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Staring at the Sea: The Singles | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Label: Elektra / Wea Catalog: Music Release date: 1990-10-25 Media: Audio CD discs number: 1 Ean: 0075596047722 Upc: 075596047722  Tip: compare prices with similar music CDsArtist:
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| amazon.com |
Availability: in 24 hours Current discount:21% off !! |
$14.99 | |
| used | 27 used offers, as low as... | $3.60 | see more used offers |
| all new | 18 thirdParty new offers, as low as... | $9.53 | see more ThirdParty new offers |
| collectible | 9 collectible offers, as low as... | $18.98 | see more collectible new offers |
| Album tracks: (17) |
 Killing An Arab 10:15 Saturday Night Boys Don't Cry Jumping Someone Else's Train A Forest Play For Today | Primary Other Voices Charlotte Sometimes The Hanging Garden Let's Go To Bed The Walk | The Lovecats The Caterpillar In Between Days Close To Me A Night Like This |
| Professional Review: |
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Big and moody, Staring at the Sea compiles some hits and near misses of these excavators of the dark soul. Beginning with their earliest hits--the sparse "Killing an Arab," the aptly tedious "10:15 Saturday Night," and the charming "Boys Don't Cry"--this collection stops before the comparative giddiness of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Musicians first, brooding art types second, The Cure's unique instrumentation doesn't get the credit it rightfully deserves. The thrashy, trash-can break in "Jumping Someone Else's Train," the sprightly synthesized recorder of "Close to Me," and the techno-pop disco lines in "Let's Go to Bed" and "The Walk" are downright brilliant in their effectiveness and simplicity. A string of money shots if ever there was one. --Steve Gdula |
| User Reviews: |
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Written on March 7, 2006 Summary: Great album, typically The Cure Great album from one of the icon groups of the 80s. All their great titles are included, to the notable exception of "Just Like Heaven". Thank God for iTunes!  Written on March 3, 2006 Summary: Starts and finishes strong, sags in the middle a bit I come to this from the perspective of someone who "discovered" The Cure with GALORE, their compilation of latter-day singles, and then decided to check out their earlier material. Longtime fans like to deride this CD reissue as lacking because the B-sides that were included on the original vinyl and cassette release aren't here. (Those can be found on rarities set JOIN THE DOTS) The comp starts strong with tunes from their US debut BOY'S DON'T CRY. It's after that the quality drops off a bit. "A Forest" and "Play for Today" are non-descript. "Primary" is tuneful but the production buries the hook. The disc doesn't hit its stride again fully until "Let's Go to Bed" after which it's pretty much a surge of pop-laden alt rock until the closing strains of "A Night Like This". HIGHLIGHTS: "Boys Don't Cry" is still effervescent pop as Smith's soaring guitar belies his inner turmoil ("So I try to laugh about it/Cover it all up with lies/I try to laugh about it/Hiding the tears in my eyes/'cause boys don't cry") but I have to admit it sounds a bit muffled here for some reason. The cymbals don't ring as much as they seemed to on the BOYS DON'T CRY (ASIN B000002H5V) disc. Maybe some tinkering during remastering? "Jumping Someone Else's Train" castigates trend-followers. ("It won't take you long To learn the new smile/You'll have to adapt Or you'll be out of style") A closing section where drums and handclaps imitate the clicking rhythm of an engine on the rails is especially clever."Let's Go to Bed" has a "doo doo doo doo doo doo doo" dare-ya-not-to-sing-along chorus. "The Love Cats" finds Smith playing at the fringes of jazz with a walking bass line and scatting as Smith yowls and hisses his way through the song like its title players. "The Walk" is about the literal girl of Robert's dreams (or at least that's MY interpretation of lines like "Visiting time is over/And so we walk away/And both play dead then cry out loud/Why we always cry this way?" It all seems to be the innermost heartcry of the impossibly shy.) Don't ask me what it's about but the faux flute and horns that embellish "Close to Me" make it irresistible. LOWS: "The Forest" is bathed in reverb and clearly wants to be "deep" but lines like "I'm lost in a forest/All alone the girl was never there/It's always the same/I'm running towards nothing again and again and again and again" feel more like affectation than affection. "Charlotte Sometimes"' insistent "Charlotte sometimes" counterpoint becomes tedious over the course of the song. BOTTOM LINE: This one's more for the diehard new wave listener and an intermediate Cure fan who's already got GALORE, DISINTEGRATION and WISH and is getting curious about the band's earlier material. 3 1/2 stars  Written on December 22, 2005 Summary: Missing so much The original tape (yes I said tape as in cassette - released in 1986) had all of these songs merely as Side A. Side B had 12 bonus b-side tracks which can be found on Join the Dots, released 19 years later. Until then, the analog version of Staring at the Sea was the only place to find such tracks as New Day, I'm Cold, Throw Your Foot and and Mr. Pink Eyes other than tracking down the original 45s and 12" records. This CD is The Cure in it's prime, but for an old fan feels like only buying half an album - and only the half I already have at that. If you want the B side of the tape, go buy Join the Dots instead. Written on December 13, 2005 Summary: Learning Your A's, B's and Cure This is a great start for someone looking to get into the early Cure. You can't get any better than this...right? Well actually you can, the cassette tape had all the A-sides mentioned (17 songs), but also had just as many B-sides jammed into that little bad boy. All the songs on this cassette version are now released on the "Connect the Dots" box set. I only gave this 4 stars because the cassette version is worth a fiver. Enjoy!!!  Written on December 2, 2005 Summary: Give this another listen 13 years after you first got it The Cure have changed their sound three distinct times, in my opinion: post-punk, slow goth synth and finally, prozac'd happy pop. When I first started liking The Cure, I liked "Fascination Street" and the light, airy Kiss Me...-era hit, "Just Like Heaven". As I got older and delved into substance use in college, I realized how great Disintegration sounded as an entire album stoned out of my head. However, the obsession of Disintegration and misery was short-lived for me. Now I am so sick of the heavy, synthed-to-death songs on that record, as well as its polar opposite, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. But I totally understand why moody people will always love Disintegration. With that said, I cannot tell you how much I regret skipping over the first eight songs on this record, Staring at the Sea(or Standing on a Beach if you want to get really technical), for the first 10 or so years that I had it. "Killing an Arab" and "10:15 Saturday Night" are great, but songs 5-9 are the cream of the crop, the best songs The Cure composed (although "Plastic Passion" is another great song in The Cure's post-punk era, and is inexplicably left off this record). For one thing, rumbling lead bass ala Peter Hook of Joy Division is prevelent on "A Forest" "Primary" and "Other Voices". The beginnings of the lush, atmospheric Cure are here ("Other Voices" and "The Forest"), but these four songs with minimal guitar and synths really display the young, criminally underrated talent of (the drummer), Simon Gallup and Smith in his early rhythm-driven arrangements. Robert Smith apparently had much more going on in his life back then as well, the song lyrics are so much more interesting on songs like "Play for Today", which recently rang so true to me (constantly analyzing/criticizing/trying to resolve a doomed relationship), and "So What" (which sounds like Smith cussing out the TV; however its actually on Boys Don't Cry). Everything Smith wrote after this era seemed to dissolve into the same theme "...kissing in the rain/crying forever on nights like this..." Boring. And lastly, the brilliant, clubby "Charlotte Sometimes" is track 9. The Cure made a video for it but for some reason never released it on any of their studio albums, although I believe on one of the recent re-issues "Charlotte Sometimes" is present. |
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| Price comparison |
 Staring at the Sea: The Singles |
 Galore |
 Disintegration |
 Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me |
 Wish |
 The Cure - Greatest Hits |
| Our price | $14.99 | $14.99 | $14.49 | - | $13.99 | $9.99 |
| List price | $18.98 | $18.98 | $18.98 | $18.98 | $18.98 | $18.98 |
| Lowest used price | $3.60 | $2.44 | $3.73 | $2.49 | $0.86 | $4.51 |
| Lowest new price | $9.53 | $6.36 | $5.51 | $6.36 | $10.95 | $5.69 |
| Collectible price | $18.98 | $32.99 | $18.98 | $18.98 | $18.98 | - |
| Catalog | Music | Music | Music | Music | Music | Music |
| Release date | 1990-10-25 | 1997-10-28 | 1989-05-01 | 1990-10-25 | 1992-04-21 | 2001-11-13 |
| Media | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD | Audio CD |
| discs number | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Ean | 0075596047722 | 0075596211727 | 0075596085526 | 0075596073721 | 0075596130929 | 0075596272629 |
| Upc | 075596047722 | 075596211727 | 075596085526 | 075596073721 | 075596130929 | 075596272629 |
| Link to shop* (opens in a new window) | BUY IT NOW* | BUY IT NOW* | BUY IT NOW* | BUY IT NOW* | BUY IT NOW* | BUY IT NOW* |
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