The Cure’s 30 greatest songs, ranked
From megahits like “Boys Don’t Cry” and "Lovesong" to deep cuts like “Fight," we count down the best tracks from the British post-punk icons
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The Cure through the years (clockwise from top left): the 1987 lineup of Lol Tolhurst, Porl Thompson, Simon Gallup, Robert Smith, Boris Williams, and Roger O’Donnell (Photo: Ross Marino/Getty Images); Phil Thornalley, Porl Thompson, Robert Smith, Andy Anderson, and Lol Tolhurst (Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns); circa 2006 with Porl Thompson, Jason Cooper, Robert Smith, and Simon Gallup (Photo: Jo Hale/Getty Images); Band portrait circa 1992. (Photo: Niels van Iperen/Getty Images) Graphic: Libby McGuire
Goth icons The Cure will bring their wild-haired brilliance back to North American stages for the first time since 2019 when they launch a summer tour on May 10. They’ll bring more than 40 years worth of dark anthems and sounds that stretch from shimmering acoustic melodies to insidiously ambient synths. Nobody would blame anyone who needs a refresher on everything these Brits can do. So, this is just that: The A.V. Club has ranked the 30 greatest Cure songs of all time, including deep cuts and generation-defining megahits alike. With any luck, you’ll be hearing these played live very, very soon…
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It might be lacking in the eeriness that defines much of their work, but In Between Days deserves to be much higher, if not top of this list.
Great track
A good list but suprised that Faith didn’t make it as I thought that was one of Smith’s own favorites (and a great song anyway).
I would quibble with the order of almost all of these, but it’s a good enough list. Happy to see “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” and the live version of “Trust” on here. I’d have gone with the Closer Mix of “Close to Me” from All Mixed Up instead of the original. “A Letter to Elise”, “Mint Car” and especially “Burn” are missing. “Plainsong” and “Pictures of You” should be much, much higher.
A couple of less-recognized tracks, that if included on the list, would have been very acceptable to me would be:PushTo the Sky
Those are all good choices. Someone else pointed out “Strange Attraction” too, which I can’t believe I forgot. I absolutely LOVE that song.
Looks like that one is from Wild Mood Swings. I have seen the Cure in concert three times (only rivaled by seeing Soundgarden three times), but my attention to and knowledge of the band’s output dropped off steeply post-Disintegration (first concert was for that tour). Although, pretty sure that third time was for the Wild Mood Swings tour.
Legitimately one of their worst.
“Burn” should definitely be on here.
Big second on “A Letter to Elise.” That seems like an insane omission. “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” would also have been nice, but I’m glad they made room for non-megahit selections like “All Cats Are Grey” and “Fire in Cairo.”
Burn might be their most diehard-overrated song
I would also add “Six Different Ways” and “One More Time”, both a couple personal faves of mine. Otherwise I like this list, though some of their biggest hits that are way up high like “Friday I’m in Love” and “Lovesong” are far from their best, though still good tunes of course.
My main takeaway from this list is that the Cure are an incredible band. There’s probably 100 songs that didn’t make the list that I’d probably put in place of a lot of what’s on there, but I also can’t argue with what did make the list and that speaks to the incredible depth and breadth of their catalogue. I do like some of their post-2000 output – Bloodflowers on the whole is a strong record, and I like elements of The Cure and 4:13 Dream as well (both feature terrific openers IMO). Might be time to revisit these.
In the late ’80s, I would have been hard-pressed to pick out a Cure song from Depeche Mode or the Smiths.But of those bands, only The Cure gets any radio airplay these days, at least among the handful of stations I listen to. So kudos to them for their lasting influence. Although Depeche Mode at least has a big tour going on this summer (as does The Cure).
I guess it helps when Morrissey is not associated with your band.
Their voices are all so different though! You’re probably going to find three tracks where they all sound the same but I remember them very distinctly. Music style, ok but lead singers v diff.
Probably if I paid any attention but it wasn’t really my style of music.Ditto for most of the hair-metal bands. For the most part, I could not tell Motley Crue, Poison, Cinderella, and a whole host of others apart.
Hey, sorry to interlope, but for the life of me I cannot divine how to post my own new comment, and i spent a while drafting this because I’m an absolute diehard, so I’m posting it as a reply here… if you can help direct me to how to make it a normal fresh post, I’d be grateful.******Ugh, where do we start…Fact stuff:- a song is a “ditty”, not a “diddy.” Christ.- It’s “the spiderman” (in “Lullaby), not fucking Spider-Man. It’s an imaginary nighttime spider-person who wants to eat you in your bed, a symbol of primal childhood fears, not Peter Parker. Why would Peter Parker want to eat Robert Smith? – Robert played the keyboards on “The Walk” (and probably most studio recordings), not Lol.- Wish was released in April, not May. – The band recorded way more than 18 songs for Kiss Me³.- There aren’t 71 more minutes of music on Disintegration after Plainsong. – the Faith album doesn’t “include” Carnage Visors, though it was on side B of early cassette pressings of the album – “The Lovecats.” One word. It’s literally spelled correctly right there on the embedded video.Opinion stuff: No way is the perfectly lovely “Lovesong” the greatest Cure song. You don’t even believe that.- of all the amazing songs on KM³, you highlight “All I Want”? I dunno, dude.- Unless it’s the absolute stunner “Out Of This World”, nothing from Bloodflowers should be on this list.- “This Is A Lie” is fine but there are such better choices from WMS – “Jupiter Crash” , “Treasure”, even the super underrated “The 13th”… or the gorgeous acoustic-driven closer, “Bare”…- … which does get a nod in the Honorable Mentions section, which I’ll admit is pretty solid with its inclusion of “Push”, “Catch”, “Disintegration” (maybe their masterpiece?), “Pornography”, “The Caterpillar”, “Fear Of Ghosts”, and even IDKWGO, one of the very strong cuts from the most unfairly-maligned record in their catalog. Good calls in the main list, too, on “High” (their most underrated single?), “Cold” and “Trust.” Some songs that I might have in my 30 (it’s very fluid):“End”, “Sinking”, “Closedown”, “Like Cockatoos”, “At Night”, “A Chain Of Flowers”, “Never Enough”, “A Few Hours After This”, “Before Three”, “A Thousand Hours”, “A Strange Day”, “Untitled”, “It Used To Be Me”, “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep”, “Harold And Joe”, “Six Different Ways”, “Lost”, “Secrets”, “To The Sky”……and thank you for including nothing from 4:13 Dream.
It’s a list, so usual quibbles aside about ranking, missing songs, my own order etc., I will say that the solo representations from both Bloodflowers and Wild Mood Swings are my big disagreements here. I have a very soft spot for Wild Mood Swings, even though I know that critically it wasn’t well-received. I’d prefer any of the 1-2-3-4 punch of The 13th, Strange Attraction, Mint Car, and Jupiter Crash. For Bloodflowers I am not sure if I would include anything as it has fallen out of favor with me despite loving it when it came out. Especially as there are so many excellent other songs to be included. This list doesn’t even scratch anywhere near the excellent B-Sides and non-album tracks from The Cure. Personal favorites include 2 Late (So good) and Burn from The Crow soundtrack.I was pleasantly surprised to see One Hundred Years so high up. Such a great opener.Long Story short. I love The Cure, my favorite band. I can’t wait to see them next month. I hope they play everyone’s favorite songs.
I mean, they’re gonna play for like 3 hours and still somehow miss a bunch of people’s favorites because they’re the Cure and that’s how they do. I also can’t wait to see them next month!
Want is the best album opener they ever did. 2 minutes before Robert even sings a word. It just keeps building and building.
“I have a very soft spot for Wild Mood Swings, even though I know that critically it wasn’t well-received.”I’ll go even further and say that ‘Wild Mood Swings’ is one of my favorite Cure albums. One of the things that I always loved about The Cure was that they weren’t afraid to play with RADICALLY different sounds, even on the same album, and ‘Mood Swings’ is a perfect example of that.
‘Okay, we’re doing a club dance song, then a mariachi song, then a slow, moody synthy thing, then a rock song!’
“Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” is probably my favorite cure album, and it does the same thing. It jackknives through genres from song to song.
I’m with you. “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” is also special to me. Mostly because it was my first Cure album, but also because as you say, so many different styles of songs to be found one after the other.I don’t agree with this list that “Fight” is top 30 though.
Wild Mood Swings was always wildly (see what I did there?) underappreciated.
WRONG. You can’t rank songs, it doesn’t make any sense.
STOP PUTTING ART IN YOUR SILLY BOXES.
“No such complexity exists” in “Just Like Heaven”?? Did you stop listening before the last verse?
“He was able to make electronic instruments sound more natural,” is a very weird thing to say about the producer of ‘The Walk’. Unless by ‘natural’, he meant ‘shit’.
I will echo that there are just a ton of great Cure songs that did not make the list and I attribute that to the fact that they produced a lot of great material that resonated with a lot of people in a lot of different ways. Personally, I would have included Burn and Disintegration (I know it got an honorable mention, but I love that song so much) but I am sure 100 people would have 100 different lists and they would all be right. Amazing band.
LOVE Disintegration (song)
Yes me too. Great, great track
Lol Tolhurst was ahead of his time.
Is that you, Lol…
LOL, no.
Actually I don’t mind this list – lots of songs I’m happy to see on it. But no Charlotte Sometimes and In Between Days deserves top 5 at least.
“A Forest (Tree Mix)“ would make my top 5 and “Friday I’m in Love” wouldn’t even make a Top 10 list for the best of WISH, but decent list.
If this is supposed to be a ranking and not just a list, then “Close To Me”, “Let’s Go To Bed”, and “Lovecats” are vastly out of place.You also seem to ignore a lot of great but lesser-known tracks, where they tried new styles and made amazing original breakthru work, like “Burn” and “Screw”.https://youtu.be/mfTkL-ZHDCYhttps://youtu.be/N7jLCiMG6Dw
“Pictures of You” at #19 is a disgrace. Easily top 5.
Any time “Pictures of You” pops up in my playlist or anywhere, really, I have to stop what I’m doing and just listen.
As should “In Between Days”
I’m a sucker for chiming guitar melodies, so ““Friday I’m In Love” gets my #1.
Like others have said, this is a hard list to argue with because the songs are all good, and other good songs could have made the list, but it’s potato-potato at some point. But it’s an internet comments section, so I have to argue!One, Bloodflowers really got shortchanged here, and I think the people who thought they were “playing it safe” thought that because they were comparing it to Disintegration which is a damn masterpiece. Bloodflowers is a moody, introspective, beautiful love letter and critics who don’t like it can suck it.Two, as so many others have pointed out, you needed to feel the “Burn” in this list. I’m also missing “10:15 Saturday Night”, “Charlotte Sometimes” and “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”, but that’s just personal quibbles.Three, I think everything on Disintegration is better than “Lovesong” (except maybe “Lullaby”) and “Pictures of You” is my favorite Cure song, so it would have been number one for me, but the fact that nothing from Disintegration except “Lovesong” is in the top 10 is mind-blowing to me!
I’d throw in “Jumping Someone Else’s Train,” “Doing the Unstuck,” “Charlotte Sometimes,” “Kyoto,” “A Night Like This,” and “Disintegration” (which at least gets an honorable mention), but look, it’s a list of 30 great songs by one of my favorite bands. Hard to argue with.
The Forest, The Walk and my personal favorite, In Between Days, are all represented. I’m going to allow this list even if it’s out of order.
Add me to the growing list of people demanding that this list be amended to include “Burn”.
A decent list. I’d put “Friday I’m In Love” quite a bit lower given, as you say, it’s a quintessential pop hit that doesn’t really reflect the rest of their repertoire and “Just Like Heaven” is a better representative of that. I’d also nominate the title track of Disintegration for inclusion somewhere in that list; it captures the essence of (based on this list) what’s their definitive album, and deserves to be more than an honorable mention.I’ve seen them in concert two or three times and Smith keeps getting more eccentric as the years go by, which is far better than Morrissey getting to be more of an asshole. “Forest” is appropriately rated but a much better version is the all time classic of them being forced off the stage for Robert Palmer. It’s appropriate because in my limited experience it’s probably their best live song.
Not saying anyone needs to agree with me, but I really really enjoy “I Dig You” from Seventeen Seconds
That’s… not a thing.
“Show me how you do that trick, the one that makes me scream she said, the one that makes me laugh, she said. Show me how you do it and I promise you, I promise you, I’ll run away with you.”
Isn’t that EVERYTHING?
the one that makes me scream she saidAll this time I thought it was “the one that makes me feel seasick”.Never gave it much thought, but upon reflection, scream makes more sense.
Feels hot-takey to have it at only 10.
He has such a knack for vividly capturing certain emotions in his lyrics. That quote is quintessential young love and that euphoric feeling of falling for someone. And this is, to me, the perfect encapsulation of losing that love (and the utter futility of trying to fix it): If only I’d thought of the right wordsI could have held on to your heartIf only I’d thought of the right wordsI wouldn’t be breaking apart all my pictures of you
Absolutely. My favorite Cure song.
I was going to voice concern of lack of 10:15 Saturday Night but it’s the first song listed in honorable mentions so we’re good.
“Friday I’m in Love” at #4 while “Close to Me” rests at #30. lol…“All Cats are Grey” and “In Between Days” should be Top 5.“The Loudest Sound” (from Bloodflowers) is missing.
The title track of Disintegration is much better than Fascination Street.
The live version of “Just Like Heaven” on Show pretty much blows the studio version out of the water and deserves high placement on this list.
Subjective list, not going to kill the guy, but I strongly disagree with both order and a lot of the songs.Going to echo the person who said they really liked Bloodflowers at first and now don’t care for it much. Feels like Robert Smith consciously trying to make a Cure album, don’t find much of the music very inspired. I’ll still give it a listen on occasion to see if I’ve changed my mind.Not a fan of Trust , always fast forward it, Curse you Perry Bamonte. Fight I don’t generally like, need to be in just the right mood. I’ve heard the singles so much that I’m a little numb to them.Songs I would throw on there, about half of Disintegration the 2nd half in particular, a lot of b-sides, The Kiss, Carnage Visors, Doing the Unstuck, Open, At Night, the Figurehead, Forever, a few others.
how can a list of “the best” be objective
Good list and I feel like a bozo for not knowing so much of the later stuff. I’d like to put in a word for Charlotte Sometimes (especially the live version from Concert) and Dressing Up.
No Hot, Hot, Hot?
I remember being so happy when they started playing Trust during their first concert here in Hawaii in decades and I looked around, no one was singing until I saw the most punk looking rocker dude was singing along word for word, just like me. Gotta love The Cure. Also, super happy they played Burn the next time they came because i heard Robert hates playing it live. It was absolutely amazing!
eh. I think we’ve learned a few things from this list. Wild Mood Swings is still polarizing (I for one would rather have my “2 Late” and “Harold and Joe” than anything on WMS), with The Cure, there’s a big difference between radio hits and band essence, and there’s not enough appreciation of their earlier material in this list.
I think that if you got 100 Cure fans to give their top 10 tracks, there wouldn’t be 2 people with the same list. Having said that, this is a great list. I’d just also add ‘This Twilight Garden’, a High b-side… That is an amazing track. 🙂
I liked “Killing an Arab,” even though that song is persona non grata these days. Catchy tune.
I would take Robert Smith to bed, but he gets make-up all over the pillow cases.
Love Cats not being top 5 is a disgrace. I would like to cancel my subscription, please.
Glad to see “Cold” ranked so highly. I have always been especially fond of “Push”, but it’s all good. There are no bad Cure songs, at least none that I can think of. All hail Smithra.
Is it bad that I like “Catch” and “Six Different Ways” better than a lot of songs on this list?