Long missing from the US catalog of everyone’s favorite moody goths, this reissue of The Top fills a void in the CD discography of The Cure—since it was never issued on CD in the US in the first place. But many Cure fans who are hearing it for the first time will find it a puzzling listen. Twenty-two years after its issue, it remains a profoundly unsettled disc that documents a band in transition (and indeed, a band mostly consisting of one member, Robert Smith).

My previous review in The Cure reissue series, of last year’s re-release of Faith, noted that “the darkness that flowered on Faith is what many still consider to be The Cure’s classic sound,” and while that sound is in evidence here, there are a number of other sounds as well—for better or worse. For one thing, the percussion is surprisingly tame for a Cure release, particularly on songs like “Birdmad Girl,” which has a backing track that could have come from any number of 80s acts. The excellent booklet claims that the following track, “Wailing Wall,” was strongly influenced by Smith’s work with Siouxsie and the Banshees, and its atmospherics are appropriately menacing. Other tracks sound familiar in reverse: I found myself wondering if Nick Cave had been listening to “Piggy in the Mirror” when he made “Abattoir Blues,” the effect is so similar. And the use of the Prophet, that staple of Peter Gabriel’s 1980s recordings, on “Dressing Up” makes the song feel familiar (if dated).

The one track to surface from this album I was previously familiar with was “The Caterpillar,” which made an appearance on the Staring at the Sea compilation. But where on that release it made a clear connection with other Cure songs like “Lovecats,” “In Between Days” and “Close to Me,” on The Top it stands alone. Yes, the other tracks on the album each have their distinct sound, but nothing prepares you for “The Caterpillar”: the scratchy violin intro, the over-the-top fey vocals, the skittering piano part. This is “happy Cure,” the other personality that is locked inside Robert Smith’s head alongside the glum Morlock, and it still brings a smile after 22 years.

It’s even more amazing that that song crept onto the album when you consider the circumstances of the recording sessions: Laurence Tolhurst drunk or drugged out, Smith himself a few inches from hospitalization (literally—the follow-up tour had to be cancelled thanks to a bad case of blood poisoning), and the rest of the band hardly in the studio (Smith played a lot of this album, except for the drums, himself). In that context, “Caterpillar” seems absolutely miraculous, as does the band’s subsequent revitalization on The Head on the Door.

Bonus material on this deluxe reissue includes the usual assortment of demos and live tracks, including some quite strong demos for never before heard songs. My personal favorite, “Happy the Man,” looks forward to Disintegration’s “Last Dance” in its harmonic language even as its lyrics and verbal imagery elude understanding, and was released in its final form as a b-side to “The Caterpillar.”

An essential release? No. But also undeserving of its tag (from Smith himself) of “worst Cure album ever.” There’s a lot on The Top to like.

When I read a note on a French Sting fansite that the man formerly known as Gordon Sumner would be releasing an album of classical lute music — a survey of the music of John Dowland — I stopped, goggled, and giggled. Then I got depressed.

Sting was long one of my favorite artists, but he has been going down in my estimation since Ten Summoner’s Tales — a decent album, but with the seeds of his spiral into adult alternative toothlessness sown within. More ominously for Tuesday’s release of Songs from the Labyrinth, an inside page of the booklet featured Sting posing with a lute and looking faintly ridiculous.

Why am I so down on this concept? Let’s just say it’s not new to me. In 2000, when Lisa and I visited London over a long weekend, we took a tour of the reconstructed Globe Theatre, which was hosting a benefit concert later that night. As we emerged into the actual theatre, our guide paused, went ahead, then came back and told us we were being permitted to sit in on the rehearsal for the event.

On stage: Vinnie Jones (of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and X-Men: The Last Stand), James Taylor, and Sting, among others. The theme of the day was Elizabethan entertainment, so we got to see Jones play Mercutio in a Romeo and Juliet pastiche. Taylor sang an original but period-influenced tune and Sting played and sang a Dowland tune. Badly.

In his defense, he was clearly not feeling well (it was a little chilly, but he had an orange scarf tightly around his neck and was not doing a lot of moving around). He gave himself a self-deprecating kick in the ass as he left the stage. The whole experience boded ill.

So now comes the actual album. My Dowland touchstone is probably his “Come, Come Again,” which the Virginia Glee Club regularly performed. The curious should download track 16 of Songs from the Labyrinth, which basically sums up the whole album: odd arrangement featuring the lute totally dropping out behind Sting’s voice, and deadly vocal performance full of apparently-intended-to-be-emotive diphthongs and toothless fricatives.

Seriously, there are vocal lines that sound as though they’re sung through dentures. Worse, there’s no variation to the vocal lines: the performances are note-note-note, with little or no vocal inflection and no phrasing. Then there’s the overdubbing. Awkward as the solo lines are, they sound like sheer genius compared to the same voice in two part harmony.

Still, the whole thing isn’t bad. There are some interesting solo lute numbers and it does grown on you with repeated listenings. It’s endearing and an interesting experiment. If it were released as a fan club album, it would be a cool rarity. On balance though, I don’t think it will be the Great Crossover Album it should be.

Christmas albums by popular artists face a pretty significant challenge: how to make the holiday canon, which ranges from medieval plainchant (“O come, o come, Emmanuel”) to high classical music to Tin Pan Alley tunes and children’s TV show theme music, sound like it belongs to the artist and not let the artist be overwhelmed by what can be a lot of schlock. There are three basic approaches to the challenge: go ultra-traditional with the arrangements, create a bunch of originals in the Christmas spirit, or just be yourself and damn the torpedoes. My latest favorite Christmas album, Bootsy Collins’ Christmas is 4 Ever, takes the third path with a vengeance and ends up with one of the most fun Christmas albums I’ve listened to.

Bootsy, for the uninitiated (though that hardly seems possible), is the funky, funky bass player behind James Brown’s late ‘60s output (“Sex Machine,” “Super Bad,”) and George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic (where he gained notoriety for his costumes — star-shaped sunglasses and thigh-high rhinestone studded space boots as well as his outer-space bass playing), and a pretty substantial run fronting his own combo, Bootsy’s Rubber Band. This, in sum, is a man who could definitively answer Funkadelic’s question, “What is soul?” So what, pray tell, is Bootsy doing facing down such white bread Christmas classics as “Jingle Bells,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” and “Silent Night”?

As you might expect, Bootsy solves the clash of genres by throwing a party. And a pretty damned good party too. The arrangements on this collection are tight, with key contributions from fellow ex-PFunk stars Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider, and Fred Wesley (who arranges the tight horn charts that propel the most spectacular songs and is the other James Brown alum on the record), and an array of guest vocalists ranging from the traditional R&B styles of a bunch of folks whose names I didn’t recognize to some rap contributions by Snoop Dogg. There are voice cameos from other friends of Bootsy, from Buckethead and George Clinton to the late Roger Troutman, bringing Christmas greetings.

And damned if it doesn’t all hang together. The horns make it feel like a Parliament reunion, and there’s a propulsive funk beat that runs through the whole album that makes one want to stand up and dance. (For this writer that’s no mean thing.) But for me the standout moment is deep in “Silent Night,” which may be the only time this holiday standard has grooved, where Bootsy answers the sung line “Sleep in heavenly peace” with a fervent “You and me, baby!” Aah, right on.

Back in 2001, I went to see a show by Josh Haden’s former band Spain at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle. I was really into Spain at the time, and soaked up the whole atmosphere: the hushed reaction of the crowd, the tight performances of the band, Josh Haden’s eyes-closed, stone-still performance with his bass at the vocal mic. But the reaction of my friend-a sarcastic request for “another mellow song!”-made me realize that Spain lived or died by how convincing you found its blend of slow, quiet, blues and country-inflected late night bar music and heart-on-sleeve sincerity. Certainly the band’s best moments—the song “Every Time I Try,” snagged by Wim Winders for the soundtrack to his film The End of Violence; their superb swan song “I Believe”; and their entire first album, The Blue Moods of Spain, all revolve around that formula.

Over time, though, their work began to feel just a little like it was a formula. And the more the sound drifted toward country, the more I felt like Josh’s heart wasn’t in the songwriting. The songs were still simply beautiful-“Mary” is an aching melody that has been stuck in my head for days at a time-but the lyrical content seemed less broad in intention or scope than it had on the first few albums.Turning, then, to review Josh Haden’s first proper solo album, a self-released affair called Devoted, one must ask: are the songs still slow? Is the country twang still there? Are any of them not love songs? In other words, what’s new?

The answer: Josh Haden found Dan the Automator.

Yes, the songs are still slow love songs. Having set a landmark with his song “Spiritual” (and really, having a song from your first album covered by Johnny Cash has to count as a home run), Josh doesn’t dwell overlong in that starkly religious land, though the closing “Salvation” returns to the territory in a pan-religious way. There is a powerful religious subtext, though, to almost every other song on the album, whether it’s “only love will set you free” in “Discontent” or “take my hand and never go astray” in “Show Me the Way.” This is perhaps to be expected given Josh’s position on the purpose of music: “Why waste my time with music that doesn’t help to bring me to a deeper understanding of life?”

And, again, thanks to Dan the Automator’s beats and some quirky keyboards from John Medeski (of Medeski, Martin, and Wood), the sound is totally different from Spain, even with the continued presence of guitarist Merlo Podlewski: less bluesy, less organic, brighter, flatter, more trancelike in places (indeed, at times Josh’s performance recalls another singer-songwriter who hooked up with a beat-focused producer, Beth Orton). Not all the experiments are successful. The upbeat “Drifting” is spoiled by an uncertain-pitched vocal and a beat that feels canned, and the harmonies on “Want You So Bad” are likewise wobbly. But balancing out these low points are some real gems: the apocalyptic imagery of “Hallelujah,” the dark seduction of “Love You More,” and even the Spain-manque of “Light of Day.” In fact, some of the strongest moments on the disc are the ones that sound most like Josh’s old band.

Which, I suppose, begs the ungenerous question: why change at all? But songs like “Show You the Way” and “Devoted” blend the plaintive songwriting of Haden’s older canon with a fresher musical palette, and maybe that’s the value of this recording: helping to distill the essence of Haden’s songwriting in the absence of the sonic hallmarks of the old band.