pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

i'm totally basic and still think disintegration is the best album ever

some people think it is too long or some of the songs are bad; i argue that the length actually succeeds in making it feel deeper and denser, particularly in the way it's paced, starting off with impressionistically-formed pop songs which steadily warp into something way more gnarled and disturbed and by the time you hit the "prayers for rain"/"same deep water as you" stretch you feel like you've wandered so far into the record you'll never find your way out again. title track ironically refocuses things just as the mood of the record is at its most broken. "homesick" is an expression of desperation and denial, "untitled" one of reluctant, realistic acceptance. idk it's just so beautifully constructed, a big goth pool shrouded in mist and surrounded by exotic plants and i can't resist sinking into it. helps that every song is great i must admit

this is a ridiculous place, where i feel like i need to write a post defending disintegration

disintegration is their best

sometimes "prayers for rain"/"the same deep water as you" can be too much at times but if you're in the mood then they really really work

"last dance" is inessential but not bad, that's the extent of my complaints

I surrender and agree

as for Wish, though …

Wish and Disintegration are not far apart. Wish is refreshing, poppier, slightly excessive, in continuity with Disintegration and basking in its glory at the same time as it's in its shadow with lesser heights and consistency. I return to Wish more often for some reason, so I'm not shocked anyone prefers it to Disintegration, and I still think "From the Edge" is among their best songs. If the Cure wrote a masterpiece album, it's definitely Disintegration, though I value all their classic albums almost equally.

That's about as evocative a defense as I've read, Brad. Good read.

idk Disintegration was the first Cure album I bought at time of release, found it a drag ("Lovesong" still leaves me cold), then worked my way backward to THOTD and Kiss Me and thought, whoa, okay, I get them now. And these days I accept how fully Disintegration provides an immersive experience. Generally, though, "Sinking" earlier and "To Wish Impossible Things" handle the hothouse despair more succinctly for those of us who get that succinctness isn't the point for Disintegration's admirers.

this is a ridiculous place, where i feel like i need to write a post defending disintegration

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, 30 May 2022 06:59 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it is the deep purpose of this place (i mean not the pitchfork thread specifically or indeed disintegration specifically, but i guess the need to write posts abt things that matter)

disintegration is great. it's maybe even their 5th-best album

can't much speak on wish since disintegration is the only cure album I can remember listening to the whole way through (have listened to it a thousand times though, masterpiece)

I’ve never been able to get into them— should post about that in the appropriate thread, probably

Pornography, The Head on the Door and Faith are all 10s

otm even though when THOTD came out I felt it was too mersh, but that was me & those were the times

i'm totally basic and still think disintegration is the best album ever

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, May 30, 2022 1:43 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same. And you completely and perfectly nail its appeal--at least for me--in those few sentences above

for all the "cold chilly goth" atmosphere that it's supposed to have, disintegration has always sounded like a very hot, almost muggy, album to me. it's like one of those august evenings where it's pretty much dark, maybe a bit of orange left on the horizon, and you can feel the heat coming off the pavement. maybe it's been too hot to be outside otherwise. insert "the same deep water as you."

even though i still like it, wish is the one that hits me like a relentlessly windy dark grey morning in january. when "friday i'm in love" is on, maybe the sun peaks through the clouds for a moment.

i like wish a lot, i feel like "doing the unstuck" is pretty underrated(?) (i have no sense of these things but when robert smith sings "happy!!!!" in a cure song i assume it's an underrated cure song), but it's much more disjointed than disintegration. it begins and ends awesomely, tho

Disintegration sounds like August xpost

brad otm. "doing the unstuck" has always been one of the highlights for me. when join the dots came out, the previously unissued extended mix blew me away:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBN39lxAnFc

really does make you wonder what the hell has taken so long with the deluxe edition.

anyway, just wanted to take this opportunity to point out that pfork said something about one of my favorite bands and they managed to not only not be embarrassing, but actually repped for them pretty well. gold clap for pfork on this one.

*golf clap

Sodomsky is a really good writer.

I’m not a huge Cure fan but I’ve always really loved the guitar sound on wish

Wait, I wasn't saying Disintegration is a bad album! I'm not trying to kill my idols. I don't like giving partial ratings, it's probably an 8.6 for me and I'd still consider it one of the top 20 albums from the 80's.

I think all of these Cure albums are essential... maybe in this order:

Disintegration, Pornography, The Head on the Door, Faith, Seventeen Seconds, Wish, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

I’ve always really loved the guitar sound on wish

― brimstead, Monday, May 30, 2022 10:04 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm, its best feature, reminds me of the miles-deep guitar tone from contemporaneous church records but like as glimpsed through a fog

oh its other best feature is that it's the boris williams fireworks show

Would like to chime in once again and remind everyone who hasn't heard it that Lost Wishes has a lot more of the kinds of qualities that Brad mentions. It is so highly recommended.

Also Moka otm. Stating the plainly obvious, but: Cure in the 80s, classic for a reason.

"Wendy Time" strikes me as an improved "Hot Hot Hot!!!"

That song was once so collectively hated, it was only referred to as "W*ndy" on an old fan forum.

I think of it like a bizarro world take on "Let's Go to Bed." The original demo is much more brooding and Simon-centric. It's got a groove.

The one track for whose sake I won't endure a single insult: "High." It's everything I want from jangly Cure singles. Plus, it's licky as trips and kitten as a cat.

Adore the single version for that harpsichord(?) that sits deep in the mix whereas the album version is just too spare without it.

Loved the T&CII versions of Wendy and Cut and was aghast when I first heard the studio cuts.

"Cut" on Show >>>>>>

Re the guitar tone, on Disintegration and Wish most of the leads and melody lines are played on the Bass VI rather than a standard guitar, gives it that bell/piano quality. Same goes for The Church of course.
viz
https://post-punk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/prayertourshirt.jpg

This guy has several Cure videos where he plays a Bass VI and the main hooks/riffs from each album.

I adore this specific sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDqLtg96fvA

Oh wait only two albums Wish and Disintegration. Still pretty cool to hear isolated.

there's lots of great stuff on wish it just doesn't hang together that well, but really disintegration is the only one from that period that isn't a wild stylistic grab bag

The problem for me is that they sound like they're pandering to their audience rather than following the muse.

uhm, maybe not the case since you didn't like it?

(kidding, ikwym)

Lol

Austin otm tho, following their best/richest "dark" record with their second-poppiest record ever is hardly pandering

The problem for me is that they sound like they're pandering to their audience rather than following the muse.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, May 31, 2022 6:08 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've always found that there is something fabricated in the band's affects, but it's part of the appeal, the tragicomic goth figure etc.

This discussion (and the article) had me revisiting Wish and it's better than I remember it being - I still think it's a bit of dip from their classic run (I basically love all the '80s albums except The Top) but there's lots of good stuff there, the songwriting maybe just feels a bit unfocussed at times? Agreed on the praise for the guitar sound, that's a large part of why I love 'Open' so much, one of their strongest opening tracks.

don't think my dissonance from ILM consensus can be summarised any more succinctly than by our respective attitudes towards The Top

Ha, I thought it had some supporters on here but I could be wrong.

pretty big fan here, also partial to Blue Sunshine

I feel their peak was Seventeen Seconds and Faith, and though all the subsequent 80s records have some good songs, they're marred by self-consciously stretching for effects, whether in the "goth" or "pop" directions. The only 90s stuff I've heard was seven songs on Greatest Hits and on that evidence it seemed to me that Smith had completely lost whatever made him a distinctive songwriter.
As for the Pitchfork review, it felt like the writer was trying to put the best spin on "they were past their prime".

Nothing wrong with self-consciousness!

I accept that Smith was willing himself to be in a sour mood recording the early '80s doom trilogy.

wish was the last album of their prime! & one of the better ones of it

xps to Halfway

Many present tend to be fans of bands' softer phases though, when they matured and started crafting songs rather than violently hacking them into being. I differ; I have time for Wish (especially FTEOTDGS and End), but the notion that it could represent any sort of pinnacle in the wake of that Seventeen Seconds through The Top run feels madly fanciful to me. Watching Me Fall (and 39) off Bloodflowers feel to me like a much more successful approach to the epic wall-of-sound style they adopted - be theatrical, go berserk with it

That said, you've basically just dismissed Pornography as schlock rather than one of the most singular and brilliant achievements in art-rock history, so