Complaints that Rhino "screwed up the pressing" are flat out wrong. I queried Rhino directly about this release and "Dr. Rhino" subsequently informed me that Robert Smith himself took the opportunity to make some adjustments to certain aspects of the album he was unhappy with. The opening drum roll on "Shake Dog Shake" has been edited to meet Robert's original intentions (sounds the same to me though!) and he also intentionally sped up "Bananafishbones" by a semi-tone. The following is my original review of THE TOP, followed by a review of the bonus disk. ------------>
This brilliant album is as colorful as its cover. It's a fascinating window into the darkly distorted state of mind that Robert Smith (the Cure's mastermind) was regularly experiencing at the time, thanks to high drug intake and an exhausting schedule recording with the Banshees during the day while working on THE TOP at night. Some of his best music and most tripped-out lyrics are featured here.
Smith plays most of the instruments on THE TOP while the talented but soon to be booted Andy Anderson plays the drums. Porl Thompson and Lol Tolhurst do contribute, but this is the closest thing to a solo album Smith has released, although I do have a bootleg solo album that Smith did by himself (it's mostly acoustic and sounds rather warm and sunny)[unfortunately, that tape was stolen and it's actually a band that has, incredibly, a singer that sounds exactly like Robert Smith]. With the JAPANESE WHISPERS singles, Robert Smith realized he could do any kind of music, and with the hallucinogenic TOP takes that notion to an extreme where he really lets it all hang out.
The breakdown:
"Shake Dog Shake" - a creepy, nightmare-ish vision with churning psychedelic guitar, death knell pacing and a grim smile. "Make up in the new blood/ And follow me to where the real fun is." *****
"Birdmad Girl" - beautiful song, lighthearted yet tinged with melancholy. Exudes an exuberant lust for life. Great piano, great guitars (both acoustic and electric). "She sends me everything/ She sends me everywhere" (love the way "me" switches from indirect object to direct object). *****
"Wailing Wall" - a fantastically gloomy Middle Eastern atmosphere pervades as Smith's electric guitar hovers in waves throughout the background. *****
"Give Me It" - full-throttle chaos and desperation, a truly harrowing vision. "Give me it, give me it give me it!/ Deaden my glassy mind!/ Give me it, give me it/ Make me blind!" ****
"Dressing Up" - a dreamy, soothing respite from the madness. Soothing woodwind keyboards, very intimate. ****1/2
"The Caterpillar" - A sweet, mildly plaintive song and quite unique. Highly creative with distinctive percussion (bongos, a clapper that flickers like butterfly wings) and other interesting touches. *****
"Piggy in the Mirror" - The surreal lyrics reflect a very warped state of mind and are simply brilliant. The acoustic guitar solo at the middle 8 is otherworldly and exquisite. ****1/2
"The Empty World" - Easily the weakest track on THE TOP, it features a military march on drums and a keyboard line that sounds like a Revolutionary War flute. It also explores THE TOP's central motif - altered mind states. ***
"Bananafishbones" - Possibly Smith's most wigged-out, warped and psychedelic song ever and the best song on THE TOP. Absolutely churning and thick like caramel with an uneasy, off-kilter heaviness that makes the room swim. "Turn off the lights/ And tell me 'bout the games you play." ***** [I loved the sound of the original recording, but Robert Smith must've thought it was too sludgy. This speeded-up version is snappier, but that "churning effect" is compromised and Smith's voice is considerably higher in pitch, halfway to Micky Mouse! Quite frankly I think he pretty much ruined this song by tampering with it, a form of historical revisionism that I'm totally against anyway. If you're a fan, hang on to your old copy or get one of those great sounding German imports of the original album]
"The Top" - a dark, hypnotic, "place where nobody goes/ You just imagine it all." Conveys a frightening sense of isolation. Cadences from percussion waver in tone and methodic drum rolls are divided into segments that make your mind swirl until an actual spinning top comes to a stop and falls over. ****1/2
For some reason THE TOP is often misunderstood and slagged, but mostly by people who don't get the Cure anyway. Claiming the album is "incoherent" is missing the point, and calling it "disjointed" sounds ridiculous coming from people who love KISS ME KISS ME KISS ME as that particular album could be described the same way. In both cases, I'd use the word "eclectic" rather than "disjointed." THE TOP is one of my favorite albums, by the Cure or anyone else.
Disk 2 - rarities
The unreleased songs on this disk are even weirder than the ones on THE TOP and some of the most interesting in this series of Cure album deluxe re-releases. The demos are actually pretty good, but mostly just show these songs in development and are inferior to the final versions. One exception is "The Caterpillar" featuring a very interesting take worth repeated listens, and the rough mixes of "Dressing Up" and "Wailing Wall" sound cool. The live bootlegs are pretty good/OK or fantastic, depending on how big a fan you are, but the live "Top" is really good. It burns slowly, sounding like a feverish nightmare. The rare, non-album "Forever" is also a gem well worth hearing. As usual, the whole package, including an informative essay and rare photos, is excellent.
The first 4 tracks are previously unreleased songs.
Tracks 1 & 2 - are Robert Smith home demos
"You Stayed..." - an otherworldly acoustic guitar excursion full of strange chords, Smith cooing and meowing in his highest range, his voice circling like a tortured ghost. *****+
"Ariel" - The beat would end up getting used on the harrowing B-side "New Day," but "Ariel" remains a serene gem. *****
"A Hand Inside My Mouth" - lurching, lounge-y and groovy, full of clanging guitars, icy keyboards, a distorted trumpet and another genius vocal from Smith. *****
"Sadacic" - a supremely sinister track. Robert Smith was burning his candle at both ends when these songs were recorded and his creative juices were sizzling. Like "Ariel," this song contains elements later used on "New Day." Features some deadly psychedelic guitar as only Smith can deliver it. *****+
"Shake Dog Shake" - Andy Anderson joins in on drums here as he does on most of these demos. He's the only black man I've ever known to play in the Cure and he's got a terrific feel, always giving these songs a certain "pop." This stab at "Shake" is inferior to the final master as are pretty much all of these demos but it's always interesting to hear Robert sing. His guitar sounds great. ****1/4
"Piggy In The Mirror" - Actually one of my fav Cure songs, I had a blast listening to Smith try to work out his vocal parts on it as the tape rolls. ****1/2
"Birdman Girl" - Another great song, this one sounds cool despite being a little half-hearted in places. Robert tries out some lyrics, seemingly improvised, and he plays the bass - quite well in fact. I know I'm gushing about the guy but he IS ridiculously talented and his only company during this time was a drummer and a drunk - oh, and a pile of mushrooms. ***3/4
"Give Me It" - sounds fantastic. If you like the album version, you'll like this. Some might even prefer it. ****1/2
"Throw Your Foot" - Inspired by the boys' nightly mushroom mind trips, this song is a goofy blast. Sounds great although it's nearly identical to the final master. ****
"Happy the Man" - Another unhinged masterpiece, Cure fans surely drool over this demo. Invokes a peculiar atmosphere. Different lyrics - funny how Smith threw away so many great lyrics on these demos! He seems much more lucid on this version than the bizarre performance he unleashed on the world with the released version. ****1/4
"The Caterpillar" - Worthy of repeated listens - the piano plays a much larger role on this version and it sounds absolutely fantastic. *****
tracks 12 & 13 are rough mixes
"Dressing Up" - gorgeous version. ****1/4
"Wailing Wall" - The guitar sounds like a black hole sucking in planets! Almost identical to the album, it's still worth checking out for the true fan. ****1/2
Live bootlegs:
"The Empty World" - sounds cool, makes me appreciate the original more. ****
"Bananafishbones" - a super-pumped-up blast through one of the best songs on The Top. The beat on this bootleg is faster than the version found on the original release. As mentioned earlier, the remastered album version on this release has been sped up (I know, it's cheating). Smith increased the speed by a semi-tone and the difference is quite noticeable. I prefer the slower, almost lethargic version which appears on the original LP, the way it swims and churns around like cold molasses. The title is taken from the J.D. Salinger short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" whose central character suddenly and inexplicably blows his brains out. *****
"The Top" (7:13) - mind-blowing, a must for Cure fans. *****
"Forever" - Off-and-on Cure member and multi-talented instrumentalist Port Thompson rejoins the fold on these live tracks and producer Phil Thornally fills in on bass. Originally released on the CURIOSITY cassette, this version of the rare, non-album "Forever" is quite different from the one released on the FAITH deluxe edition and features Porl playing some tortured, spasmodic saxophone. It's a stunning song that builds into a dizzying sonic frenzy. A must! *****+
The Top is indisputably the Cure's most bizarre (though in some respects most representative) album. Now we have this 2CD remastering of an album long unavailable in the US, at roughly the same price as the original import. The ten tracks are indulgent, noisy, and all over the map, yet the album maintains a Dark Carnival unity: the frenetic drums and demented saxaphone rant of Give Me It could not be more different from the gauzy synths of Dressing Up, but together they are a perfect heroin fix. Throw in Robert Smith's most flamboyant vocal gymastics and strange experiments like The Empty World (a fife-and-drums number on the nihilism of war) and you have an album (and a band) in the midst of a breakdown. But then that's what makes the Top such an interesting trip. Only the Cure could bring you a record so simulataneously over the top and under the weather.
A few notes on this release:
DISC ONE (Remastering):
The drum roll at the beginning of Shake Dog Shake is indeed slightly shorter--intentionally so, I believe. Bananafishbones is also noticably faster, correcting a mastering problem in the original release. The remastering gives more space to atmospheric tracks like The Wailing Wall, and brings out the brilliant percussion on the single, The Caterpillar.
DISC TWO:
As with the previous reissues, this mostly charts the development of the album tracks. Among the highlights are a demo of A Hand Inside My Mouth with lyrics from Six Different Ways (HOTD album track) and a demo called Sadacic, which eventually became New Day (b-side).
If you have read this far, then you are ready to buy it.
"Oh, I could be a polar bear,
but it's impossible...."
I'd have to agree with one of the other reviewers of The Top in that my review is a bit biased; which is unavoidable since this album did not elicit much more of a response than a shrug of the shoulders from me when I first heard it about 20 years ago. It's the older brother of the equally unstable 1996 release Wild Mood Swings, and listening to the deluxe remaster of The Top only reinforces this for me. Both of these albums lack focus and consistency, and while they each have some flashes of near-brilliance, they never really establish a theme and/or atmosphere for the listener to grab onto.
The Top was originally released in May, 1984 and represented yet another line-up change for The Cure (already the seventh in the first six years or so of the band's life). Because of this, it suffers from a lack of clear identity and direction.
Robert Smith has claimed in past interviews that he played almost all of the instruments on The Top, in spite of the musician credits listed on the album's sleeve. If that is true, then it makes this an even more confusing effort by a supremely talented, but obviously very unsure, artist.
The Top opens with "Shake Dog Shake", which is a decent enough song, but still a sub-par introduction by a band that has mastered the art of the powerful album opener. Yes, this remastered 2006 edition has a clipped drum intro to the song, but I believe this was an intentional edit. The drum roll sort of fades in for about three seconds before the rest of the music starts. The fact that it fades in would appear to be an intentional revision and not an oversight, in my opinion.
The next two songs, "Birdmad Girl" and "Wailing Wall" are two of the stronger tracks on the album and are as close as The Top gets to representing that unique and magnificent Cure sound that we all know and love. Along with "The Caterpillar", they are the only tracks from The Top that have stood the test of time and sound just as good some two decades later. Conversely, "Give Me It", "Dressing Up", and "Bananafishbones" are some of the poorest (and perhaps laziest) efforts in the history of the band.
Because of the unclear focus and generally themeless haze of The Top, I feel comfortable in advising that only the more enthusiastic and loyal Cure fan should consider adding this one to their collection. It just does not offer very much to anyone else.
The second disc of mostly home and studio demos provides little help, and is most interesting for the previously unreleased, but none-too-special, handful of offerings. The most interesting of which is the atmospheric "Sadacic" with one of the more confident vocal tracks by Robert Smith up to that point of his singing career. The live material that closes the disc presents a nice sampling of how the band sounded on stage at the time, and the version of "Forever" is a particularly worthwhile listen with it's all-too-fitting schizophrenic climax to such a confusing album.
2.5 STARS.
![The Cure Album: “The Top: Deluxe Edition [Remaster]”](http://www.musicpopstars.com/covers_prC/the-cure/2006_170_170_The%2520Top%253A%2520Deluxe%2520Edition%2520%255BRemaster%255D.jpg "The Cure Album: “The Top: Deluxe Edition [Remaster]”")