The Glove- Blue Sunshine (1983) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

"The first idea flew thin and uninvited from the sky. I reached out my hands and held the knife of ice."

The process of recording and touring Pornography took a huge toll on The Cure, as bassist Simon Gallup quit the band and Robert Smith decided to step in as guitarist for Siouxsie and The Banshees (a job he had held briefly in 1979) after the brilliant John McGeoch was jettisoned due to severe alcohol abuse. During this time, Smith and fellow-Banshee Steve Severin hatched the idea to write and record a single as a one-off collaboration, but the project soon escalated into a full album. However, things took a surreal turn when it was revealed that Smith's recording contract with The Cure prevented him from singing on other releases, so in a pinch, Jeanette Landray, the girlfriend of Banshee drummer Budgie and a dancer on Top of the Pops with no singing experience, was recruited to provide most of the vocals. By most accounts, the sessions for Blue Sunshine were a hedonistic affair, but Smith and Severin somehow came up with an album's-worth of material. The sound of Blue Sunshine is a volatile cocktail of Goth, Psychedelia, and eccentric pop, and while Smith's distinctive vocals are certainly missed (although he does manage to sing on two tracks), Landray does a respectable job, though it's hard to overlook her similarity in tone to Siouxsie Sioux, a comparison in which Landray comes up considerably short. On "Like an Animal," one of Landray's best performances, Steve Severin's bass takes the lead to great effect, as cheesy keyboard washes and frenetic percussion keep the song from moving too far into darker territory. Where Blue Sunshine gets really interesting is on songs such as "Orgy" with its Middle-Eastern aesthetic and quirky twists and turns. It's all so vaguely Cure, but ultimately unlike anything else in Smith's considerable discography.

The Cure- Three Imaginary Boys (1979) Deluxe Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC

"10:15 on a Saturday night, and the tap drips under the strip light."

Three Imaginary Boys, The Cure's official debut (Boys Don't Cry, a hybrid album containing a mix of album tracks and singles was released in its place in the U.S.), catches the band trying very hard to establish some modicum of Punk-cred, failing miserably, and in the process, offering "glimpses" of a sound that would eventually land them at the forefront of the Post-Punk movement. Alternatively angular, abstract, glammy, and in places, downright poppy, it all adds up to something quite unlike anything else that surfaced in the waning days of the British Punk scene. For example, on the exceedingly simple, and no less brilliant for it, "10:15 Saturday Night," Robert Smith's emotionally detached, yet still injured, vocals make the song's tale of abandonment by a lover all the more stark and instantly memorable. Three Imaginary Boys is at its strongest when it embraces a "less is more" approach as on the aforementioned "10:15 Saturday Night" and on the title track, both of which make great use of the ambiance of emptiness. While nowhere near the quality of the much darker work The Cure would produce in the years to follow, their debut is nevertheless indispensable for its quirky brand of Post-Punk aggression that even displays a sense of humor in places.

The Cure- Disintegration (1989) Deluxe Edition (3 Discs) MP3 & FLAC -For Jo Jo-

"Because I feel it all fading and paling, and I'm begging to drag you down with me, to kick the last nail in."

Arguably the closet thing to an "epic" produced during the Post-Punk era and widely regarded as The Cure's masterpiece, Disintegration was, paradoxically, both a huge commercial success (rare at the time for an "alternative" record) and a dark, introspective ode to ambivalent love and bittersweet despair. While Robert Smith & co. had traded in much of their Post-Punk abrasiveness for a quirky brand of goth-pop by the late eighties, on Disintegration, they managed to integrate the gloomy, oblique soundscapes of their earlier work with a more lush, dreamily romantic, and grand-scale sound, which also resulted in a more direct approach by Smith both vocally and lyrically. Sadly, The Cure would never sound this ambitious or relevant again. Truly one of the landmark albums of the last 30 years and absolutely essential.