Pitchfork: The Cure Offer 4xCD Rarities Box in 2004; Entire Catalog To Be Remastered with Bonus Discs

The Cure Offer 4xCD Rarities Box in 2004; Entire Catalog To Be Remastered with Bonus Discs
Was Stallone ever goth? I forget

[Posted Tuesday, November 18th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

The Cure are set to release an astoundingly thorough 71-track, 4xCD box set entitled Join The Dots: B-Sides and Rarities, 1978-2001 (The Fiction Years), on January 27th through reissue kingpins Rhino Records. The four-disc set will feature rare gems covering the band's entire career, compiling all of the b-sides fans have come to love spread out over the discs. The second, third, and fourth discs will feature various and assorted rarities. Among the nuggets therein will be covers of tracks by Jimi Hendrix, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, and three (count 'em) versions of the Doors' "Hello, I Love You." There will also be offerings from the soundtracks to such cinematic masterpieces as The Crow, The X-Files, and, well, Judge Dredd.

According to frontman Robert Smith, the band has always made a conscious effort to offer unique b-sides and never resorted to the "cynicism" of other bands who just "put a cover on the b-side, or slapped something together that was filler." Smith should know, since he had to dig through more than 4,000 tapes of material to put the collection together. Divided up more or less chronologically, disc one will feature b-sides from 1978-1987, disc two will have B-sides and promo material from 1988-1992, disc three will include b-sides and soundtrack hits from 1993-1996, and disc four will wrap the whole thing up with various songs from 1997-2001. Tracklist:

Disc one:
01 10:15 Saturday Night
02 Plastic Passion
03 Pillbox Tales
04 Do The Hansa
05 I'm Cold
06 Another Journey By Train
07 Descent
08 Splintered In Her Head
09 Lament
10 Just One Kiss
11 The Dream
12 The Upstairs Room
13 Speak My Language
14 Mr. Pink Eyes
15 Happy the Man
16 Throw Your Foot
17 New Day
18 The Exploding Boy
19 A Few Hours After This
20 A Man Inside My Mouth
21 Stop Dead

Disc two:
01 A Japanese Dream
02 Breathe
03 A Chain of Flowers
04 Snow in Summer
05 Sugar Girl
06 Icing Sugar
07 Hey You!!! [extended remix]
08 How Beautiful You Are
09 To the Sky
10 Babble
11 Out of Mind
12 2 Late
13 Fear of Ghosts
14 Hello I Love You
15 Hello I Love You (Slight Return mix)
16 Hello I Love You (Psychedelic mix)
17 Harold and Joe
18 Just Like Heaven (Dizzy mix)
19 Close to Me (Closest mix)

Disc three:
01 The Twilight Garden
02 Play
03 Halo
04 Scared As You
05 The Big Hand
06 A Foolish Arrangement
07 Doing the Unstuck
08 Purple Haze [live]
09 Purple Haze
10 Burn
11 Young Americans
12 Dredd Song
13 It Used To Be Me
14 Ocean
15 Adonais
16 Home

Disc four:
01 Waiting
02 A Pink Dream
03 Strange Attraction (Strange mix)
04 This Is a Lie (Ambient mix)
05 Wrong Number (P2P mix)
06 World in My Eyes
07 More Than This
08 Out of This World (Steve Osbourne and Paul Oakenfold mix)
09 Maybe Someday [acoustic mix]
10 Coming Up
11 Signal to Noise [acoustic version]
12 Signal to Noise
13 Just Say Yes [live acoustic version]
14 Just Say Yes (Curve mix)
15 A Forest [featuring Earl Slick]

Also worth mentioning is the 88-page booklet featuring track-by-track commentary by Smith, along with many never-before-seen photos. One of the more surprising photos is of a makeup-less Smith laughing during a touching duet with Bobby McFerrin on his 1988 hit "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Perhaps most interestingly, however, the band will be remastering and re-releasing their entire catalog to date over the next 18 months, with each disc featuring an extra disc's worth of material in the form of live tracks, rare tracks, and other unreleased material. That's a lotta Cure, even if you're sick enough to need the whole regimen. Finally, the band is also in the planning stages for the follow up to their 2000 album Bloodflowers, with the hopes of a summer 2004 release.