Let’s get all the cute little jokes about the title of today’s featured song out of the way first, shall we?  I’ll pause while you do so.

G’head, get ‘em all out.

All done?  Good.  Moving on…

I don’t have to tell any of you guys about the Cure, since you’re all much more knowlegable and have a higher taste level than 90% of the blogosphere.  And you’re all so lovely and good looking and very susceptible to shamless flattery.  The Cure’s American breakthrough probably started in earnest with 1985’s, The Head On The Door, their most accessible and cohesive album up to that point.  While “Let’s Go To Bed” and “The Walk” got a bit of MTV play, the videos for “In Between Days” and “Close To Me” got maximum spins on the channel, probably thanks to their new U.S. record label, Elektra.  Elektra tried to get more mileage out of the album with a third video for “A Night Like This,” accompanied by a new four-song EP called “Quadpus.”

“Quadpus” is a strange little artifact, two songs (”A Night Like This” and “Close To Me”) alongside two b-sides, including one of my favorite Cure non-album tracks, “A Man Inside My Mouth” (download).  The track is a sort of throwback to the strange little singles like “The Walk” the Cure released when reduced to the duo of Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst.  And in typical Cure fashion, the lyrics can be about any number of things — a pregnant woman?  Someone coming down off drugs?  Someone going to the dentist?  Only Robert and his therapist know for sure.

Instead, let’s pour a 40 in remembrance of the EP, the Jan Brady of record releases in the ’80s.  Not as cute as a single, not as essential as a full album, the EP was where tossed-off tracks and baby musical acts went to wither and die.  While some EPs were launching pads for huge success (hi, Missing Persons!), the vast majority served merely as filler between albums or for acts that didn’t quite have enough good material to fill a whole album (hi, Industry!).  As the digital age zeroed and oned its way to the front of the line, the EP soon fell to the wayside, essentially replaced by the CD single packed with far too many unneccesary remixes.  This one’s for you, little EP.  You made those weeks when I didn’t have enough money to buy an album worthwhile.

“A Man Inside My Mouth” did not chart.

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Tags: John C. Hughes, Lost in the '80s, the Cure

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