The Cure for this Christmas Eve Jr. – recorded on May 30, 1984 at the Examinaton Festival in de Moorpoort Netherlands by VPRO, Hilversum.
Just prior to this concert, The Cure had released their fifth album, The Top (in May) and received glowing reviews from the Press and making it to Number 10 on the UK Album charts. The tour culminated in a three-night residency at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.
After recording psychedelic album Blue Sunshine for the one-off project the Glove during summer 1983, Robert Smith finished off the year composing and working on two other studio albums at the same time: The Top for the Cure and Hyæna for Siouxsie and the Banshees. Smith was still the official guitarist of the Banshees while he wrote The Top.
For The Top, Smith teamed up with Cure co-founding member Lol Tolhurst, who had given up drums for keyboards, and new drummer Andy Anderson, who had previously performed on the UK top 10 single “The Lovecats“. Porl Thompson was credited for playing saxophone on “Give Me It”. All the songs are credited to Smith but three tracks were co-written with Tolhurst: “The Caterpillar“, “Bird Mad Girl” and “Piggy in the Mirror”.
The album’s style is eclectic, with Smith using various instruments including violin and flute. “Bird Mad Girl” is in a Spanish style, while “Wailing Wall” contains Middle Eastern undertones. Sounds critic Jack Barron described the opening track “Shake Dog Shake” as “urbane metal”. Chris True of AllMusic noted that while it is “an album obviously recorded under stress, drink, and drugs”, Smith’s ability “to fuse the paranoia and neuroses of former work with his newfound use of pop melody and outside influences” makes the record “a necessary step in the evolution of the band”.
Back to 1984 for a listen.
