The Cure
Phases and Stages
Reviewed by Michael Chamy, Fri., Feb. 20, 2004
The Cure
Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001 (Fiction / Elektra / Rhino) For any other band, it's a crazy idea: a 4-CD box set of B-sides. It can be opined, however, that the measure of a band's greatness is directly related to the quality of their B-sides, those elusive tracks hiding on Australian 12-inches and Belgian plexi-discs. Seventy tracks and not one signature tune may be stretching it, though. Wisely, Join the Dots is enhanced by a lavish 76-page book, full of tales from Robert Smith about each song and the ever-evolving moods and band lineups that produced them. It's one glossy, colorful page after another with bright album covers, wispy cursive lettering, and 101 permutations of the Robert Smith Coif. Die-hards have already complained about Dots' dearth of unreleased tracks, which the band is saving for a catalog reissue campaign later this year. Still, there's plenty of value in having all these hard-to-find oddities, many of them dazzling, in one place. "Out of Mind" is the great, lost Disintegration track, the floating, uptempo sister to the album's title song. "To the Sky" is a gorgeous last dance at the edge of the deep green sea, and "A Forest"-like "Just One Kiss" stands toe-to-toe with the Standing on a Beach classics. Sizzlers "10:15 Saturday Night" and "Plastic Passion," along with the throbbing "Burn" off The Crow soundtrack, bring familiarity to the proceedings, while wonderful surprises abound in atmospheric tearjerkers ("Breathe," "Scared As You") and vulnerable pop ditties ("Sugar Girl," "How Beautiful You Are"). Amid the usual gallery of half-baked ideas, spotty covers, (Hendrix, Bowie, the Doors, Depeche Mode), and even the dreaded drum machines, there lies one hell of a single-disc comp. Any complaint with this set begins and ends with the list price of $54.98. Beyond that, no Cure freak can do without it.