Yeah "Short Term Effect" is objectively the weakest track on this - but is indeed the biz
― baaderonixx, Thursday, 2 April 2009 10:57 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― To Float Away On A Lifelong Song (Bimble), Monday, 6 April 2009 19:35 (fifteen years ago) link
wait, the 1 vote for "Siamese Twins" should have been from me.
― maybe u should tell that to your laughing vagina (HI DERE), Monday, 6 April 2009 19:36 (fifteen years ago) link
"Figurehead" is pretty good, too. That's the only other one I wanted to mention. Thanking U
― To Float Away On A Lifelong Song (Bimble), Monday, 6 April 2009 19:46 (fifteen years ago) link
I woulda voted for Siamese Twins too.
― ham hand (circa1916), Monday, 6 April 2009 20:44 (fifteen years ago) link
I'm playing it again. Because I am going to out-goth the entire universe and no way can you stop me.
― Old stuff by The Cure Saved Bimble (Bimble), Saturday, 9 May 2009 20:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh! My god! This album! wow wowowoowwoowowow'
Check "Cold" to find out how goth you are. Take the temperature, man.
― Old stuff by The Cure Saved Bimble (Bimble), Saturday, 9 May 2009 21:06 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Definitely More Goth Than You (Bimble), Sunday, 7 June 2009 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Enjoy! It is their best album by far, IMHO. And I love some of the others a lot.
― StanM, Sunday, 7 June 2009 20:15 (fourteen years ago) link
I MUST FIGHT THIS SICKNESS
― Douglas, Sunday, 7 June 2009 21:21 (fourteen years ago) link
FIND A CURE...
[Ron Howard:] Hey, that's the name of the band!
― the England guy that throws the balls (country matters), Sunday, 7 June 2009 21:25 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― nearly 50 in vagina years (onimo), Sunday, 29 November 2009 11:32 (fourteen years ago) link
The lyrics of 'Siamese Twins' from "Leave me to die" until "it fades and spins" are among my favourite lyrics ever
― Puddle of Thudd (acoleuthic), Sunday, 29 November 2009 13:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Especially "I walked away and grew old", that line in context is about as good as lines get
― Puddle of Thudd (acoleuthic), Sunday, 29 November 2009 13:05 (fourteen years ago) link
The best album about the awfulness of LSD ever.
― Doran, Sunday, 29 November 2009 13:30 (fourteen years ago) link
There's nothing awful about LSD therefore GTF
― Twisted Hipster (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 29 November 2009 13:31 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Doran, Sunday, 29 November 2009 13:58 (fourteen years ago) link
"A Strange Day" is so so so good
― HI DERE, Wednesday, 11 August 2010 18:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Can't remember how I voted, Strange Day methinx, but I now want a revote... for Figurehead
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Wednesday, 11 August 2010 21:20 (thirteen years ago) link
― 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
― seger ros (crüt), Wednesday, 11 August 2010 21:21 (thirteen years ago) link
playing the Pornography rarities disk today and am remembering that "Temptation" is great; I wish it had lyrics
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Thursday, 12 August 2010 15:26 (thirteen years ago) link
(yes I know it morphed into "Let's Go To Bed" so don't quote those lyrics at me)
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Thursday, 12 August 2010 15:27 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDHee4d4WBY
― Duke, Thursday, 12 August 2010 19:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Ah, somehow the audio/video is not in synch in that clip.
― Duke, Thursday, 12 August 2010 19:36 (thirteen years ago) link
lol I'd forgotten that "Temptation Two" has lyrics
― How could you forget the crazy hooker? (HI DERE), Thursday, 12 August 2010 19:39 (thirteen years ago) link
OMG I am reading the worst rock biography in the world (do not ask why, I just needed to read a rock bio and I picked this one) and the writer of this bio thinks that the lyric "something small falls out of your mouth and we laugh" is LITERALLY about "a small object tumbling from someone's mouth".
How fucking utterly stupid and unable to understand metaphor would you have to be to read that lyric as meaning that.
Wow. I wanted to read a bad rock bio, and I sure got one.
(This will teach me to read a Cure biography by someone who reckons Faith is a bad album. Shaking my damn head.)
― Yth Esos Yn Breten; Kows Predennek! (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, 5 March 2014 21:00 (ten years ago) link
(p.s. what about this thread is not work safe?)
― Yth Esos Yn Breten; Kows Predennek! (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, 5 March 2014 21:01 (ten years ago) link
(the title of the album showing up in yr browser history)
― Mark G, Wednesday, 5 March 2014 21:11 (ten years ago) link
Cover your face as the animals do it
― set the trolls for the heart of the sun (how's life), Wednesday, 5 March 2014 21:15 (ten years ago) link
one after the other
― imago, Wednesday, 9 November 2016 14:39 (seven years ago) link
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.
― Bee OK, Thursday, 17 November 2016 01:58 (seven years ago) link
Of interest
http://thequietus.com/articles/22315-the-cure-pornography-anniversary-review
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 18:25 (six years ago) link
I was just about to post this
― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:06 (six years ago) link
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.
― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:13 (six years ago) link
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
― imago, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:22 (six years ago) link
There isn't a song on here that is worse than 8/10.
― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:22 (six years ago) link
srsly
and only one vote for siamese twins i mean that song has the best lyrics of anything
― imago, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:23 (six years ago) link
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")
― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:25 (six years ago) link
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!"
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:28 (six years ago) link
This album was built for air drumming to. Seriously!
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:29 (six years ago) link
― imago, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 3:22 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― PJD PDJ DPJ (DJP), Tuesday, May 16, 2017 3:22 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
otm
― Wimmels, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:29 (six years ago) link
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.
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:40 (six years ago) link
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)
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:46 (six years ago) link
haha not content with the hatchet job on Pornography, they proceed to give that to Rio as well
― imago, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 19:59 (six years ago) link
Yeah, I was very surprised at that. I thought that Smash Hits would have given Rio a high rating, but obviously not!
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 20:04 (six years ago) link
They gave Seventeen Seconds 8/10 and Faith 7/10. Surprisingly, they gave The Top 8/10 too.
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 21:16 (six years ago) link
The Head on the Door got 8.5/10
― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 21:20 (six years ago) link
tbf that review would absolutely make me want to hear the record, but I'm weird
― Wimmels, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 22:42 (six years ago) link
They liked The Associates, so hey.
― Mark G, Friday, 19 May 2017 06:26 (six years ago) link
I've just ordered the 2-disc remaster of this. Perhaps my fave, next to The Top.
― Duke, Friday, 19 May 2017 20:35 (six years ago) link
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
― sleeve, Friday, 19 June 2020 05:14 (three years ago) link
that's pretty much it afaik - I think they used a Linn drum to get the oppressive rhythm on some tracks
― assert (MatthewK), Friday, 19 June 2020 05:56 (three years ago) link
I mean it's great for what it is, but part of me craves hearing these songs with, like, really well recorded toms
― sleeve, Friday, 19 June 2020 06:04 (three years ago) link
bro, do you even like 1982 new wave records?
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Friday, 19 June 2020 06:26 (three years ago) link
^^^ this lol
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Friday, 19 June 2020 06:39 (three years ago) link
I want it seething with compression and dry ice, the vocals and guitars mangled into a flat roar, it's fucking Pornography dude
― assert (MatthewK), Friday, 19 June 2020 07:21 (three years ago) link
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
― sleeve, Friday, 19 June 2020 14:13 (three years ago) link
The drum sound makes this record IMO
― Doctor Madame Frances Experimento, LLC", Friday, 19 June 2020 14:52 (three years ago) link
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
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 10 October 2020 21:15 (three years ago) link
Oh I missed that. But you can reenact the listening party on his website
― Duke, Sunday, 11 October 2020 13:44 (three years ago) link
https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay.html
Will listen later!
― Duke, Sunday, 11 October 2020 13:46 (three years ago) link
40 years old now, wow:
https://louderthanwar.com/the-cure-pornography-1982-2022-a-40th-anniversary-reappraisal/
― Bee OK, Thursday, 5 May 2022 16:59 (one year ago) link