Track Listing

1. Inbetween Days
2. Kyoto Song - David M. Allen, Howard Gray, Robert Smith, The Cure
3. The Blood
4. Six Different Ways
5. Push - David M. Allen, Howard Gray, Robert Smith, The Cure
6. The Baby Screams
7. Close To Me
8. A Night Like This
9. Screw
10. Sinking

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3552 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 38 minutes

Customer Reviews

Start Here
Still the best entry point to appreciating The Cure in my view, The Head on the Door covers all Cure bases, from catchy pop (In Between Days, Close to Me) to doom-laden, phased broodscapes (A Night Like This, Sinking). Many of the songs could act as signposts to their other albums - like Sinking? Try Disintegration. The angular pop of Six Different Ways or Kyoto Song? Next stop The Top and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. Close to Me? Japanese Whispers or the Greatest Hits. The perfect poprock of Push and In Between Days? How about Wish?

Not everything is great about the album: A couple of the songs now sound a bit dated and arch (The Blood, Kyoto Song). Others were always a little thin (Baby Screams, Screw). Push and Kyoto Song always sounded better live, minus the now jarringly bright mid-80s drum sounds. And yet the album works well as a whole - Close to Me sounds far more refreshing coming after Baby Screams than after, say, In Between Days on the Greatest Hits. Likewise, Screw giving way to Sinking merely heightens the foreboding and menace of the brilliant album closer.

The remastering tidies up the previously murky sound - although some may question whether murkier is better on, say, Sinking.

Although I have the deluxe version, for me, the extra CD adds little to what I think remains the best balance Robert Smith ever struck between his different ambitions, moods and styles.

One of the best Cure albums, but that's faint praise
I don't think The Cure made good albums. They just sound too samey and are boring to listen to. I can hear merit in some of the albums, and I don't think they're technically bad, but I can't say I enjoy them either. I find my attention drifts away after about three songs as they are boring and repetitive. The only Cure CDs I truly like are hybrids were their signature sound has been mutated with another genre - Greatest Hits, their sound mutated with pop, and their self-titled twelfth album were heavy metal has been added.

Head On The Door is technically a good 37 minute album but again I found it to be boring and tiring to listen to even though it has some very strong songs on it. I would say it's their second best album after the self-titled album released in 2003.


1. "In Between Days" - 2:57 (5 out of 5 stars)
Pure pop with melancholy lyrics. It was a hit single.

2. "Kyoto Song" - 4:16 (4 stars)
Mid-tempo track with strong lyrics. One of the instruments in particular reminds me of Brian Eno's "Fat Lady of Limbourg" as performed by jazz-pop band Shivaree on their album Who's Got Trouble?

3. "The Blood" - 3:43 (3 stars)
Slight Mexican mariachi guitar sound. Good song but unremarkable. Would probably have fitted better onto The Glove's side-project album.

4. "Six Different Ways" - 3:18 (3 stars)
Light funky pop with lots of odd sounds. Reminds me slightly of David Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes".

5. "Push" - 4:31 (5 stars)
Surging rock guitars and has a long instrumental opening. Lyrically not up to much but that's irrelevant as the music rocks out and sounds great. At first I mistook it for being one of the two hit singles from the album, I had to check the tracklist to confirm that it was an obscure album track.

6. "The Baby Screams" - 3:44 (5 stars)
Great song with each instrument doing a lot of virtuoso(?) stuff. A lot happens in the song.

7. "Close to Me" - 3:23 (5 stars)
A hit single and one of their signature songs. Perhaps the sweetest thing they ever recorded. Has distinctive keyboards and what sounds like a xylophone.

8. "A Night Like This" - 4:16 (4 stars)
Big guitar sound on this very solid song. The saxophone on the second half is the highlight of the track. Has a slight whiff of mid 70's Pink Floyd to it.

9. "Screw" - 2:38 (3 stars)
Not much of a song beyond the distinctive bass sound that it appears to have been written around.

10. "Sinking" - 4:57 (3 stars)
Melodic song with the bass as the lead instrument.


I like to make EP playlists out of albums on my iPod. Tracks 2, 5, 6 and 8 made the cut (tracks 1 and 7, the singles, are covered by Greatest Hits).

pop trash
people always rate this as their favoirite cure album. it could be described as ' the cure do new romantic' but they do it better than all of their comtemporaries (Maybe not Adam Ant). but it is let down by mediocre tracks that dont have a great deal of meaning behind them and even less emotion. It is the cure, but it is almost like a singles collection really. Push and Six Different Ways are just pop ditties. The only song with any depth is really 'sinking' and its hardly depth.

That said - I ADORE this album. As a pop album it is perfect! As a cure album ... it seems to be lacking something.