Disco de The Cure: “Greatest Hits [Deluxe Sound & Vision]”

The only difference between this album and the regular version is that this CD has 1 extra track - Pictures Of You.

A lot of Cure fans love this song, but i feel it is extremely overrated, and they should have added Fascination Street (from Disintegration) or something from Pornography instead.

If you are just getting into the Cure, instead of buying The Greatest Hits collection, go all out and grab "Standing On A Beach" (The singles from 1978-1986) and "Galore" (the singles from 1987-1997). These two collections have a much broader range of styles and songs, and even Robert Smith himself said that the Greatest Hits was a poor representation of what the Cure stood for.

However, I suggest the best way to get into the Cure are through the ACTUAL ALBUMS and not the collections. Most Cure fans agree "Faith", "Pornography", "Top", "Disintegration", "Wish" and "Bloodflowers" are among the best, but "Wild Mood Swings" is very under-rated. Heck - if you count them all up, The Cure has around 17 CD's.. (that includes studio albums, a remix album, the 2 single collections, the greatest hits, and live albums)

But back to the greatest hits... if you feel you MUST buy it, make sure you get the version with the ACOUSTIC SONGS on the second disc, because they are absolutely amazing. (they were the reason I got the greatest hits in the first place!) Dont worry that this version has 1 extra song.

And on a final note, it is dissapointing the greatest hits album doesnt have anything from Pornography, Faith, Bloodflowers and Top, all excellent albums!

Actually, both previous reviews are almost correct.

Instead of "The Walk" from the domestic release, this English version has "The Caterpillar" AND it also has an extra track: "Pictures of You." So this import disc has 19 tracks instead of the domestic 18. Ironically, "Pictures of You" is the Cure hit no getting airplay in an oft-repeated digital camera commercial here in the States.

Of course, most Cure fans, like myself, will be buying this for the bonus Acoustic disc - but that disc is the same on both versions, hewing to the Domestic track listing. Not worth the extra bucks if you live in the U.S.

Cheers!

While some of The Cure faithful may feel aggrieved by the absence - 'A Forest' notwithstanding - of tracks from their gloomiest period (Faith, Seventeen Seconds, Pornography), the more casual listener will find much to enjoy here. Having had a big Cure phase in my teens, I might quibble that the Boys Don't Cry/Three Imaginary Boys era is under-represented. 'Jumping Someone Else's Train' and 'Killing An Arab', for instance, would have been preferable to some of the relatively non-descript material post-'Friday I'm In Love'. It seems odd also given how fashionable angular post-punk has been in the 00s to skimp on this early period, but ultimately you can't fault this as an introduction to the band.

What is great about this colllection is that The Cure had a habit of reinventing themselves and releasing their most resonant and accessible material as singles. This is not to say that they were a singles band - far from it, your next purchase ought to be 'Disintegration' if you don't own it already - but that this captures the band at their most varied, eccentric best. Whereas some Best-Ofs can seem fairly by-the-numbers, soulless experiences, 'Greatest Hits' is a joy for its vivid eclecticism.

Despite their reputation (not always unfounded) for bleak introspection, 'Greatest Hits' reveals Robert Smith to be one of the best pop songwriters of his generation. 'In Between Days', 'Close To Me', 'Just Like Heaven' are pop perfection, while 'A Forest' and 'Lullaby' harnesses the band's predilection for acid-spiked paranoia in a universably accessible form. Meanwhile the deranged, off-kilter pop of 'The Lovecats' and 'The Caterpillar' straddles the unlikely territory somewhere between these two poles: too saccharine to be goth, too bonkers by most pop tastes. Then you have the raw energy of 'Boy's Don't Cry' and the comparatively lush and expansive pop sensibility of 'Lovesong' and 'Pictures of You'