In Between Days vs. Close to Me

haha Head ON the door that is

off to a good start this poll

close to me, especially the version with horns

aaah my two favourite Cure singles... I still remember buying the 45s as a kid (and I still have them somewhere I believe).
Hard to make a choice since I still love them both but I may go with IBD. Simply marvelous.

feel like IBD is the bigger song, but CtM is just such a perfect little production

great poll!
close to me
never really vibed with ibd despite being big pop cure fan
but always loved the weird anxiety bop of close to me
also for the clip and the way it closes out the correct (ie cassette) version of standing on a beach

anxiety bop, good one!

Close to Me also feels like a song that many since have tried to emulate

Just listened to them and yeah, very hard to choose !
The production on CTM is fantastic, indeed, and maybe more specifically Cure (IBD is very close to New Order...).

Was gonna say exactly that. IBD is a giddy blast but CTM could not have been made by anyone else. Beachy Head video is definitive too. I love everything they did up to (parts of) KMKMKM but that single is the most Cure thing of all.

close to me, especially the version with horns

― in places all over the world, real stuff be happening (voodoo chili), Tuesday, May 17, 2022 4:43 AM

"Close to Me" is probably better but I voted for "In Between Days" because it's more nostalgic.

Both are brilliant of course but this has to be "Close to Me."

Good poll. Very hard to chose. Both really great pop songs. Both fun to dance to. The panting throughout CTM is a nice touch and I love the added horns as well. That's when they broke big over here and how I found out about them and became obsessed.
I can't make up my mind. Can I vote for the whole Head On The Door instead ?

How 'bout "Close to Me" versus "A Night Like This"?

I can't think of "Close to Me" without thinking of this dumb song a friend once sent me many moons ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2A0lq6E2E

xpost So long as you don't suggest "Push" because then DJP will appear breathing fire.

"Push" vs "Domino Dancing"

Tough call. I went with "In Between Days." It's a great opening track. I still remember dropping this tape in for the first time and being taken aback by how . . . light (in an emotional sense) it sounded.

IBD for me because hearing it on college radio was my Cure gateway. I already knew "Boys Don't Cry" but was otherwise ignorant of them. IBD got me to buy the album, which is still my favorite Cure LP, so it had a pretty big impact. Love CtM of course, and especially the remix (which I just put on a party playlist this past weekend).

I'm a Close To Me guy myself. It was one of the first non-Disintegration era songs to make its way into my ears when I was in 6th grade. I think I prefer it more because it's so weird and it works! In Between Days is great, but it's a much more conventional arrangement

IBD and Close to Me were pivotal in my early Cure fandom. Alas, they were the Mixed Up versions. :/

Those are great versions!

Lol I was always made to feel less than for liking them by older Cure fans (who of course were all of maybe 17 years old)

hi, i'm overruling that. this is the definitive version and you should not let anyone tell you otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL0db8osUrk

(dancing)

Oh fuck - that's right! I bought the Close to Me Maxi-Single because it had a Just Like Heaven remix on it and I felt myself too poorly to buy KMKMKM itself. The Just Like Heaven mix was dire, but Close To Me was okay.

I have never been a big fan of that Mixed Up album its ok but never really listened to it at the time and that is the only one I have not rebought from the remastered two CD sets that they are still in the middle of.

On the other hand, I do have those Maxi Singles in both the US and UK version. the UK version has an extended version of "Why Can't I Be You" on it instead of "Primary Red Mix" and says it includes a free poster. no idea how that happened as it is one of those CD singles that are about half the size but I probably still have that poster somewhere in my garage. The UK version is numbered too and mine is 05994.

This is a great poll just for these memories!

The extended mix of Fascination Street is still one of my favorite guitar epics, probably introduced me to feedback as a pleasing sound.

Agreed that the Just Like Heaven mix is a considerable letdown.

yep

mixed up?????

more like MIXED BAG!!!!!

(thank you, i know i'm the first person to have ever made that joke. ever.)

12" fascination street mix is an alltimer for me. BRING BACK THE EXTENDED MIX!

speaking of, here's the seldom heard original extended mixes for

"close to me":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussTNG-dyL0

+ "in between days"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoA8BSPK7FM

dance. it's fun.

Close To Me is not what I look for with The Cure, it's In Between Days all the way

i *really* like the mixed up version of 'close to me'

but it's still in between days

I'm against the consensus here, but I far prefer "Close to Me" in its intimate, feverish claustrophobe form rather than party-extrovert.

Close To Me is not what I look for with The Cure, it's In Between Days all the way

I think this is a good and strong argument, CtM is a bit of an outlier while IBD is quite similar to something like Just Like Heaven

but CtM seems to be the poll favorite

THOTD is full of songs that don't sound like Cure songs

CtM 7" version with horns feels more in line with the weird-pop vibe of the previous run of singles/recordings from Japanese Whispers and the Top, which is why IBD, to me, is one of those crucial key left-turn signals from Bob: "We are now occasionally pure pop again. In fact our next recording will be to redo the vocals on Boys Don't Cry. And our next release will be a greatest hits. We are more than just goth (cure phase 1) or just weird (phase 2)." CtM without the horns feels unfinished, a bit like a really good demo. The horns were kept in the Mixed Up version which implies that the horns version is definitive.

I don't like IBD as much as CtM but I appreciate its pop appeal beyond the stunning strum und drum, it feels simultaneously bland and electrifying to me. Besides Temptation and Love Will Tear Us Apart, and maybe lots of other New Order songs like Age of Consent, what other songs does it recall? I have a hard time putting my finger on it. A better Flock of Seagulls? A rewrite of William It Was Really Nothing with all the strangeness and wit removed...

CTM would slot into The Top or even Japanese Whispers pretty smoothly. But yeah Head is their singles compilation from an alternate universe.

oops snap!

Hahaha

What would have been the 4th single off Head, Push? Six Different Ways? It's a stranger album than it seems shelved next to other Cure records. It's like their normal album, but still pretty weird to me, when you focus on Kyoto, Blood, Baby Screams and Screw.

The New Order song IBD recalls is "Dreams Never End" after the long intro if you add a chorus and synths.

Such a taut little album. "Sinking" makes most of Disintegration a redundancy.

Whenever I get a can of soda from a soda machine, it feels like the opening of IBD when the can tumbles and drops.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

brilliant Eazy

“Close to Me” is my favorite Cure song after “A Forest”. Even the Paul Oakenfold remix is good.

“Close to Me” is my favorite Cure song after “A Forest”. Even the Paul Oakenfold remix is good.

"IBD" for me. "Love Cats" and "Let's Go To Bed" had felt like substantial hits here while I was still only half attentive to pop music. "When Doves Cry" marked the point where became actively interested so I was therefore primed for "In Between Days" feeling like an actual big event in real time.

Though they still seemed pretty weird to this 9 (?) year old. Faintly unsettling glow-in-the-dark faces. Lyrics that seemed, at that age, to want to be mistaken for nursery rhyme fodder. The keyboard and vocal melody similarly seemed kinda untutored and willfully stoopid. But that strummy guitar driving it all forward, OMGOMG, etc. I had a delayed "wait, actually, this is brilliant" moment. It basically served as my Indie Aesthetics 101, in other words lol.

xp Agree that "A Forest" is the best ever Cure song, second place for me is harder for me to decide

many xps: dammit, Alfred

many xps: dammit, Alfred

Damn which part?

I'd vote for "Inbetween Days"

Amber&Alice would vote "Close to me" but "only the remix version" says Alice

alice otm.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Surprising result.

BOOOOOOO

(i'll still dance if "in between days" comes on though)

otm

yeah that's surprising

but nice

great turnout!