Album · The Cure
The Head on the Door by The Cure
The Head on the Door is an album by The Cure, released in 1985. 9 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 182 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Close to Me”, on 83 lists with a best position of #11.
The Head on the Door, the Cure's sixth album, came out on Fiction in 1985, and it's the sound of Robert Smith seeing just how many things one band could do. It was the first Cure record on which Smith wrote every song on his own, and he co-produced it with David M. Allen. The band had a new look too: Boris Williams took over the drums, while Simon Gallup came back on bass and Porl Thompson on guitar after years away.
What they made is a grab bag of styles that somehow hangs together as a pop record. "In Between Days" came first, a breathless, strummy rush of guitar that hit number 15 in the UK. "Close to Me" is all hushed breath and clicking, claustrophobic rhythm, "Kyoto Song" drifts by like a fever dream, "The Baby Screams" and "Push" surge and churn, and "Sinking" settles into a slow, heavy fog. Smith's voice skips from giddy to wrecked and back without missing a beat.
The variety paid off. The album carried the Cure to a much wider audience across Europe and North America, and in Britain it became their biggest success to that point, crashing into the albums chart at number seven.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from The Head on the Door on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Close to Me#323 of all time | 83 | #11 | – | 1985–2026 | |
| 2 | In Between Days#354 of all time | 81 | #3 | – | 1985–2026 | |
| 3 | A Night Like This | 9 | #6 | – | 1985–2007 | |
| 4 | Push | 3 | #119 | – | 1988–2003 | |
| 5 | Screw | 1 | #392 | – | 2003 | |
| 6 | Kyoto Song | 2 | #1481 | – | 2002–2003 | |
| 7 | The Baby Screams | 1 | #1066 | – | 2003 | |
| 8 | Sinking | 1 | #787 | – | 1991 | |
| 9 | Six Different ways | 1 | #1964 | – | 2003 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.