Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (Remastered Version) – Sean McCarthy

The last few weeks on the Billboard charts have been the stuff of Advil and Maalox for record executives. Dreamgirls was able to bag the top album slot by selling 66,000 copies. File sharing and free customized Internet radio stations certainly haven’t helped push overall album sales. In order to get people to buy CDs again, you can either go after older audiences, who are statistically more likely to buy a CD rather than download it, or go after the music geeks by repackaging already-purchased albums and filling it to the gills with goodies.

You have Pavement’s Slanted And Enchanted, right? Well, that’s all well and good, but do you have the deluxe, definitive, double-CD version of Slanted And Enchanted? Hell, at least Slanted And Enchanted took almost 15 years to get a double-disc treatment. Cat Power’s The Greatest took mere months before a newer version was released.

This brings us to 2006’s remastered version of the Cure’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. If you don’t have this album, by all means, the remastered version is the way to go. It’s handsomely packaged; the second disc isn’t your typical B-sides release, as it comprises early studio demos of 12 of the 18 songs on Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and live performances of the remaining six. In addition to its packaging and bonus material, the liner notes are truly revealing.

Writer Johnny Black’s account of recording Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me details the ups and downs of recording of the 1987 hit album. You get the downs (the friction between the band and soon-to-be-departing keyboardist Lol Tolhurst, the rock star dilemma of trying to find solitude while recording an album but having the press camped outside your hotel), the ups (finding a perfect recording studio, owned by French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier, that had its own vineyard) to the downs again (having to leave the recording studio before the album was finished since someone else was set to use the studio, Smith’s writer’s block, partly stemming from being separated from the band toward the end of the recording).

As for the album itself, if you haven’t already purchased Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, it’s one of those “must purchase” college albums. Already superstars in their native land, the Cure’s mix of pop, goth and rock helped shape college rock and alternative music in the U.S. However, the Cure always seemed to be a bit more ambitious than many of their alternative rock peers. While groups like the Pixies and the Replacements were releasing albums that were eking in at 40 minutes, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was a massive double-album that topped 70 minutes with virtually no filler.

As the liner notes state, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was a collaborative effort. Bassist Simon Gallup’s ear for pop made the 70 minutes pass with little effort. Their biggest hit from the album, “Just Like Heaven,” was voted the Best Alternative Video of All Time from MTV’s 120 Minutes. Guitarist Porl Thompson and drummer Boris Williams supplied the spooky atmospherics that retained the Cure’s goth cred, specifically in songs like “Torture” and “Fight.”

Robert Smith’s lyrics and high-pitched mope leaves bands like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy owing more than a few royalties. “My skin so tight it screams / and screams and screams / and screams for more” and “‘I hate these people staring at me / make them go away from me!’” are your typical fare for Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

For those who initially dismissed The Cure as “sad bastard music” but are curious as to the band’s lasting impact, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is a great starter album. Disintegration may have been their masterpiece, but Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me wins out on scale and ambition. The same thing could be said for the remastered version, as the extras only enhance the listening experience.

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