Although these darker pieces aren’t considered ‘bangers’, they make up an important part of the record and their significance shouldn’t be underestimated.Ī personal favourite on Disintegration is the eerily beautiful ‘Lullaby’. Despite the heaviness of this album – both musically and lyrically, it had huge commercial success as well as establishing them as one of the biggest names in goth rock – no easy feat to achieve both simultaneously. Smith’s uniquely haunting vocals alongside gloomy effects on the guitar lines and their trademark spellbinding synth capture these feelings. The darker side of this record shines through in some of the lesser-known tracks – ‘Closedown’, ‘Prayers for Rain’ and title track ‘Disintegration’. Similarly, drug and alcohol abuse made tensions rise between band members. Frustration towards critics who viewed them as predictable, Smith’s mental health struggles and the mounting pressure of being a successful group were all in the background of Disintegration’s production. Followed up by hit single ‘Pictures of You’, one of The Cure’s most beloved tracks, Disintegration starts as it means to go on: a record with overwhelming depth and power.Īs the Cure returned to their goth-rock roots, it represented a deeper change of atmosphere within the band’s dynamic. It’s beautifully composed and vocally haunting, and it represents the masterpiece that is Disintegration. ‘Plainsong’ is, in a word magnificent (best enjoyed by turning up the volume to hear the soft bells, and then getting very suddenly deafened by the synth). Starting an album with what sounds like the opening score of a big budget sci-fi movie is a bold choice, but the ambitious intro to ‘Plainsong’ can’t be described any other way. Alongside Simon Gallup, Porl Thompson, Boris Williams, Roger O’Donnell and Lol Tolhurst (who was later fired during the mixing process) the Cure created Disintegration, the album that would inspire generations of artists and secure the bands legacy as being rock icons. To do so, Smith turned to a more gothic, introspective lyrical and musical style that had served the band so well at the beginning of their career. Nearing his 30 th birthday, lead vocalist Robert Smith wanted to create his magnum opus, a legacy, following The Cure’s previous commercial success with pop hits ‘Just Like Heaven’ and ‘Inbetween Days’. 30 years ago, an album came along that would go on to define the post-punk movement of the late 1980s.
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