Wild Mood Swings

At the time The Cure released this album - they were on a winning streak. “Burn” from The Crow soundtrack indicated good things were on the way, but this album was so unlistenable - it completely derailed The Cure which they never recovered from in the sense of album success. I remember really wanting to love or at least like this album at the time of its release, but it does not have any tune in it you would choose to put into a double disk The Cure Greatest Hits collection.

I love all the albums by The Cure (except The Top and 4:13 Dream) and I can tell you up front this album is not one of The Cures best. Not my favorite record at all but I do love “Bare” and “Treasure”. I really like “Strange Attraction” and “Mint Car”. But I do not like “Club America” and “Gone.” I do like this record for the tracks that have feeling in them but I understand why people do not like it for songs like “Gone” and songs like “Trap” which seem forced or just downright not good songs. This album will not change your life so don’t buy it if you aren’t a fan already but there is still some good songs in here. And I will say this, I would rather Robert put out songs like these rather than more songs like “The Cure” and “4:13 Dream..”. Give this album a chance some of it is good.

I think it might be my favorite because it really encompasses the full range of human emotion…thank you Cure for your great gifts.

Great lyrics= great album

Huge Cure fan since the first album, but this mess is worse than what my dogs deposit in my backyard. Seems Smith was trying to please everybody here, but to me, it's just a disaster. If you like this album, that's cool, but it just collects dust on my shelf.

When Wild Mood Swings was first released I absolutely hated the album. Ie en traded it in at my local record store. Recently I revisited this album and even purchased it from iTunes. Maybe it's because I'm older, but I really like this record now. Although nowhere near as good as Disintegration and Head on the Door, it has it's own strengths and is underrated in my opinion.

Many so called “Cure” fans typically preface any review of Wild Mood Swings with their resume of albums owned including how many years they have been “devout” Cure fans. In a way they try to then justify/rationalize why they rate Wild Mood swings at the very bottom. Oddly enough, WMS is on the top five Cure albums as chosen by Robert Smith himself. In reality this album is strong both musically and lyrically. Every song has its own personality and character which gives the album a varied “mood” (hence the name of the album). The angst filled “Want” is on par with what all the 80s EMO kids look for in a song, sure it doesn’t have the deep “goth” baseline, but it’s progressive in its style (way before EMO was a music category). The popish “Mint Car” is sure to satisfy all of the pseudo Cure fans who only know the words to “Just Like heaven”. The deep and retrospective “Jupiter Crash” and “Bare” is what takes an album from mediocre to amazing. Preview the whole album and decide for yourself.

"Wild Mood Swings", although a great album, probably lies as one of the worst records produced by The Cure, right above Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. This album is quite frankly dull compared to what previous records of The Cure share, it's not as dark, heavy, or ambient as early records. For people new to the cure, I would suggest starting off with the Album "Wish" or "Head on The Door", but for the true experience of The Cure, their best records are easily "Disintegration", "BloodFlowers", "Pornography", and "Seventeen Seconds". One of the things that bugged me about this album, was unlike most, it just doesn't seem as melodic, dark, and atmospheric. Robert Smith is an amazing song writer, but he's been going all-out for decades now. And what makes me sad, is after this record was released, you could immediately tell that The Cure lost some of their touch, and that their career already passed the high point. All in all, unless this is one of the last records you need to complete your collection of The Cure, I wouldn't suggest getting it, until you've listened to all of the other great stuff they do have.

This album is often thought of by cure fans as the most "dissapointing." To me it is absolutely one of their strongest and most mature albums which features some of the most pensive works Smith has penned to date. "This is a Lie", "Jupiter Crash", "Numb", and "Treasure" are some of the most achingly vulnerable acoustic ballads the cure have ever created. It's far from a one-dimentional album however, even featuring saucy brass-laden works such as "The 13th" and "Gone". For the lovers of the more poppy cure, sprinkled in are your more ecstatic tunes such as "Mint Car", "Strange Attraction", and "Return". It definitely has something to please everybody, but if you're looking for the more dense and depressing works featured on "Disintegration" or "Bloodflowers" I would look elsewhere. Regardless, it is a solid and bold masterpiece which explores both familiar and uncharted territories.

Receiving little commercial interest, Wild Mood Swings remains one of the Cure's darkest (and, at times, happiest) releases. Kicking off with the harrowing "Want," Smith becomes critical of himself, building up to the final realization of "no matter how hard I want, I know deep down inside I'll never really get...any more time." "This Is A Lie" sounds like a baroque nightmare, while "The 13th" is more of a summer's eve salsa tune. "Mint Car" is probably the happiest point on the album, but still manages to sound like any of The Cure's darker explorations. Although this album is less celestial than 1992's Wish, Wild Mood Swings manages to maintain the band's ability to wow an audience, and proves itself to be a far more thoughtful album than The Cure or 4:13 Dream.