Staff pick of the week...
This week...Jared picks it!

Artist: The Cure Title: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me Price: $15.50 CD	Tracks on this CD:
	The Kiss
	Catch
	Torture
	If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
	Why Can't I Be You
	How Beautiful You Are
	The Snake Pit
	Just Like Heaven
	All I Want
	Hot Hot Hot!!!
	One More Time
	Like Cockatoos
	Icing Sugar
	The Perfect Girl
	A Thousand Hours
	Shiver and Shake
	Fight

It was the first (for me) great Cure album...
It was the last (for them) great Cure album...

1987...and I didn't even have my driver's license yet. I was only very briefly (1 song, "Grinding Halt") familiar with the Cure from listening to my uncle's beat up copy of the Times Square soundtrack. I was passed a taped copy of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by a friend. I'm not sure what the initial attraction (to the record, not the friend) was. I was at the tail end of my Punk Rock Phase(tm) and was looking for something new. I think it was the screaming guitar that opened "The Kiss." Actually, I'm pretty sure that it was the screaming guitar that opened "The Kiss."

That, and the record contained on of the Top 10 Songs Ever Written ("Just Like Heaven"). How can you go wrong?

Of course, I went a little overboard and became Cure-obsessed, working through their back-catalog (and every bootleg I could get my hands on) with a fervor. This fixation lasted well into my freshman year at college, when one too many frat boys sporting teased hair and eyeliner tried to pick up my girlfriend. That, and the fact that Disintegration sucked, caused me to give up...

But I still hold a spot in my musical being for this record. It may not have been as gloomy as their earlier efforts, but for me it was the beginning...