Wish by The Cure

Wish, the Cure's ninth album, came out on 21 April 1992 on Fiction Records in the UK and Elektra in the US, and it's the sound of the gloom merchants letting the sun in, at least some of the time. Robert Smith produced it with David M. Allen at The Manor Studio, and the record swings between shimmering, guitar-heavy pop and long, dark, swirling dirges, often in the space of a couple of songs.

"Friday I'm in Love" is pure giddy candy, all jangling guitars and a bouncing, carefree melody, the Cure at their most openly joyful. "High" floats on a lilting, dreamy groove, "A Letter to Elise" is a bittersweet, aching slow-burner, and "Open" crashes in with a thick, churning wall of guitars and a mood that's anything but sunny. That push and pull between the light and the dark is what makes it work.

It became the band's biggest commercial success, going straight in at the top of the UK chart and at number two in the US. On 25 November 2022 it returned as a remastered 30th-anniversary deluxe edition, stuffed with previously unreleased demos, the Lost Wishes instrumental cassette and remixes.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.