Cover your face as the animals die - it's The Cure Pornography Poll!!

i'm going to have to think about this for a long, long time. is there an album that even sounds close to this one? truly one of the best albums ever made and looking forward to hearing it this week to make up my mind.

i always had a problem with how this record sounded, to be truthful. i loved '100 years' and 'the figurehead' as they appeared on the 'paris' live compilation. seemed to reveal the inner strength of the songs to me.

I agree, something about the sound on it always felt suffocating to me. I haven't listened to this album in over 20 years, and when thinking of Cure albums I realize now that I usually forget it exists!

I voted for "The Figurehead" because it was the song I was most excited to hear on the tour this summer. Really could've voted for any of these, though, depending on my mood.

I'll have to think about this but for years my split sec answer would have been either Figurehead or Siamese Twins. I still adore the latter but as maybe hinted at upthread its one of these songs I'm not sure I have the emotional courage for these days. "Is it always like this...?"

something about the sound on it always felt suffocating to me

Exactly why I like it - it's so visceral it lulls you into submission. It's also aged remarkably well (as opposed to, say, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me)

I went with "Cold".

my name is Deon and i have one of the worst Decembers of my life. this poll seemed liked the perfect opportunity to reach into the deeps of my what my soul is experiencing at these moments in time. so this poll seemed to have perfect timing and tonight was the night to throw on the remastered version of this album and picked the right song. "Siamise Twins" was the winner, when Robert goes "Then everthing falls apart, broken inside me it falls apart..is it always like this?" is so perfect...

please bring on 2009 and thanks ILM for just being there!

Alright, I give up. ILM is gonna make me play this album for the first time in 20 years. Will report back later. I have this feeling it's gonna sound too much like my teenage angst for my adult self to understand, though.

it still sounds great because it still sounds genuinely magical, and i do not use that word lightly

"The Hanging Garden" remains one of my favorite singles of all time, so much so that I want to vote for it even though it isn't my favorite song off the album (which would either be "Siamese Twins" or "A Strange Day").

truly one of the best albums ever made

Yes.

Cold.

I might even vote for the title-track, which is nothing short of utterly spectacular

I voted "Figurehead", but it was very close with "A Strange Day", "Cold" and "Short Term Effect".

Yeah Hanging Garden is a maelstrom of a single. I recently re-discovered the demo version included on the remaster. Funny to see how it started as a song that would have sat comfortably on 'Faith'

bump

It sounds like a demo for "Charlotte Sometimes" as much as "The Hanging Garden" (x-post)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I'm surprised "Cold" did as well as it did.

Really? I think its awesomeness is reasonably well appreciated round these parts.

I voted Cold.

forgot to vote :-/ wd probably have given the title-track some love

1 vote for Siamese Twins?! You gotta be kidding me, ILM

1 vote for Siamese Twins?! You gotta be kidding me, ILM

yeah, that was my thoughts as well. can't believe that i was the only vote for that incredible song.

Again, tough to choose.

I'd probably roll with "Pornography" or "The Figurehead." I'll be extra controversial and say that I like the recording on the TRILOGY concert set more than the original.

BLASPHEMY!

The fact that "Pornography" received no votes is a) astonishing and b) indicative of the unrelenting awesomeness of this amazing record

Hell, even "A Short Term Effect" is the business.

Yeah "Short Term Effect" is objectively the weakest track on this - but is indeed the biz

Okay, earning my goth card, today. I've almost listened to this whole album again for the first time since 1985. I understand why people complained about Siamese Twins not finishing better. Strange Day is awesome as well. But still these cannot compare to the fucking synthesizers on "Cold". Still, the title track at the end is liable to take me away in the fucking goth paddy waggon, never a Bimble to be heard from again.

I earned my goth card today.

wait, the 1 vote for "Siamese Twins" should have been from me.

"Figurehead" is pretty good, too. That's the only other one I wanted to mention. Thanking U

I woulda voted for Siamese Twins too.

I'm playing it again. Because I am going to out-goth the entire universe and no way can you stop me.

Oh! My god! This album! wow wowowoowwoowowow'

Check "Cold" to find out how goth you are. Take the temperature, man.

There's nowhere for me to go after In Orange but this album. I'm having a complete and total Cure trip out today and I don't care what people think of that.

Enjoy! It is their best album by far, IMHO. And I love some of the others a lot.

I MUST FIGHT THIS SICKNESS

FIND A CURE...

[Ron Howard:] Hey, that's the name of the band!

Check "Cold" to find out how goth you are. Take the temperature, man.

lolol <3 Bimble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ip3K-4EK4k

A very rare and COLOUR performance of 'the Cure' in a very strange period of the group.
Here we have Robert Smith on guitar, Lol Tholhurst on percussion, Steve Severine on bass and Anne Stephenson & Virginia Hewes as the Venomettes Strings on violin.

COLOUR

The lyrics of 'Siamese Twins' from "Leave me to die" until "it fades and spins" are among my favourite lyrics ever

Especially "I walked away and grew old", that line in context is about as good as lines get

The best album about the awfulness of LSD ever.

There's nothing awful about LSD therefore GTF

It depends on how you use it. And if you use it excessively to provoke temporary psychosis in order to plumb internal depths and then translate into brilliant monolithic and bleak album of solipsism and horror, I guess it could, reasonably, be described as awful.

"A Strange Day" is so so so good

Can't remember how I voted, Strange Day methinx, but I now want a revote... for Figurehead

I earned my goth card today.

― To Float Away On A Lifelong Song (Bimble), Monday, April 6, 2009 3:35 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

<3 <3 <3

playing the Pornography rarities disk today and am remembering that "Temptation" is great; I wish it had lyrics

(yes I know it morphed into "Let's Go To Bed" so don't quote those lyrics at me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDHee4d4WBY

not sure if i have said this yet but i now think this is probably the Cure's best album. so gloomy and dark and really perfect overall.

Of interest

http://thequietus.com/articles/22315-the-cure-pornography-anniversary-review

I was just about to post this

I have been blurting some random thoughts to Ned via Messenger re: this album after I read that piece and I might as well copy them over here:

I was just thinking the other day about how perfect this album is; I mean, IMO the weakest song is "A Short Term Effect", which is borderline astonishing because that is a great song.

How the whole album manages to shift through all of these different iterations of raging despair, finding all of the shades in a seemingly monochromatic emotional palette that we like to pretend aren't there in order to elevate our everyday happiness... They were never this _angry_ for a sustained period of time ever again in their career, which bums me out a little because it seems like rage is one of his bests muses.

There are so many ways in which The Hanging Garden is their best studio construction as far as their singles go. It's the only one they can't really do justice to live because of all of the effects ping-ponging off of each other, filling in the space in the surprisingly sparse arrangement and turning the whole thing into a towering, oppressive wall of sound.

I love this album so much, it is literally my lifeblood.

Man, The Figurehead. I don't even know how to start talking about this song: the death march drums; the inexorable bass; the stately, mechanical guitar; the meandering melodic line that spirals slowly into quiet madness; he instrumental bridges and choruses connecting each quietly communicated nightmare... There's an alternate script for Lost in Translation lurking somewhere in here.

yeah that's a good write-up

the two songs that got 0 in this poll have got to be two of the best songs ever to get 0 in an ilx album poll

There isn't a song on here that is worse than 8/10.

srsly

and only one vote for siamese twins i mean that song has the best lyrics of anything

I normally would have voted for it but, as I said when the poll originally ran, I felt compelled to vote "The Hanging Garden" as it is their most underrated single by a wide margin (I think it's top 3, possibly the best, along with "Primary" and "Charlotte Sometimes")

The title track has always been quite underrated, I've found. I love it, though... Smith wailing through this cacophony of drums, atonal guitar and those deep keyboards.

"It's TOO LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!"

This album was built for air drumming to. Seriously!

the two songs that got 0 in this poll have got to be two of the best songs ever to get 0 in an ilx album poll

― imago, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 3:22 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There isn't a song on here that is worse than 8/10.

― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Tuesday, May 16, 2017 3:22 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

That review from Smash Hits in May '82...

"This is their gloomiest effort yet. It's a set of mournful laments which - cheerfully - all deal in one way or another with death. Robert Smith's normally plaintive voice has now become positively ghostly as it struggles through the waves of distorted sound. What's worse, there's little or no relief from the oppressiveness. Makes you glad you're alive." - 4 out of 10 - Ian Cranna.

and the ratings of the other LP's in the same issue:

Duran Duran - Rio (5.5/10)
Shakatak - Night Birds (8/10)
Funkapolitan - Funkapolitan (6/10)
Bucks Fizz - Are You Ready (10/10 <- no joke.)
The Clash - Combat Rock (6/10)
Altered Images - Pinky Blue (3.5/10 as given by Neil Tennant)
Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless (6/10)
Various Artists - Tokyo Mobile Music 1 (6/10)
Paul McCartney - Tug of War (4/10)
Queen - Hot Space (5/10)
The Associates - Sulk (8/10)

haha not content with the hatchet job on Pornography, they proceed to give that to Rio as well

Yeah, I was very surprised at that. I thought that Smash Hits would have given Rio a high rating, but obviously not!

They gave Seventeen Seconds 8/10 and Faith 7/10. Surprisingly, they gave The Top 8/10 too.

The Head on the Door got 8.5/10

tbf that review would absolutely make me want to hear the record, but I'm weird

They liked The Associates, so hey.

I've just ordered the 2-disc remaster of this. Perhaps my fave, next to The Top.

IS IT ALWAYYYYS LIKE THIS!?!!!

weird results; a strange day is my least favorite track on this by far. great lyrics, but the main chord progression has always been off-putting and annoying to me. it's... a personal problem, i guess :)

i love the rest of it without reservation tho. gun to my head to pick one, i'd go with cold.

I always had a headache when I got done listening to this album, so ended up getting rid of it. Like too much red wine.

I remember the giddy thrill of buying this album last in my hurried retrospective purchases after The Head on the Door captured my 16 year old heart (yes I am that old). I thought well it can't be as intense as all that, and then it WAS.
Jump forward 30 years and hearing a montage on The Americans cut to "Siamese Twins" blew my mind all over again.
Also Ben Frost's quite amazing album By the Throat samples and loops "A Strange Day" beautifully.

and how fantastic is this? I've never seen the guys quite so incredibly fried.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB9ZVtZL6Bg

i know it isn't, but "the figurehead" is a metal song

it and Siamese Twins and this whole album are the heaviest music made

what the hell is up with the drum sound on this record, it sounds like a rhythm box recorded from the othe rend of a long hallway

that's pretty much it afaik - I think they used a Linn drum to get the oppressive rhythm on some tracks

I mean it's great for what it is, but part of me craves hearing these songs with, like, really well recorded toms

bro, do you even like 1982 new wave records?

^^^ this lol

I want it seething with compression and dry ice, the vocals and guitars mangled into a flat roar, it's fucking Pornography dude

xxp lol yes, it just took me aback after not hearing it for many years

in the end I do prefer e.g. 23 Skidoo's Seven Songs w/r/t 1982 drum soundz

The drum sound makes this record IMO

A Tim's Twitter Listening Party on this album is happening as I type and now I have learned something new, or at least seen it for the first time:

The start of the infamous " Beer sculpture " We kept every can or bottle we drank making Pornography until the end. This looks to be about day 4, we were there for a long time... #TimsTwitterListeningParty pic.twitter.com/49DVhUp291

— Lol Tolhurst (@LolTolhurst) October 10, 2020

Oh I missed that. But you can reenact the listening party on his website

https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay.html

Will listen later!

40 years old now, wow:

https://louderthanwar.com/the-cure-pornography-1982-2022-a-40th-anniversary-reappraisal/