Wish

The band recorded Wish in late 1991 / early 1992 at The Manor in Oxfordshire; sessions were relatively peaceful and communal compared with some earlier periods — the band lived and worked together during the record, resulting in a dense, band-oriented sound. Coming off the overwhelmingly praised Disintegration (1989), The Cure were at both a critical and commercial peak; Wish retained the atmospheric textures of earlier work while steering into brighter, more pop-oriented territory on several tracks. Line-up notes: Wish was the first studio album to feature Perry Bamonte as a full member and the last studio record to feature drummer Boris Williams (and, for a long while, guitarist Porl Thompson). The period immediately after Wish saw lineup shifts and eventually a slowdown in the band’s mainstream visibility.

Contemporary: Wish was generally well received on release — Rolling Stone gave a positive (four-star) review, praising its blend of optimism and the band’s signature moods. The album debuted at No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US, becoming the Cure’s biggest commercial success to date. Retrospective: Modern appraisals (e.g., Pitchfork’s retrospective) call Wish a solid, sometimes underrated record — not a radical reinvention but an album that benefited from the band’s cohesion and yielded enduring hits (notably “Friday I’m in Love”). Reissues and deluxe editions (30th anniversary) have renewed critical interest and expanded the available session material.