1980)
Recorded fast and cheap, and the first Cure album with weather of its own: thin guitar, high bass, drums played like someone is asleep upstairs. A Forest runs just under six minutes and was their first UK top 40 single. Two of the five rankings surveyed go top 5 on it, which undersells how much of the band starts on this record.
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The Cure — Faith (1981)
Grey from the first bar to the last, with the bass carrying the melodies and the guitar pushed right to the back of the room. All Cats Are Grey sits at the centre, a keyboard hymn with no chorus and no exit. Faith reaches a top 5 on MOJO and Uproxx and on none of the other three surveyed, and plenty of listeners never get past it.
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The Cure — Songs of a Lost World (2024)
Sixteen years of silence, then eight tracks about dying that take their time reaching the vocal. Endsong runs 10:23 and leaves Robert Smith saying he is left alone with nothing. It takes a top 5 on 2 of the 4 rankings that existed when it arrived; the fifth was written in 2020 and could not have placed it.
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The Cure — Wish (1992)
Their highest-charting album, and the one where both modes sit side by side without blending into anything. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea runs just under eight minutes, three tracks away from a novelty hit about Friday. One ranking surveyed out of five gives it a top 5, which the singles explain well enough.
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The Cure — Three Imaginary Boys (1979)
A debut the band did not get to choose: the label picked the running order and the sleeve without asking them. Fire in Cairo spells out its own chorus and gets away with it, and the whole thing is done in thirty five minutes of wiry, funny post-punk. All 5 rankings surveyed leave it out of a top 5, though Far Out puts it sixth.
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The Cure — Bloodflowers (2000)
Pitched by Robert Smith as the last of a trilogy with Pornography and Disintegration, which is a lot to ask of it. Out of This World runs 6:44 and earns the comparison for every second. Every surveyed ranking keeps it out of its own top 5, and the trilogy claim is the loudest thing about the record.
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The Cure — The Top (1984)
Close to a Robert Smith solo album with the group's name on the sleeve, made while he was also playing guitar in another band and sleeping very little. The Caterpillar is all violin, piano and daft cheer, and it sounds like nothing else on the record. PopMatters and Uproxx are its high-water marks at eighth, and it takes no top 5 from any of the five.
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The Cure — The Cure (2004)
Ross Robinson producing, which meant tracking live in a room and pushing for volume rather than for detail. The End of the World is 3:44 of good pop stranded among tracks that mistake loudness for weight. The linked edition is the international one, still a track short of the full album. Not a single top 5 comes out of the five rankings surveyed, and volume rather than writing is the reason.
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The Cure — 4:13 Dream (2008)
Trimmed from a double album down to a single one, and the slower songs and instrumentals were what got left behind. Underneath the Stars is a lovely opener that promises a record which never turns up behind it. Its highest placement anywhere is MOJO's eleventh, so no top 5 on any ranking surveyed.
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The Cure — Wild Mood Swings (1996)
The swing done badly: mariachi horns on one track, a jazz pastiche on another, and a lineup that had just lost two members. Want opens with five minutes of real dread and sets up an album that then goes everywhere else instead. Tenth on Far Out and on PopMatters is as high as it gets, and no ranking surveyed goes top 5 with it.
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