Customer Reviews

Wish

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are really 2 kinds of Cure albums: The "thematic" and the "versatile." By thematic, I mean that several Cure albums (usually those preferred by the hardcore fans) tend to be more consistent (i.e., very few upbeat "pop" songs), slightly less daring instrumentally, and laden with darker, harsher lyrics. (Bloodflowers, Disintegration, Pornography and Faith). These are beautifully written albums, though, and can more easily be listened to over and over. "Wish" is of the second type. It is "versatile;" like Head on the Door, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, and Wild Mood Swings, it has much greater range, and like those albums, contains most of the hit singles that casual fans are familiar with from the radio. Of these albums, Wish clearly stands out as the best. The album contains such giddy songs as "Friday I'm in Love," "Wendy Time," and "High," and another which is probably the best song the Cure never released as a single, "Doing the Unstuck." This album was completed by one of the strongest of the ever-changing Cure lineups, and the guitar on this album is many, often and harsh. Songs like "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" and "Open" are classics now for concert goers; "Cut" is a quickly-paced scathing commentary on failed relationships, and "Trust" is a beautiful opus of hope and optimism. Fans will also recognize "A Letter to Elise," a beautiful single that might have been accurately called "Pictures of You II." The album closes, appropriately, with "End"-a majestic and thickly layered guitar romp that was supposed to signal this album as the last by the Cure. Luckily for us, it wasn't. I would comfortably say that this is one of the three best albums by the Cure (along with Disintegration and Bloodflowers), and probably the one most likely to be labeled a masterpiece by both hardcore and casual Cure fans alike.

This is probably The Cure's best selling album to date, and deservedly so. While those who remember The Cure when they were a relatively obscure band with a small but loyal following in the United States may find this album's popularity annoying, the artistry here is something not much seen in previous albums. The music is classic Cure, not breaking any new ground, with driving rhythms and jangling guitar. I guess it is the lyrics that set this album apart. This is an extremely personal album for Robert Smith. He goes beyond the typical melancholy of his usual songs and reaches to depths that produce pure heartbreak. With "Open" he discusses his drinking problem, and "Apart" and "A Letter to Elise" appear to chronicle a failed marriage. And while "Elise" and "Friday I'm In Love" received a lot of airplay ("Friday" I think even cracked the Top 40, a rarity for The Cure), the most underrated song on the album is "Doing the Unstuck". Getting past the goofy name, it is a perfect rendering of those emotions one feels when your life seems to be going to hell and all you wish for is that one perfect day with someone you love to forget all your troubles. Thank you, Robert, for daring to share your wishes with us. It is amazing how, with all our differences, people all wish for the same (sometimes impossible) things.

With this album the band broke to remarkable commercial success, and "Friday I'm in love" was 1992's summer hit in Europe, receiving massive radio airplay. The Cure's throng of hardcore fans didn't like this song and even Robert himself said, "people who bought this single are not real Cure fans", but I think it's a great tune and one of the best pop singles of the '90s. The most notable shift The Cure made was getting rid of "Disintegration"'s epic keyboard arrangements in favor of a more guitar-dominated alternative rock approach. Although "Wish" contains a few happy songs in contrast to its predecessor, "Friday I'm in love" is not representative of the album's prevailing tone. "Open" with its nagging, feedback-powered guitar sound is one of the most despairing songs Robert has ever written. "Apart" and "From the edge" are also pretty bleak, so there's really no reason to believe that Robert has lost his depression. The happier songs, "High", "Wendy time", "Doing the unstuck" (which says, "Kick out the gloom"), and "Friday.." are certainly great, but in the album context these songs seem to be a little misplaced. "A letter.." is a solid ballad, and "End" closes things on a more aggressive note. There are a few nods to earlier songs -- "Wendy time" is very similar to "Why can't I be you?", and "To wish.." duplicates the opening riff of "Lullaby" -- and a few subtractions wouldn't have hurt the 66-minute length any, but on the strength of the album's singles, "Wish" is quite a rewarding and enjoyable affair. The CD-single releases of "High", "Friday..", and "A letter.." are also very worthwhile: Each disc contains two non-album tracks and a remix of the title song.

Hard to believe it's been 10+ years since this album was released. I first purchased it on cassette in 1992 and later on CD when the cassette literally wore itself out. To me "Wish" is the last, really good album by this group, with later efforts like "Wild Mood Swings" badly missing the mark. Often mis-classified as a Goth band, I rather think Robert Smith and The Cure simply tap into the quiet veins of sorrow and tragedy that run through every human life. It's not a bad thing, it's not a Goth thing, it just is. And while "Wish" is punctuated with occasional uppy songs like "Friday I'm in Love", the pieces that really soar are (of course) the sad ones: "Apart", "Letter to Elise" and the epic "To Wish Impossible Things". I once told someone that The Cure is the greatest break-up band of all time, and I stand by that assertion. "Wish" is a grand demonstration of everything that makes The Cure great, right before things started to go downhill. I've since heard rumors that The Cure are no more, that "Bloodflowers" is their last hurrah. If so, I choose to remember "Wish" as their last, best effort.

WISH brings the eclecticism of KISS ME, KISS ME, KISS ME but pushes the emotions to radical extremes. Robert Smith's lyrics are more straightforward than ever before, using a style which will eventually burden some of his later work (IMHO). But it serves him well on WISH and the songs cut deeply. Some ("Open," "End," "Cut," "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea") are easily among the heaviest songs in the Cure catalogue. Probably the best line-up of Cures ever (and they were great live on this tour - Washington D.C.,'94). Like many of my favorite albums, WISH tells a story from beginning to end - your imagination permitting!).

The breakdown:

"Open" - a nightmarish account of what could be a typical weekend night for a typical anti-social angst-ridden Cure fan. Sounds like an acid trip that becomes painfully introspective. Powerful stuff. *****

"High" - This exuberant slice of heaven is a radical departure from the previous track. One of the happiest songs from the Cure or anyone else. ****1/2

"Apart" - plunging once again into the depths of despair, this morose song chronicles the singer's disillusionment as the feelings about his relationship unravel. A beauty, the rhythm section is superb and Smith delivers one of his best guitar solos ever. *****

"From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" - The star-crossed lovers of "Apart" take doses. The music is swirling and churning and the lyrics are surreal and the singing full of despair. Smith explores one of his major recurring themes, the futility of quenching desires. It's about longing for an eternal love that can't exist. They pine for the impossible, to live in a moment forever. ****1/2

"Wendy Time" - Smith rejects another girl and further explores his feelings of detachment. Conversely, the tune is upbeat and playful. ****1/2

"Doing the Unstuck" - This song represents a fantastic triumph over the drudgery of life. I find it truly inspiring. *****

"Friday I'm in Love" - is an irresistible pop masterpiece even though it tritely recites the days of the week. It's become a classic and I still love hearing it. *****

"Trust" - is sweetly melancholy with a beautiful string section. ****

"A Letter to Elise" - another unsustainable relationship, another pop gem. Regardless of what you think of his voice, Robert's vocal melody is simply gorgeous here. *****

"Cut" - On "Cut," the tables have turned for Smith. This time it's his romantic interest who loses that lovin' feelin'. Smith rages through his feedback-laden guitar throughout this howling, harrowing cut. ****

"To Wish Impossible Things" - This sad dreamland sweetly sums up the album's theme of hopelessness in the face of transitional happiness. Wondrous and wonderful. ****1/2

"End" - a crushing testimonial about the pointlessness of life - Smith confesses to feeling only hollow and numb inside and that "giving up and going on are both the same dead end to me." This swirling miasma is a soul-shredding masterpiece and a shocking counterpoint to "Doing the Unstuck" with its message of hope. *****

An aside: Robert Smith has hinted that he might like to do another album trilogy like he did with Trilogy (DVD). If you haven't seen this back-to-back concert performance of PORNOGRAPHY, DISINTEGRATION and BLOODFLOWERS yet, log off NOW and check it out! Anyway, I think THE TOP, KISS ME, KISS ME, KISS ME and WISH would also make an excellent thematic trilogy (just another fantasy from an obsessive Cure fan...?).

The Cure has been my favorite band for about 10 years now, which is literally when I started appreciating music. Of all their recordings, Wish is the greatest in my opinion. Although their other albums offer traditional favorites such as "Pictures of You" and "Lovesong", the gloomy melodies and insightful lyrics make Wish a masterpiece. It is impossible to listen to the Cure without a deep appreciation for the poetry and feeling in their lyrics, especially when you listen to a song such as "Apart" or "A Letter to Elise." Few songwriters, if any, can capture the mood and true feeling behind Cure lyrics and Wish offers the best of what they have, on the whole. Although this album became popular with "Friday I'm in Love", it's still a cute pop song that can't be written off. This album, dark and haunting provides songs of love lost, trust broken and other themes that make this the timeless masterpiece that it is. If you don't own it, you must buy it!

I am sure any Robert Smith worshiper--I refer to him individually here only because he, in every mannerism and lyrical nuance, is the Cure--would skoff at what I am about to write. Mostly because any serious musical enthusiast regards one--and only one--piece of work as the magnum opus of a favorite artist(The Beatles 'White' album, Pearl Jam's 'Ten' etc.)leaving all prior efforts, in retrospect, to be considered only warm-ups, and all entecedent releases falling drastically, if not unexpectedly short by comparison. I know. I know. The Cure hit their stride in the mid-eighties, reaching the creative peak of their unique mountain of cloudy melancholy with 'Disintegration' right? Well, in 1992, the Cure accomplished something of a miracle in the music business; they released a SECOND masterpiece entitled 'Wish', a dreamy weaveworld of emotive guitar pop, laced with too much sprawling conviction and ruminative honesty to be labeled 'radio friendly'--'Friday I'm in Love' notwithstanding, of course. 'Wish' runs the emotional gamut, infused with anger, nostalgia, longing, and even skip along happiness(which was unprecedented for the notoriously gloomy Cure) Each part is seperate--never redundant or plain-- yet unquestionably part of something whole. The perpetually love-sick Smith never seemed more confident in his romanticized confusion than when he bellows 'there is no one left in the world, there is only you' on the brilliantly lethargic ballad 'Trust', or more innocently childlike in the almost too-catchy-to-believe 'High'. 'Wish' undulates in a way that gets under your skin, much the way lyric-absent chill-out electronica attempts to do these days, except The Cure did it on a canvas of swirling colors without repetitive blurring, and WITH a an all too familiar voice to guide us. And that, after all, is what a great album makes, is it not? A winding road of a listening experience--a narrative fairy tale with a beginning and an end. But, boy how I wish this one hadn't...

I've been a hardcore Cure fan for about 15 years and I bought "Wish" when it first came out. I listen to it from time to time and I'm always struck by how fresh, intricate, and inspired it sounds. There isn't one bad track on the album, from "Open" to "End." The music the Cure created on this album is thicker and more complex, with layer upon layer of interweaving guitar, than on any of their other albums. Porl Thompson, who later went on to outshine his guitar idol Jimmy Page on tour with Page and Plant, along with Perry Bamonte, who had recently been asked to play guitar with the Cure after playing the role of their guitar roadie for a number of years, provide the background guitar work over which Smith's signature guitar sound shines through, specifically on "High." "Wish" has some of Smith's best lyrics that spin tales of drunken euphoria ("Open"), hopeless heartache ("Apart" and "Trust"), loves lost ("A Letter to Elise" and "To Wish Impossible Things"), and blissful adoration ("High"). The music and lyrics meld together like a hand in a glove, not sounding forced like some later Cure material, but natural and perfectly suited for each other. "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" is the standout track on "Wish," with it's complex lead guitar solos building to a climax and Smith's impassioned vocals almost screaming "I wish I could just stop, I know another moment will break my heart ... miles and miles and miles away from home again." Listening to "Wish" loud while driving is always a pleasure that takes me back to the first time I heard it in 1992. It's amazing that so much time has passed and yet there are always new aspects of "Wish" I discover each time I listen to it.

Wish is not as solid as Disintegration but it is very close! In fact, whereas the brilliant Disintegration is mostly on an even keel in terms of its slow, dark sound, Wish offers more variety. It starts with the powerful rocker "Open" (which sports excellent lyrics about being trapped in a world of excessive social drinking and drugs) then moves to the happy sound of "High" ("when I see you kitten as a cat"), and then presents one of the most beautiful, slow songs I've ever heard "Apart." The album continues this variety with another rocker "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea," the quirky "Wendy Time," and, later, another beautiful slow song "Trust." "Cut" is another powerful track. "End" is another one of my favorites with addictive guitar riffs. The only track I do not care for is the single "Friday I'm in Love" which I find a bit too cutesy. "Doing the Unstuck" starts out in the same vein with the "let's get happy" lines but then launches into some awesome guitar riffs. If it were not for the opening, it would be one of my favorite tracks off Wish. "A Letter to Elise" was another single off Wish which I like better than "Friday." If you like the singles, I highly recommend checking out this album as there are much better tracks on it and it offers a whole range of emotions.

One of the few totally guitar-driven Cure albums, Wish is an incredible album, with a strong, driving, forceful core and a set of 12 astounding songs. While its not as eclectic as some Cure albums (due to the fact that its all guitar-driven) it explores a huge range of moods nevertheless.

The album begins with 'Open', where Smith chronicles his drinking problems to a forceful, dark backing of reverbing guitars and driving bass, reminiscent of sections of previous album 'Disintegration'. The second song 'High' is totally different, a relatively breezy pop song, however for me its one of the album's least good songs, not because its poppy, but because it lacks the killer tune that the other poppy songs have. 'Apart' is a slow, intimate and desolate number reminiscent of some of the earlier Cure recordings. Next comes the album's centrepiece, the epic 'From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea', a gothic rock track which builds and sways around turbulently.

The next three songs return to a poppier style, beginning with 'Wendy Time' with its funk-style, wah-wah guitar line. It still has a note of menace due to the threatening bass and Smith's voice. 'Doing The Unstuck' is a total catharsis, with its very un-Cure cry of 'let's get happy!'. Fortunately most of the lyrics are better than this slightly cringeworthy line. Again, however, despite very optimistic lyrics and tune, we have a threatening bassline that perhaps was influenced by Nirvana and specificially Come As You Are (which came out the year before). At one point, despite being totally different in mood, the song mimicks 'Fascination Street' from 'Disintegration', presenting its line 'Oh just burn down the house! Burn down the street' in almost the exact same fashion as Fascination Street's 'Just pull on your face! Pull on your feet!'. Its an amazing song, and a travesty it wasn't a single.

'Friday I'm In Love', perhaps the Cure's most straightforward, pop song ever - even 'Love Song' has a touch of darkness to it - goes all Green-era REM with its catchy, jangling guitar, poppy melodies and distant harmonies. Its as cheesy and catchy as ... 80s pop, and its incredible to think this came from the same band who made Pornography, but its strangely touching and really a lovely song.

'Trust' could hardly be any more different in mood. Beginning with a weeping piano line, it is lyrically simple yet enormously accomplished. Its a desolate, beautiful song that sits nicely with 'Apart', truly heartbreaking and a must for unrequited lovers everywhere. 'A Letter To Elise' seems a little too close to 'Pictures of You' for comfort, almost exactly the same in arrangement, mood and even to some extent melody. As I always thought 'Pictures of You' was a little overrated its not my idea of the greatest Cure track, but of course its still touching and its saved by another excellent lyric.

Next comes the most gothic song on the album, the vicious 'Cut'. Paced extremely quickly, its driven by one of the greatest basslines ever, stunning drums and layers of spooky guitar and keyboard effects, with Smith's anguished vocal layered on top. Its certainly an album highlight, sounding how 'A Forest' might have sounded if it had been arranged in a more complex way and given a 90s-style production. 'It's all gone! It's aaaaaallll....oww' wails Smiths over the cacophony, his voice escalating into an incredible, falsetto scream.

'To Wish Impossible Things' is another heartbroken track yearning for things past. If you're a Placebo fan, its impossible not to notice how much tracks like this one must have influenced them. Beautiful viola is layered onto it, and its absolutely devastating.

The final track, 'End' is built around a memorable guitar ostinato. It's musically similar to the opener, excellent slightly more angular and less fluid. There's excellent production on the vocal, which wavers and echoes from speaker to speaker throughout, and the central call of 'Please stop loving me! I am none of these things!' is incredibly powerful. This, along with tracks like 'From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea', appears to have formed the template for the later 'Bloodflowers' album.

Overall, this is an incredible album, frequently emotionally devastating, but occasionally with a true ray of sunshine. It sits among The Cure's absolute best as a total classic, dark and powerful, majestic and beautiful, touching, affirming music.