Why is there no thread for The Cure's Disintegration?

i was born in 1979 and couldn't possibly avoid "Friday's I'm In Love" and would have no idea how, crate-digging 10-year-old miccio and crut would have somehow discovered their "canonical early work" first

I was 4 in 1992 and I only fucked w/garth brooks & randy travis. The first Cure song I heard was probably "Just Like Heaven" played on the local top 40 station's eighties night when I was like 10, tho that was years before I knew who the Cure were. I wasn't quite the crate-digger yet.

Kids today and their crate-digging. Heard the Clash yet?

What would be the point?

i was born in 1979 and couldn't possibly avoid "Friday's I'm In Love" and would have no idea how, crate-digging 10-year-old miccio and crut would have somehow discovered their "canonical early work" first

"love song" was a #2 hit when we were nine or ten, dude. also saw the video for "just like heaven," lived in a college town and had a babysitter who owned Mixed Up before Wish came out. sorry this freaks you out!

saw "fascination street" when i was a kid on MTV, too. it's not like the cure weren't already an MTV presence before Wish.

also it's not like i denied people my age may have heard "friday" first (srsly chris, read before you challop), just with the silly idea that your favorite cure album would be whatever you heard first, or that all kids born since 1977 would be into "friday" more than Pornography, or disintegration or standing on a beach stuff, just because it happened after. are kids born since 1987 more into the ross robinson album?

pretty sure the whole reason Wish could do well as an album in the U.S. was that the Cure had already become a major well-known "cult" act -- a hit and a half off Disintegration (anyone with a top-40 station could have heard "Lovesong"), a huge tour, word of mouth, the remix record, people had seen other people do their hair like them, etc. -- so all they needed was a pleasant pop song like "Fridays I'm in Love" to roll through wide-open media

and by "cult" I mean mainstream-level "cult" -- in terms of something like MTV, they were a big cult act by "Just Like Heaven." (I think they played it at an MTV awards thing at the time, actually.)

The "DisintegratIon" tour was one of those instances where the morning after, everyone in my high school was wearing a t-shirt.

(I should stress a Cure tour t-shirt; regular t-shirts - some with band names - were otherwise pretty common on a daily basis)

people had seen other people do their hair like them

loooooooool

That kind of thing is always really hard for me to imagine. But yeah, I grew up in a place that wasn't exactly up on trends -- a town in southern Colorado -- and got interested in rock/indie music around 1990: as I remember it, the two absolute easiest "college rock" groups to access at that point were the Cure and R.E.M. And I think the Cure were ahead by a long shot until "Losing My Religion." And a lot of this was less about MTV or radio play and more about just general teenage cult-icon status: t-shirts, haircuts, tape-borrowing ... they were just around and visible.

xpost - haha ilxor this is exactly what I mean -- when you're young or in school, that's a big thing!

I loved REM since Green (first CD I ever bought with my own money), but had no idea how many people were in the group until I bought the thing (first I thought they were an up-with-people/hooray-for-everything multiracial combo thanks to the "Stand" video) and didn't know which one was the singer until "losing my religion." Robert Smith on the other hand was a pretty obvious icon.

I knew REM long before I knew the Cure but that's because my mom knew who REM were

xpost - The other brief setback for REM was probably that their first hit came off pretty jokey/novelty.

Now I'm stuck thinking about how everyone else fared in that end-of-the-80s college-act pack ... next back was probably Depeche Mode, right? Who had the singles, but not as much beloved-icon stuff as the Cure or favorite-band stuff as REM. (Haha and Morrissey did great on the "cult" part but had no chance yet of a US hit.) There was a commercial-peak/iconic-album moment for this kind of thing, I guess, and then obviously a couple years later everything tipped hard into American alt/indie.

when i was in 7th-8th gr (87-89 approx) my favorite bands were REM, INXS, XTC, U2, The Cure, Violent Femmes, and Depeche Mode. There were literally LEGIONS of girls like me. i felt special, though, because everyone else was listening to hair metal where i lived. i also first heard "just like heaven" on the radio and it changed my life.

don't forget the b-52's and new order! dunno if fine young cannibals count.

as for rem's jokey/novelty deal, rem's first top ten pop hit was "the one i love," not "stand."

By the time Disintegration came out, I was under the impression that The Cure was a huge band -- almost everyone I knew loved them: Catholic schoolgirls, skater dudes, dorks like me, everyone. Tons of people were wearing the tshirt the day after the tour came through Cleveland in 9th gr. By the time Wish came out, it sounded kinda corny.

9th grade was when I branched out a lot. But 7th-8th grade was all about those bands.

first REM I heard was "it's the end of the world as we know it," lol

first REM i heard was "the one i love" on the radio in maybe 6th grade? i grew up listening to tons of classic rock and top 40 stuff, so when i heard this it was like WHOA. just like everyone else.

xpost - I had no idea "The One I Love" charted that well! I stand corrected.

This is basically just my own age and taste talking, but this always looks like a pretty nice window for alt/college stuff, where there were good things happening both on the new-wavey commercial end (all these bands above) plus there was a lot of big accessible stuff happening (or coming) on the more American-indie/punk side (with Sonic Youth, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., etc.). I guess I've written before about how those two sides seemed to merge together to create the whole future template of "alternative"/"indie" -- which might be incorrect, but always feels about right to me.

(hahaha I remember being slightly conflicted in 91/92, because I'd just gotten really into the more 80s/British/college/new-wavey side of things, and then it was immediately dethroned by grungier American stuff -- which I also enjoyed, but I was kinda like "damn you, I just got my bearings!")

where there were good things happening both on the new-wavey commercial end (all these bands above) plus there was a lot of big accessible stuff happening (or coming) on the more American-indie/punk side (with Sonic Youth, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., etc.).

see, this ^^ is the difference between middle school and high school for me.

Ha, bearings. Am I the only one that still pretty much likes and listens to everything I've always liked and listened to, with more added to the list every day? I never identified music with "scenes," I guess, even though said "scenes" were pretty obvious, in retrospect. That said, I knew far more jocks and assholes that listened to the Cure than any other one group - dunno why. In my high school (and Nabisco, I think I'm a couple of years older than you), if memory serves, the "outsiders" listened to Sub Pop stuff, AmRep, SST, Matador, etc. Noisy stuff, no synths. Or metal. Or hip-hop, even. But the Cure seemed pretty prevalent. Granted, only "Kiss Me ..." and "Disintegration" Cure. Not a lot of dudes blasting "Faith."

FWIW, the next tour that I recall provoking a similar wave of tour s-shirt wearing was the "Songs of Faith and Devotion" tour, which I suppose was also a "Disintegration"/"Wish"-like album after the breakthrough.

BTW, I've always been intrigued by Christgau's (mis?)reading of the album:

Disintegration [Elektra, 1989]
With the transmutation of junk a species of junk itself, an evasion available to any charlatan or nincompoop, it's tempting to ignore this patent arena move altogether. But by pumping his bad faith and bad relationship into depressing moderato play-loud keyb anthems far more tedious than his endless vamps, Robert Smith does actually confront a life contradiction. Not the splintered relationship, needless to say, although the title tune is a suitably grotesque breakup song among unsuitably grotesque breakup songs. As with so many stars, even "private" ones who make a big deal of their "integrity," Smith's demon lover is his audience, now somehow swollen well beyond his ability to comprehend, much less control. Hence the huge scale of these gothic cliches. And watch out, you mass, 'cause if you don't accept this propitiation he just may start contemplating suicide again. Or take his money and go home. C+

I wonder if he wrote this before the album was a bona arena-packing fide hit.

this band blows

nabisco and I grew up in the same town (kind of; I was there 1981 to 1987 and then moved back to california at the end of my freshman year of HS). 1987 the cure were definitely a "thing" there but a "thing" for "freaks". In fact I disliked them, mainly because the one persion I knew who championed them was a douche of a friend. REM were better known and better accepted. I never heard any of these bands on the radio there though; REM I found through tapes that a friend got from his cousin (along with lots of other skate rock). The Smiths were probably better known than the Cure, or at least, better accepted. Independent Records in that town stocked all of this stuff though. But really, midwest US to me, at that time, essentially = Bon Jovi or real metal.

my point being, then I came to california in 1987 and the Cure were everywhere already. Kiss Me 3x came out and it was enormous. The Prayer tour was a massive thing, no doubt.

when i was in 7th-8th gr (87-89 approx) my favorite bands were REM, INXS, XTC, U2, The Cure, Violent Femmes, and Depeche Mode. There were literally LEGIONS of girls like me.

otm for me too, a couple years later. suburbs imo.

I think I was 13 when my 17 yo cousin played 'Lullaby' for me. It's a cliche but that song changed everything for me & my relationship with music. And the chronology is all mushed up but even before that it felt like they were huge, like Duran Duran huge. I remember being fascinated by the idea of a boy wearing lipstick, cousins & older female friends had his posters on their walls...more like some kind of Jesus than just a pop star, it was all different. Anyhoo, I was well aware of the cure before 'Friday' showed up.

so I'm on "Pictures of You" listening to the reissue and srsly why do I never play this album anymore

huh, still not a big fan of "Closedown" tho

haha yeah i know - I put it on Sunday and realized I had not listened to this in 15 years and what a beast of an album it really was

The initial success of Wish was definitely a Soundscan era fluke; however there's a huge possibility that Disintegration would easily have spent several weeks in the top ten when "Lovesong" was a #2 hit. Every single got massive play on my college radio station; and when you consider that Mixed Up (the first Cure album I got with my own money) came out only a few months after "Pictures of You" you had this period when The Cure was a ubiquitous "modern rock" and MTV presence (I'm assuming the latter, cuz I didn't have MTV then).

"Lovesong" was the first real instance of Robert playing with lyrical repetition where he's doing variations on a theme rather than repeating the first verse as a code, yes? Is there another song structured like that before this (I can't think of anything, most of what he did before was rambling narrative although you can see hints of it in "Boys Don't Cry" and "The Hanging Garden"), and if not was this song's massive success the thing that led him to start writing everything like that?

ha I still get chills from that opening guitar riff in "Lullaby"; there are so many ways in which that is the PERFECT Cure song

HIS ARMS ARE AROUND ME AND HIS TONGUE IN MY EYES

yeah I like the new stuff a lot but MAN THIS ALBUM

I wonder if he wrote this before the album was a bona arena-packing fide hit.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, June 11, 2010 7:41 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

The review was part of that year's Turkey Shoot -- roughly six months after it was released, then.

The only concrete thing I can remember about Disintegration is that it was the first tape that cost me over $10.

Everything through "The Walk" sounds as great as ever, but Disintegration apparently does nothing for me these days.

I'M BEGGING TO DRAG YOU DOWN WITH ME

It's amazing that I am listening to this on my terrible work headphones and it is having almost exactly the same emotional impact on me as it did when I first heard it 21 years ago.

holy fuck 21 years ago

I actually don't know why "Lovesong" was the crossover hit – payola? lyrical simplicity? a confluence of all these things and others? ("Just Like Heaven" gets a hundred times more airplay now). I know it was my least favorite single by a country mile; it's one of those songs whose charms you exhaust real quick.

From the same Turkey Shoot:

GLORIA ESTEFAN: Cuts Both Ways (Epic) I was perplexed to catch myself enjoying parts of this until I recognized the feels-so-good-when-it-stops syndrome--who wouldn't perk up at a sleek salsa montuno or tap-dancing synperc break when the alternative is Karen Carpenter with an unlocked pelvis? "Get On Your Feet" importunes too much--these rhythms aren't gonna get you. C

I always liked "Karen Carpenter with an unlocked pelvis" but wonder if he felt bad after her accident.

Gloria's, that is.

holy fuck 21 years ago

amazing for a 21st-anniversary reissue of an album

lol I old too

oh shit, this live version of "Homesick"

I actually don't know why "Lovesong" was the crossover hit

It was a question of timing. Their popularity had been growing in North America since The Head On The Door and they had their first Top 40 hit with "Just Like Heaven". It was obvious that they were going to be big with their next album and that they were going to have a hit as soon as they put out a "radio friendly" single. I was also disappointed at the time that it happened with "Lovesong", which I didn't like as much as most of their previous singles.

Can't wait to hear this!!! So anxious.

I actually don't know why "Lovesong" was the crossover hit

Because it's a hugely accessible, universally identifiable, catchy as fuck pop song?

"Inbetween Days" and "Just Like Heaven" were too!