Robert Smith was losing his mind, or maybe he was just bored of being the "Pope of Mope." By 1987, The Cure had already conquered the dark, dripping walls of gothic rock with Pornography and flirted with synth-pop radio via The Head on the Door. But they hadn't done everything. Not yet. The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me wasn't just an album; it was a sprawling, messy, psychedelic explosion that proved a band could be everything to everyone without losing its soul. It's seventy-four minutes of chaotic brilliance.
Honestly, it shouldn't work.
You’ve got the opening track, "The Kiss," which is basically a six-minute middle finger to anyone expecting a radio edit. It starts with this grueling, wah-wah drenched guitar workout that feels like it’s trying to drill a hole through your skull before Robert even opens his mouth. It’s aggressive. It's ugly. Then, suddenly, you’re listening to "Catch," a delicate, violin-laced pop song about a girl who used to fall down a lot. The whiplash is real. This record is a double album that refuses to pick a lane, and that’s exactly why people are still obsessed with it nearly four decades later.
The Chaos of Miraval Studios
To understand the sound of The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, you have to understand where they were. They decamped to Studio Miraval in the South of France. It’s this gorgeous, secluded vineyard estate. Sounds relaxing, right? Not really. The band was basically living in a permanent state of semi-inebriation and creative frenzy. Robert Smith has famously noted in various interviews—including the extensive liner notes for the 2006 Deluxe Edition—at the time, the band was "functioning on a very high level of togetherness." They were a unit.
They weren't just writing songs; they were capturing moods.
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Boris Williams was on drums, Simon Gallup on bass, Porl Thompson on guitar/keys, and Lol Tolhurst was... well, Lol was there, though his contributions were becoming increasingly sidelined by his struggles with alcohol. This lineup had a specific chemistry. It allowed them to pivot from the funked-up brass sections of "Why Can't I Be You?" to the shimmering, druggy haze of "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep."
The Breakthrough of Just Like Heaven
We have to talk about "Just Like Heaven." It is, quite simply, one of the greatest pop songs ever written. Even if you hate "alternative" music, you know that opening bass line and that soaring synth hook. It’s the centerpiece of The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, and it changed the band's trajectory in America forever.
Interestingly, Robert Smith has stated that the melody came to him after a weekend in Beachy Head. He wanted to write something that captured the physical sensation of a sudden gasp—that moment when your breath catches in your throat. It’s structurally perfect. The way the instruments layer in one by one is a masterclass in tension and release. For a band that spent years being told they were too depressing for the mainstream, "Just Like Heaven" was the ultimate vindication. It peaked at number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, which doesn't sound like much today, but in 1987, for an indie-adjacent UK band, it was a massive cultural breakthrough.
Why the Sprawl Matters
Most bands would have trimmed this down to a tight ten-song tracklist. If they had, it would have been a better "product," but a worse piece of art. The filler—if you even want to call it that—is where the magic lives. "Snake Pit" is a repetitive, droning nightmare that feels like it's circling a drain. "Hot Hot Hot!!!" is Robert Smith trying to do a Prince-style funk jam, which is objectively hilarious and somehow also incredibly cool.
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The album is a Rorschach test.
If you want the "Goth Cure," you listen to "The Torture" or "All I Want." If you want the "Pop Cure," you go for "How Beautiful You Are," which was actually inspired by a prose poem by Charles Baudelaire called "The Eyes of the Poor." Smith took a 19th-century meditation on social class and turned it into a jangly guitar track. That’s the level of intellectual depth we're dealing with here. It’s not just "boys don't cry" anymore; it's a sophisticated exploration of longing and the failure of empathy.
The Production Aesthetic
Dave Allen, who co-produced the record with Smith, deserves a lot of credit for the "expensive" sound. Unlike the claustrophobic production of their early 80s work, The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me sounds huge. The drums are gated and punchy, the acoustic guitars are bright, and Robert’s vocals are pushed right to the front. It’s an album meant to be heard on big speakers. It’s cinematic.
The Legacy of the "Kiss" Era
When you look at the discography, this album sits as the bridge to Disintegration. Without the commercial success and the sheer creative confidence gained during the Kiss Me sessions, they probably wouldn't have had the freedom to make their 1989 magnum opus. It gave them the leverage.
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It’s also the album that defined their visual identity for a generation. The close-up of Robert Smith’s smeared red lipstick on the cover—it's iconic. It’s garish. It's beautiful. It perfectly mirrors the music inside: excessive, colorful, and a little bit distorted.
Critics at the time were somewhat divided. Some felt it was too long. Rolling Stone gave it a somewhat lukewarm review initially, but time has been incredibly kind to it. It’s now frequently cited as a high point of 80s alternative rock. It sold over a million copies in the US alone, which was unthinkable for a band that started out playing tiny clubs in Crawley.
Key Tracks to Revisit
If you haven't listened to the whole thing in a while, skip the hits for a second. Go straight to "The Snakepit." Turn it up loud. Feel that weird, undulating rhythm. Then jump to "A Thousand Hours." It’s a gorgeous, melancholic ballad that often gets overshadowed by the bigger singles, but it contains some of Smith’s most vulnerable vocal work.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Listener
To truly appreciate The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, you shouldn't treat it like a background playlist. It demands a bit more of you.
- Listen in sequence: The album was designed as a double LP. There is a deliberate flow from the aggressive opening to the more atmospheric side four. Don't shuffle it on your first re-listen.
- Explore the Baudelaire connection: Read "The Eyes of the Poor" before listening to "How Beautiful You Are." It adds a layer of heartbreak to the lyrics that you might have missed if you just thought it was a breakup song.
- Check out the B-sides: The Kiss Me era was incredibly prolific. Tracks like "A Chain of Flowers" and "Snow in Summer" (found on the Join the Dots box set or the Deluxe Edition) are just as good as anything on the main album.
- Watch the videos: The music videos directed by Tim Pope for this album—especially "Lullaby" later on, but specifically "Why Can't I Be You?" and "Catch"—are essential to understanding the band's sense of humor. They stopped taking themselves so seriously, which actually made the music feel more honest.
The record remains a testament to what happens when a band stops trying to please a specific subculture and just decides to play every style of music they enjoy. It’s messy, it’s long, and it’s occasionally indulgent. But in a world of algorithmic, two-minute "vibes," a seventy-four-minute psychedelic odyssey is exactly what we need.