the head on the door Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Cure “The Head on the Door”

sfilzen — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 20:14:17 +0000

The Cure “The Head on the Door” released 35 years ago today, August 26th, 1985. I got this copy pretty soon after its release in the fall of ‘85 and played the sh*t out of it that year – it still remains one of my favorites. It marks an evolution in The Cure’s pivot toward more of a pop sound but still retains a lot of the post-punk goth darkness and exotica from their earlier album releases. The Head on the Door went to #7 in the UK and cracked respectably into the US market, going to #59. I love every moment of the record but my favorite songs include the highly danceable lead single “In Between Days” (#15 UK, #99 US), the exotic duo “Kyoto Song” and “The Blood,” the sweetly lilting “Six Different Ways,” the new wave dance floor tracks “Push” and “The Baby Screams,” the moodily beautiful “A Night Like This” (“Your trust the most gorgeously stupid thing I ever cut in the world”) and the bass heavy industrial-ish “Screw.” OK I pretty much just listed every track on the record. My least favorite track (I do like it, just not as much) is their second and final single, the feverishly claustrophobic hand-clappy “Close To Me” which went to #24 in the UK. Its remix went to #97 in ‘91.

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The Cure “Death in the Pool”

sfilzen — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 20:14:50 +0000

The Cure “Death in the Pool” 2017. Unofficial release, Creepy Caterpillar Records, clear vinyl. Death in the Pool is a collection of demos from The Head on the Door era, including four early instrumental versions that Robert Smith recorded at his home in December ‘84 (“In Between Days,” “Inwood,” “Push” and “Innsbruck”). The Cure recorded the remainder of the tracks at Fitz/F2 Studios in London in February ‘85. Those include demo’s of b-sides like “Stop Dead” (the flip side to the US 7″ of “In Between Days”) and “A Few Hours After This” (the b-side to the UK 12″ of “In Between Days”) as well as different takes of familiar The Head on the Door tracks like “Screw,” “Kyoto Song” (the lyrics from which this bootleg gets its title), “Six Different Ways,” “A Night Like This” and “Close To Me.” The Head on the Door is one of my favorite Cure LP’s – it was the first one I bought with my own money, purchasing it pretty soon after its release and I listened to it on repeat through most of my 9th grade year at school. The different versions are…interesting. Takes a little – a lot – getting used to, like when your best friend shaves off all their hair – not necessarily bad, just really really different, a bit startling. The sound is not very rich (of course these songs didn’t go through professional production) and the synths are rather plink-plunky. There are two songs on the bootleg that are “new” (the entirety of Death in the Pool is available on the 2006 deluxe edition reissue of The Head on the Door): “Mansolidgone,” a jazzy little number with sax riffs, little bursts of lyrics that are also in “Six Different Ways,” and “Lime Time” which is super-sunny and poppy which has lyrics that also appear in “In Between Days” and “Six Different Ways.”

The album came with a big poster, so that was a nice touch.

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The Cure “The Head on the Door”

sfilzen — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:37:35 +0000

The Cure “The Head on the Door” released on this day 30 years ago: August 26, 1985. The album reached #7 on the UK charts and #59 in the US, spurred by two hit singles: “Close To Me” and “In Between Days” with their “shiny, sleek production and laser-sharp melodies” that veered away from the darkness of previous albums and into a poppier direction. However, songs tracks like “Kyoto Song,” “The Baby Screams” and “The Blood” (three of my favorite on this album) are tinged with dark minor chords and sadness (well, also flamenco guitars and castanets on “The Blood”). As Tim Sendra of Allmusic writes, The Cure “figured out how to make gloom and doom danceable.”

I bought this album soon after its release, probably sometime in the fall of 1985 and listened to it incessantly. I especially remember my Maxell tape-copy playing on my headphones during the rehearsals for my junior high musical (the decidedly non-goth “Nashville Jamboree”), waiting to go onstage to sing and dance in a ridiculous cowboy hat and boots while sporting my Robert Smith-like spikey hair. The on the weekends my friends and I would head to the YMCA for the teen dances where we’d flail about, dancing our new wave hearts out The Cure.

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