Agree 100% with this! They've done some good tracks post-Wilder, but they're nowhere near as good as they were when he was with them.

It's still better than anything they released after 1992...

I'd say Bloodflowers was an ok album, no where near as good as their older stuff though.

Their older stuff is the best

Brother is off to see them at Reading today slightly jealous

I think Disintegration is my favourite album of theirs

Oh how I love this band.

I was lucky enough to see them for all of the three shows they did in December at Hammersmith Apollo.

I've been listening to Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me all week.

Somebody obviously looking for a fight here. The Top is among my favourites.

Wild Mood Swings, 4:13 Dream and Bloodflowers (most of) were all fairly atrocious, but the production doesn't exactly do them any favours. Robert Smith should be compulsorily kept well away from anything related to production. If you heard the version of Jupiter Crash when previewed at Glastonbury you would weep at the atrocious cock-up they made of it in the studio on WMS. Trap stands out a mile on that awful album.

I hated 4:13 Dream so much that I gave it away – a little harsh in retrospect, because I enjoyed the live versions of The Hungry Ghost and Sleep When I'm Dead when performed live at Reading.

Bloodflowers is a turgid, tiresome mess except for The Loudest Sound, which is one of my favourite Cure tracks, but not enough to rescue what is generally a torrid 40 minutes.

Mixed Up was a terrible mistake and should have been left in the studio cupboards.

That's the crap out of the way, so now for the best.

1. Disintegration - partly because I had recently parted with a long-term girlfriend and every song was quite obviously written by Robert Smith for me, and me alone. Obviously. I think I actually prefer the version of Disintegration on Entreat, but it's all good. Was the harmonium introduction to Untitled deliberately echoing the intro to Bowie's Memory Of A Free Festival?

2. Pornography - mainly because it defined the decade and made everybody want to have spiky hair. The "under a black flag" lyrics sound quite chilling in the current context. Andy Anderson should be the only person who is ever allowed to play the drum part, as without his double-kick on the bass drum it sounds unduly pedestrian. I don't think any drummer since has ever managed it.

After this it gets difficult, because nostalgia plays havoc with critical fairness.

3. It has to be Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me; fillers there may be, but by god - what tunes. First of all, the massed wow-wow pedals and threatening aggression of The Kiss, followed by the psychedelia of If Only Tonight, The Snake Pit and Cockatoos.

Then you get the delightful Catch, the criminally under-rated How Beautiful You Are and pop perfection in The Perfect Girl and the peerless Just Like Heaven.

I'm obviously in a minority of not liking either Hot, Hot, Hot or Why Can't I Be You one little bit. I always miss those off any collection made for my car.

The next few aren't really in order of merit because I find that impossible:

4. The Head On The Door - this record was everywhere... you just couldn't escape from it. Caused a national shortage of second-hand greatcoats and stripped Woolworth's of black hair dye.

5. Seventeen Seconds - A Forest has been played to death now, but Play For Today, At Night, In Your House and M were merely peeks at things to come.

6. The Cure - this is actually one of my favourites and could well have been higher up there if Smith hadn't been locked out of the studio when it was being mixed. There really are some very good songs on here (Before Three being my personal
favourite).

7. Faith - I never understood why this was so heavily revered, as although it is bravely anti-commercial, it also put The Samaritans on overtime and gave happy-go-lucky, laugh-a-minute Goths the reputation for being miserable sods. My favourite track was The Drowning Man, but here again, I preferred the atmospheric live version that was the on the "free gift" Tape 2 of the Concert cassette (remember those?)

8. Three Imaginary Boys - contains several iconic tracks and reeks of sweet innocence. Let's be honest though - they're not all classics.

9. The Top - I first heard this previewed at The Granby Hall in Leicester and heard John Peel play studio session tracks on the way home. Shake Dog Shake if the perfect opener and the rest of it's an eclectic head-rush of songs which spin out like whirling dervishes. If you've sat near the front row for a live outing of Give Me It you don't forget about it in a hurry, although Smith's self embracing during dressing up was almost as disturbing Favourite track - Bananafishbones.

10. Wish - Well it has the amazingly brilliant Friday I'm In Love in its favour, also the suicidal Apart and Edge Of The Deep Green Sea. Elsewhere there are slight, lightweight and often highly irritating ditties with neither style nor substance. A Letter To Elise sounded fine on Unplugged, but yet again, Smith takes a sledgehammer to it in the studio. Must have been a period of bad drugs.

11. Bloodflowers - The Loudest Sound keeps it off the bottom.

12= - 4:13 Dream & Wild Mood Swings - a bit of an embarrassment really.

Too late to edit it now, but substitute had for hadn't.

Well I'll defend it, in fact I'll go as far as to say I agree with every word of it.

I did say that the ones after my top 3 were't in any particular order, but I still wish I'd mover The Top into a more elevated position. There isn't a bad track on it.

I remember Smith saying that he was deliberately trying not to sing so well on this album as he preferred it to be more messy

They played The Top in its entirety at the recent Hammersmith shows. It's not my favourite album of theirs, but some really strong tracks on there, that sounded really good live. I need to pick up the Deluxe edition, actually.

Disintegration has to be my favourite album, followed by Pornography, Faith, Seventeen Seconds, Kiss me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and Wish.

Pornography is by far my favourite of theirs.

It is an incredible album unlike anything I've heard before.
Love it but it's hard to describe.

I remember I had hardly ever heard The Cure before when they suddenly appeared to perform One Hundred Years on The Old Grey Whistle Test. It was actually a hastily assembled group, which I think included a member of The Psychedelic Furs, but the savagery of the track blew me away and I bought the album as soon as it came out. They did one other track, but I can't remember what it was now. I'm not sure, but I think it was the first time that Smith did his smeared lipstick thing.

This sounds great, I'll have to see if it's on youtube. I was not born in the right time :--(

I wouldn't really call myself a Cure fan, but I love Mixed Up.

That has to go down as a self-indulgent disaster as far as I'm concerned

Each to their own.

Lol. I know it's not generally a Cure fan's favourite, but for me it was more accessible than their other albums. As you say though, each to their own.