The Head on the Door

It entered the British chart at number seven on 7 September 1985 and reached 59 in the United States. It is the first album with Boris Williams on drums, with Simon Gallup and Porl Thompson both returning, and the first on which every song was composed by Smith alone. It was also the first Cure album to produce more than one single, In Between Days and Close to Me. It went gold in the United States, Britain and France, and Melody Maker named it album of the year in December 1985.

Smith said it was inspired by Siouxsie and the Banshees' Kaleidoscope and the Human League's Dare, and he wanted many different colours. Kyoto Song has an oriental hook and The Blood is played in a flamenco style. The piano of Six Different Ways had been used by Smith on the Banshees' Swimming Horses, and A Night Like This has a saxophone solo by Ron Howe of Fools Dance. The title comes from a line in the chorus of Close to Me. Pitchfork's Nitsuh Abebe called it the band's most focused pop album, and AllMusic's Tim Sendra said Smith had made the gloom danceable and popular. The Guardian ranked A Night Like This seventh in its 2024 list of the band's best songs, and In Between Days second.