#326 - The Cure - Disintegration (1989)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

THE CURE BIO

The English rock band formed in the post-punk and new wave era in West Sussex, England in 1978. The band has been through numerous lineup changes, with guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter Robert Smith remaining the only core member throughout. The first album, Three Imaginary Boys, had that aforementioned sound, but the band shifted to a darker look and style with their second album Seventeen Seconds (1980). This was considered one of the foundations of gothic rock and the culture that subsequently followed. That vibe continued on the band's next two albums - Faith (1981) and Pornography (1982). After some more lineup changes, the band released The Top in 1984, which had a psychedelic feel, and Smith played most of the instruments. In 1985, the lineup of the band that we'll talk about today was in place, with Simon Gallup on bass, Porl Thompson on guitar, Boris Williams on drums (who had replaced the fired Andy Anderson for destroying a hotel room), and Roger O'Donnell on keyboard, who replaced Lol Tolhurst officially during the recording of today's album.(O'Donnell would quit by 1990).

The 1985 release, "The Head on The Door" was a combination of the band's optimistic and pessimistic sides, and the 1987 release "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" went back to the poppier side with tracks like Just Like Heaven increasing their popularity in the United States, leading us to today's album.

The Cure released two more albums in the 1990s (Wish in 1992, Wild Mood Swings in1996), and then 3 more in the 2000s (Bloodflowers-2000, The Cure-2004, 4:13 Dream in2008). In the summer of 2021, Smith said the band was recording two new albums, "one of them is very, very doom and gloom and the other isn't. I just have to decide who is going to mix them". The Cure were inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in 2019

BACKGROUND – DISINTEGRATION

This was the eighth studio album by the group and was released in May 1989. This was a return to their goth rock sound from earlier in the decade. The main inspiration for this album was that vocalist/guitarist Robert Smith was about to turn 30, and felt the pressure of having to follow up the band's previous successes with something deeper and better. He felt all the masterpieces in rock and roll had been completed well before band member's reached that age. The Cure were very popular, something Smith and the band were uncomfortable with, and Smith started using hallucinogens again right before and during the making of this album. It was recorded in a town called Checkendon in England. They initially recorded 32 songs at Williams' house, and was eventually whittled down to the final 12.

This was one of the band's biggest commercial successes, charting at #3 in the UK and at 12 in the US. It is The Cure's highest selling album to date, selling more than 3 million copies worldwide, and 1 million by 1992.

One quote about the album from a retrospective 2017 Rolling Stone review: The darkest funeral dirge sounds almost peppy compared to the goth apocalypse of the Cure‘s Disintegration, a 1989 album completed under such fraught circumstances that frontman Robert Smith seriously wondered if it would be the band’s last.

The sound of the album was a shock to the band's American label Elektra Records; the label requested Smith shift the release date back several months. Smith recalled "they thought I was being 'wilfully obscure', which was an actual quote from the letter Smith received from Elektra. Ever since then I realised that record companies don't have a fucking clue what The Cure does and what The Cure means.

Disintegration is characterized by a significant usage of synthesizers and keyboards, slow, "droning" guitar progressions and Smith's introspective vocals. While the album mainly consists of somber tracks, "Lovesong", "Pictures of You" and "Lullaby" were equally popular for their accessibility. Smith wanted to create a balance on the album by including songs that would act as an equilibrium with those that were unpleasant.

Displeased with the swollen egos he believed his bandmates possessed, Smith entered what he considered to be "one of my non-talking modes" deciding "I would be monk-like and not talk to anyone. It was a bit pretentious really, looking back, but I actually wanted an environment that was slightly unpleasant". He sought to abandon the mood present on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and the pop singles they had released, and rather recreate the atmosphere of the band's fourth album Pornography (1982). Despite the serious subject matter of the album, O'Donnell commented in 2009 that the atmosphere in the studio was still upbeat during the sessions: "I remember very clearly laughing and joking and fooling around in the control room while Robert was singing 'Disintegration', and then all of us trying to be serious when he came in to listen back.[...] It was never a serious atmosphere in the studio, and when you think about the album and how dark it is, I'm sure people think we were sitting around slitting our wrists with candles and chains hanging from the walls."