I’m not sure if there’s a band that I can claim as my favorite of all time, because the reality is I have a different favorite every day. This process of choosing one favorite over all others seems futile. But, for me, The Cure, is about as close as it gets. For me, their music is irreplaceable. There are things that I feel when I put on a Cure record that I can’t experience with anything else. For the month of June, I hope to share some of this as a I cover a different Cure song each day – counting down from #30 to #1. And, in this case, I have no qualms stating my #1. #30DaysofTheCure
U.S. original release: The Head On The Door (1985) - Track 8
Ranking: 20
In my opinion, this is where the golden age of The Cure began. A string of early albums (Seventeen Seconds, Faith, Pornography) had exceptional moments. But The Head on the Door is where it all came together. The sound was full, now featuring a quintet: Robert Smith who wrote all the songs, Lol Tolhurst on keys, Porl Thompson as a multi-instrumentalist, Simon Gallup laying down the bass lines and Boris Williams on drums. The album is tight from start to finish – and one of the standouts appears midway through Side B: “A Night Like This”.
Probably one of my all-time favorite Cure jams, “A Night Like This” is a prime example of the band’s expertise in musical layering, where each instrumentalist finds his own unique territory and no one is stepping into another’s territory. Yet, the power of The Cure is that the songs are so incredibly cohesive. In this Head On the Door classic, Tolhurst’s iconic chords on the keys fade in first and luring us in. Smith and Porl spin these gorgeous, intricate webs on their guitars. Their riffs form the bedrock of the song, not the rhythm section, which becomes the most prominent aspect of the track. Gallup’s bass lines are perhaps the most memorable aspect of the song, and Williams goes toe to toe with Gallup’s heavy imprint on his drum set. On the studio version, session contributor Ron Howe blasts out a sax solo for the ages. One of the most epic concerts I’ve ever been to was The Cure at MSG in 2016 – “A Night Like This” sounded as sharp and relevant as it was 30 years prior.
“You never looked as lost as this. Sometimes it doesn't even look like you.”