Greatest Hits: International Edition [Import] - CD

Compact Disc

Import edition features one additional track, Pictures of You. As Greatest Hits-and particularly the busking pavement jazz of "Lovecats"-reminds us, the best Cure singles were very often tangential exercises; halcyon playtime divergences offering a Goth-free contrast to some of the weightier studiousness of some of those early albums. Or, as smudged frontman Robert Smith says of this 18-track collection, "Songs that are sung with a smile." This wasn't always true-witness the refrigerated fogginess of the classic "A Forest", the Blair Witch Project of it's day. What this compilation does is focus attention on The Cure's perennial unpredictability-the nursery school bonkers-ness of "The Caterpillar", the breathless claustrophobia of "Close to Me", the New Order-lite of "The Walk", the brass-section embellished thrust of "Why Can't I Be You". Oddly, chart-wise, The Cure's Lost Weekend began immediately after "Friday I'm in Love", their most ebullient melodic moment and the ultimate clocking-off to kick-those-heels! Anthem. But at least the inclusion of two new songs "Cut Here" and "Just Say Yes" (with Saffron from Republica) indicate that The Cure remain a healthy ongoing concern.

• 1 Boys Don't Cry
• 2 A Forest
• 3 Let's Go to Bed
• 4 The Walk
• 5 The Lovecats
• 6 Inbetween Days
• 7 Close to Me
• 8 Why Can't I Be You?
• 9 Just Like Heaven
• 10 Lullaby
• 11 Love Song
• 12 Never Enough
• 13 High
• 14 Friday I'm in Love
• 15 Mint Car
• 16 Wrong Number
• 17 Cut Here
• 18 Just Say Yes