Album · The Cure
Three Imaginary Boys by The Cure
Three Imaginary Boys is an album by The Cure, released in 1979. 5 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 19 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “10:15 Saturday Night”, on 12 lists with a best position of #43.
Three Imaginary Boys, the Cure's debut, came out on Fiction on 8 May 1979, and it's as spare and skinny as the Crawley band who made it. Chris Parry produced it at Morgan Studios and left plenty of air around Robert Smith's scratchy guitar and nervy voice, with Lol Tolhurst on drums and Michael Dempsey in the lineup.
This is post-punk with the fat trimmed off. "10:15 Saturday Night" ticks and drips with bored-teenager dread, "Fire in Cairo" is pure itchy pop, "Accuracy" and "Meat Hook" twitch and jerk, and the title track drifts off somewhere moodier, a hint of the darkness to come. It got to number 44 in Britain, while America, Canada and Australia got a reworked compilation with a different running order and a new name, Boys Don't Cry.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Three Imaginary Boys on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10:15 Saturday Night | 12 | #43 | – | 1979–2026 | |
| 2 | Fire in Cairo | 4 | #208 | – | 1991–2023 | |
| 3 | Three Imaginary Boys | 1 | #933 | – | 2003 | |
| 4 | Meat Hook | 1 | #1421 | – | 2003 | |
| 5 | Accuracy | 1 | #1885 | – | 2003 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.