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