The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)

Simultaneously more accessible and ambitious than any of the Cure's previous albums, the double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me finds Robert Smith expanding his pop vocabulary by tentatively adding bigger guitars, the occasional horn section, lite-funk rhythms, and string sections. It's eclectic, to be sure, but it's also a mess, bouncing from idea to idea and refusing to develop some of the most intriguing detours. Even if Kiss Me doesn't quite gel, its best moments including the deceptively bouncy "Why Can't I Be You?" and the stately "Just Like Heaven" are remarkable and help make the album one of the group's very best.