Where bought? Still got the £5 sticker on which indicates a second (maybe third, given its age) hand purchase, but not sure. Could be anywhere really. Proper record shops would have jacked this up to a tenner because it's a name band, which makes me think probably off some market stall or something.
One of the more confusing releases - there's Staring at the Sea and Standing on a Beach (both lyrics from 'Killing an Arab') - as they are both compilations of early Cure singles. I think ...Beach is the name given to the LP version, which has a few songs missing owing to considerations of space. So if you're a big fan of '10.15 Saturday Night', 'Play for Today' (I quite like this one actually), 'Other Voices', or 'A Night Like This' then you should probably go to the CD or digital or just buy the singles themselves.
Me? I'm none too fussed. The Cure have always been a singles group to me, a hits compilation group, and every time I try and sit through Disintegration or Pornography or any of their slightly portentious full-lengths I don't quite get it. Meanwhile the singles all just zip along and are so generous and giving of melody and thrills and no little back-shadow of dark emotions. The albums are like being hit over the head with a mallet by comparison. Let's say nothing of the time I saw them trudge through deep cuts in 2003.
I suppose here in 2021 I'm not too enamoured of the opening track (the aforementioned Camus-referencing 'Killing An Arab') but power past that and it's a great piece of history as a band evolves through power pop and into moody goth pop. Other bands did the deeper atmospheres of desolation better around this time - Swans, Virgin Prunes - but absolutely no one in their ballpark, not even New Order, did the pop single as well. The single was never a constraint but a challenge to arrest their new pre-occupations into.
Some of the songs here are probably in the top 1% of music: 'Charlotte Sometimes', 'Boys Don't Cry', 'Close To Me'. Some are brash experiments (either outright, or with the idea of "The Cure") that succeed: 'The Hanging Garden', 'Let's Go To Bed', 'The Caterpillar'. Some songs are not my absolute favourite but would be 1000 lesser bands' best song: 'In Between Days', 'The Walk', 'Primary', 'A Forest'. Not a fan of 'The Lovecats', but you can't have everything.
A real testament to the group at their peak, though more great singles would emerge: 'Just Like Heaven', 'Lovesong', 'Friday I'm In Love', and probably their peak work 'Lullaby'. They're all on Galore and I'll probably pick that up now I think about it.
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