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Rating: THE REVIEW
What a good laugh I still have when I watch the "Let's Go to Bed" video, with Robert Smith and his silly and amused expression: "cheerfully kiss my behind, goths, and take this stupid and childlike pop/wave!" he seems to say, and who knows how many surprised faces in front of the screen...
The following year our guy returns to the recording studio equipped with dozens of beer crates and a solid supply of acid; Bob's in good spirits, he's realized you only live once... And so the world starts to get colorful. Never was a cover more fitting to define the content of an album, indeed. Robert Smith is here, more than in previous albums, without a doubt (first heresy: walls that peel away)! He transforms into the Syd Barrett of the 80s, elusive and amused, with his subtle irony, his somewhat childish manner, therefore genuinely visionary. Smith is one who messes with musical genres, kicks them around, tramples them, uses them like a soccer ball, with a smile. He subjugates genres; he never conforms to them. It's like this that in his (to me) finest moments, he becomes indefinable, out of space and time, suspended and radiant, brilliantly bright. The overwhelming sensation from this album is of brightness. So let go of the Hundred Years and the need to find a Cure; "I'll keep the illness to myself", Bob must've thought, "after all, maybe, they were just delusions..."
So then Bob, tell us, tell us about the "Birdmad Girl" with all her oriental charm, tell us about the Caterpillar and the Piggy in the Mirror. Delicate little pop frescoes of dreams and visions. Above all, the Piggy, "Piggy In The Mirror", guys, it's the "best Cure song" ever (another heresy! Walls that start to shake); the perfect pop song, completely out of its mind, only formally regular, very melodic. With that bass played in chords that weaves the verse, that arabesque solo halfway through, that voice so theatrical but never cloying... Wonder, pure wonder. Tell us more, Bob, the acid and clashing guitars of "Shake Dog Shake", or those even more violent ones in the scream of "Give Me It"... and if the goths still want "dark", then let them listen to that sepulchral and visionary nightmare, pure psychedelia, of The Top. Much more than that bore of Siamese Twins (another heresy! walls that tremble!) from that block of Pornography (and that's big!).
The top was obviously a underrated album, "Because it's not very homogeneous" many said. "What does Robert Smith care about homogeneity?" Can I humbly respond? This album is pure divergence, it is being out of the box, it is fleeing the cliché, in two words: it is art. In its purest state. It is not dark, it is not '80s, if anything more '60s, it is not rock and it is not pop, at least not as they are canonically understood, maybe it is all of this together; and maybe it is something that lives standalone, as only masterpieces can live. Ladies and gentlemen, THE BEST CURE ALBUM, and may the walls collapse too.Loading comments slowly
Summary by Bot
This passionate review celebrates The Cure’s album The Top as a daring, colorful, and visionary work. Robert Smith’s playful attitude and genre-bending creativity shine throughout. The album defies conventions, blending psychedelic, pop, and rock elements into a unique masterpiece. Highlighted tracks like 'Piggy In The Mirror' receive special praise. Despite being underrated and criticized for lacking homogeneity, the review argues it is arguably the best Cure album.Tracklist Lyrics Videos
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley and led by singer-songwriter Robert Smith. Since the late 1970s they have moved between post-punk, gothic atmospheres and pop-oriented experiments, producing widely admired albums such as Disintegration and Pornography.89 Reviews
Other reviews
By how the end always is
"The Top remains one of the most absurd yet also artistically great moments in Cure’s history!"
"The Top is the place where nobody goes... YOU JUST IMAGINE IT ALL...! This is ART!!!"
By Algeone
The Top... sounds somewhat like the synthesis of past and forthcoming projects.
There isn’t a single track that does not reveal a complex journey, a poetic metaphor, an almost esoteric symbolism in the intentions of Robert Smith and therefore his peers.
