Saturday, November 14, 2015

How The Cure reshaped goth rock on "Disintegration"


New Record Bin article at Nooga takes a look back at 'Disintegration'. Here's an excerpt:

"Disintegration" was released May 2, 1989, and would forever change the way people looked at and responded to The Cure. Once this record came out, for better or worse, people would gauge this aesthetic by its attention to or delineation from the sounds of this specific album. Whereas their previous few records were steeped in pop distraction, "Disintegration" was a return to the dark, dense sounds of their early '80s work. This was a new chapter in goth rock's storied lineage, and The Cure was determined that the genre would again have the emotional potential that it once had before it became something of a cultural stereotype.

These songs are bottomless, filled with cocooning rhythms and the band's trademark opulence. But there isn't a sense that they were trying to reclaim some of their former glory. They were taking the experiences and inspirations from those earlier records and reconditioning them into a subverting take on the goth rock mentality. And besides being a callback to the sounds of their prior releases, "Disintegration" is arguably the band's greatest accomplishment—it is the sound of a band remembering why they loved making music in the first place.

Read the rest at Nooga.

9 comments:

  1. Remembering? The band was in its tweens at the time. We're coming up on 40 years! (Holy shit. 40 years! I turned 40 last week.) Reeves is going to give us a very different guitar sound from what Robert and Pearl gave us, but I hope we see a return to the twirly, swirly, delay infused sound we all love.

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    1. Not downplaying Simon, of course. Not many bands or performers can carry the melodic bass sound that Simon drives or the great pop songs Simon has written. (I love Mint Car.)

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    2. Totally. He's very versatile in both his playing and in what he has written, he never gets the credit he deserves for his contribution to the band.

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    4. Happy Birthday! I turn 40 in a week as well! I'm looking forward to hearing what Reeves adds on some new songs hopefully. I love what he does with FTEOTDGS live.

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  2. I don't see Disintegration as an album that was made "looking back" on anything, much less the early albums. I see it is delving deeper into the darkness and allowing the music to stretch out and take hold (of our hearts).

    Bands that spend time looking back and rehashing old material don't last as long as the Cure have. Onward!!!

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  3. They didn't "reshape goth rock." They just made a good record. "Goth" isn't actually a concern of theirs.

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    1. You're right about that, Paul. I've never thought of The Cure as a goth band. Is it just the makeup that gets them thrown into that genre?

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