Thursday, June 6, 2024

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Paste's 300 Greatest Albums of All Time

From Paste Magazine:

2. The Cure: Disintegration (1989)

The Cure perfected their vision on their eighth album, 1989’s Disintegration. As dark and icy as Pornography yet as instantly memorable and immediate as Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, it catapulted Robert Smith and his band to new levels of stardom and crystallized the core characteristics of their music: dark, emotional and meditative. On top of moody guitar tones courtesy of Porl Thompson and Smith, we also have a goth-rock album that features two of the best basslines in the history of recorded music: Simon Gallup’s melodic performance on “Fascination Street” and the driving momentum of the title track stand among the Cure’s finest moments. Each of the 12 songs is its own respective showcase for the group’s sprawling, meandering intros that induce a wistful haze before rewarding your patience with Smith’s unmistakable voice. Every classic band has that one album that presents them at their apogee, and even for a band with as many excellent albums as the Cure, Disintegration is undeniably the one. Despite the name of the record itself, this band has never sounded so locked in. —Grant Sharples


222. The Cure: Pornography (1982)

Disintegration seems to get the lion’s share of the love among the Cure’s discography, but the poignant echoes of “Lovesong” and “Lullaby” would not exist if it were not for the indulgent gloom of Pornography. After wading through the fertile mire of early goth music on Seventeen Seconds and Faith, Pornography presents the Cure’s freefall into the genre’s mushrooming abyss, immediately heralded by the opening doom spiral “One Hundred Years.” Pornography finds the Cure not just surrendering to misery, but committing to their muse through offerings of Stygian soundscapes, foglike synthlines and lyricism polluted with existential dread. While never particularly lascivious, Pornography made the Cure’s woe unprecedentedly explicit, crafting an inky sketch of an entire generation—as frontman Robert Smith wails—“waiting for the death blow.” —Victoria Wasylak