Label: Rhino
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Three Imaginary Boys
When Rhino issued a most excellent box set of Cure B-sides and rarities earlier this year, it started me on a yearlong binge of listening to Pornography and The Top. Now, with this fantastic reissue of Three Imaginary Boys, the band's 1979 debut album and the first in a series of expanded album reissues from The Cure, I fear I might be lost in Robert Smith's hair by this time next year. 3IB was never given a proper release in America; Rhino does the right thing by appending a whopping 20 tracks onto the original album's 13. "Fire in Cairo," "So What," "10:15 Saturday Night" (which may be the creepiest single ever) and the other punk-jittery bits of darkness are all here, as well as a stack of demos and live cuts. However, what seals the deal for this package is the inclusion of several outtakes like "Winter" that were intended for inclusion on the original album but scrapped by their label boss in favor of other, lesser tracks like "Foxy Lady." The live tracks get a bit brittle, but by and large, this is an awesome representation of an underappreciated record.
