• Reissue
• Remastered by Robert Smith
• 180 gram heavyweight vinyl
• Printed dust jacket with lyrics and credits
• Plain white plastic-lined paper dust jacket included
  
  

The Cure released The Top in 1984 as their fourth studio album, arriving during a pivotal moment when the band was consolidating their command of darkly textured post-punk and new wave territory. Following the success of Pornography, this record saw Robert Smith and company refining their approach—less relentlessly bleak, more expansive in arrangement—while maintaining the psychological density that defined their best work. The Top stands as a crucial bridge in their catalog, demonstrating their range across psychedelic undercurrents, propulsive rhythmic frameworks, and the gothic sensibilities that would come to define their later trajectory.

The album presents a sequence of precisely constructed pieces: "Shake Dog Shake" opens with hypnotic momentum, while "Bird Mad Girl" delivers angular, jerking guitar interplay over Smith's fractured vocal delivery. "Wailing Wall" builds atmospheric pressure through restrained instrumentation before "Give Me It" pivots toward more straightforward rock propulsion. "Dressing Up" and "The Caterpillar" showcase the band's ability to sustain tension through repetition and textural variation rather than dynamic peaks. Throughout, the record maintains a cool, sometimes unsettling emotional register—neither melodic accessibility nor avant-garde opacity, but something deliberately poised between them.

This 2016 reissue restores The Top to 180-gram vinyl, remastered with Smith's direct involvement in the process. The package includes a printed dust jacket with full lyrics and credits alongside original artwork, accompanied by a white inner sleeve. This pressing brings clarity to the album's intricate layering—particularly the suspended, crystalline guitars and the precise drum programming that gave the original its distinctive character—making it the preferred format for those seeking the full textural scope of the record.

Tracklist:

A1. Shake Dog Shake
A2. Bird Mad Girl
A3. Wailing Wall
A4. Give Me It
A5. Dressing Up
B1. The Caterpillar
B2. Piggy In The Mirror
B3. The Empty World
B4. Bananafishbones
B5. The Top