The Cure - Staring at the Sea: The Singles

The Cure was formed in 1976 at the height of the punk movement and have gone through countless incarnations since. The band is essentially guitarist/vocalist Robert Smith and a revolving cast who are still making records and playing live today. However, they stopped making good music in the late 80's. Their best studio record, was 1985's, The Head on the Door, their sixth album.

I am not a huge fan of compilation records, but unfortunately there is no way around it with The Cure. This is a band that made a lot of great and varied music over the years, so you can't latch on to one of their records, and the compilation Staring at the Sea: The Singles is excellent. It has all the radio friendly favorites from the later part of their career: "In between Days" and "Close to Me" as well as the more sparse songs from the early punk days: "Killing an Arab" and "Boys Don't Cry." This is the band that invented Goth and they still sound great today.