The Cure: BBC Sessions 1981-1985 [DBQP]

Why you'll love it

This EU-pressed LP gathers fourteen BBC session recordings from the Cure's most restless years. It runs from the shadows of Pornography through The Top to the pop breakthrough of The Head on the Door.

This edition

• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Radio sessions were a rite of passage for British bands: a day in a BBC studio to play the new songs live, with little time for fuss and no room to hide. Between 1981 and 1985 the Cure went through more changes than most bands manage in a whole career, and these sessions catch every one of them as it happened, with the band playing these songs while they were still new and still changing shape.

Side A starts in the deep shadow of 1982's Pornography with "The Figure Head" and the B-side "Just One Kiss," then moves into the psychedelic clatter of The Top with "Piggy in the Mirror," "Bananafishbones," "Give Me It" and "The Empty World," before "Screw" jumps ahead to 1985. Side B stays in The Head on the Door era: "In Between Days," "Close to Me," "Six Different Ways," "Kyoto Song," "The Baby Screams" and "Sinking," plus the B-side "The Exploding Boy."

Heard live and a little rawer than on the albums, the songs show how strong Robert Smith's writing was right through the period. You'll have to supply the hair yourself.

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Tracklist

Listen

On DBQP (cat# DBQP83), the 2025 compilation.