Post a controversial music opinion

I haven't listened to any of that era (outside the singles, which were clearly singles for a reason - they're the best songs on these) in a long time and was just giving them a listen this morning and their just so... blank. lots of tuneless plonking, minimalist arrangements that don't go anywhere. Smith got better once he started firing people left and right and decided to throw a few pop songs onto every release.

xp

Living in a Material World is mostly terrific, and I may be tempted to call it a near-great, weird album; the self-production shows how much he learned from George Martin and Phil Spector. And, yeah, he's got a bunch of good solo tunes. He never lost his innate sense of melody or how to play an ear-catching solo; he lost his voice and an impetus.

pornography is bruising, over the top, i've never liked it
faith really is kinda boring!
seventeen seconds is perfect, in my top 10 all time

Disintegration is easily the worst album to have ever gained "classic" status

Saying George Harrison's solo career wasn't up much is hardly controversial, I'd say it was the prevalent opinion until soppy Beatles nostalgia started kicking in - in the 90s? That's in the UK, soppy Beatles nostalgia has never gone out of fashion in the US, afaict.

Disintegration is easily the worst album to have ever gained "classic" status

― flamboyant goon tie included,

Won't say The Worst but I don't understand this album, and, boy, is it fucking long.

the back half of Disintegration is def a slog, but the first half is p towering, it does feel like the apex of platonic Cure-ness

or Platonic ideal

whatever, you know what I mean

prefer the single remixes on Galore; "Plainsong" is essential, yeah.

always held this one close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce2grHLTGQA

"Fascination Street"
"Prayers for Rain"
"The Same Deep Water as You"
"Disintegration"
"Homesick"
"Untitled"

if you consider this a slog it's safe to say the cure is not your band imo

the back half of Disintegration is def a slog, but the first half is p towering, it does feel like the apex of platonic Cure-ness

― Οὖτις, Friday, January 11, 2019 3:10 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but Untitled...

Fascination Street is good

My usual take, which I hold to now, is that everything from and including Seventeen Seconds until and including The Top is uniformly godly, and everything after that is patchy (but still occasionally brilliant)

The received wisdom of Disintegration being their best album is absolute madness to me but I guess it came at the right time or whatever, I wasn't there (OK I was 1)

i first heard disintegration when i was 14, i have no objective opinions about it

tbf I was about 15 or 16 and mostly loved it but

...well, but I'd been into the earlier stuff since I was about 8, lol

Won't say The Worst but I don't understand this album, and, boy, is it fucking long.

For me, it's not just that it's long, it's long from moment to moment, it just feels like everything is an extended outro and there is far too much sonic information at all times in a way that is so dense that it becomes featureless. The mood is not created for me. The sensation I feel when listening to Disintegration (especially "Plainsong" and the beginning of "Pictures Of You") is similar to the feeling I had when I put on the Live disc of To Venus And Back and the ending of "The Waitress" is stretched and stretched and stretched and I'm looking at my watch and wondering when it will end.

i was a teenager when Disintegration came out, and I am pretty sure I bought the cassette for full retail price, and I had just gotten my first walkman w/headphones as a present, which was the perfect mode of listening to that album -- probably if I were to listen to it right now, it would be like a totally different piece of music idk

"Fascination Street"
"Prayers for Rain"
"The Same Deep Water as You"
"Disintegration"
"Homesick"
"Untitled"

if you consider this a slog it's safe to say the cure is not your band imo

― rip van wanko,

I like one song on that list and much of their catalog from 1980 through 1986, including B-sides.

I bought Disintegration, my first Cure album without hearing a note of their earlier work, when I was fourteen and thought, "Why is this a fucking slog that goes on and on and on?"

Then I bought The Head on the Door and it made sense.

i mean i didn't really know how to process "the same deep water as you" at the time either. the album grew with me

Yeah I really love The Head On The Door and their singles both early and late

i don't even largely disagree w "slog" but "extended outro" is a good way of stating the appeal of, like, the expanding latticework of the title track, e.g.

yeah that seems to nail exactly what i like about it

i was high on cold medicine a lot at the time. it was kinda perfect for that

I don't mind the song lengths on Disintegration but it really isn't Smith's best songwriting at all imo - if anything, the lengths and builds are what make many of the songs interesting i.e. Brad/eric otm

And it's not like they hadn't already bettered all the builds with The Kiss tbah

Ah see I love Disintegration but Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is the classic Cure record I really struggle to get through.

Both have songs that go on way past their appointed times.

Three Imaginary Boys to The Head on the Door > Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me to Wish > everything afterwards.

that's a weird division to me, to my ears the goth trilogy and the Top/Head on the Door/KM KM KM are distinct eras

actually I guess the latter should include Japanese Whispers too.

I mean going from "Pornography" (the track) to "Let's Go to Bed" or "The Lovecats" or "The Walk" - there's a clear break there, it's almost like a completely different band

The divide is quality related, not stylistic!

it's both to me lol

The Cure in dirgey jam mode is pretty dull, I'm definitely more of a singles guy. They have so many great and catchy songs, that diving into their beloved goth albums was a jarring and mostly boring experience.

Had exactly the same experience. I've never returned either

turrican, have you ever worked at or aspired to work at a box building factory, because you seem to have an affinity for it

No, no, do be quiet.

granted, what you put in your boxes tends to be an arbitrary mish-mash that makes no sense to most other ppl

My preference for The Cure up to The Head on the Door probably has a lot to do with the fact that the Standing on a Beach compilation was my introduction to the band, alongside The Cure in Orange. So, of course, I spent a lot of time with the albums from that period before moving onto Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and beyond. I just think that Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, Disintegration and Wish are all a mish-mash of stunning moments and stuff that feels a bit of a slog.

(x-post to Shakey)

and those albums are also quite disparate! plenty of slog and mish-mash on just about everything except for the first one, though one could argue there was a mish-mash going on stylistically there

The difference is that while Faith (for example) has some atmospheric slow tempo moments such as 'The Funeral Party', they don't go on for 8 minutes and the band don't need to chain several of them together, which is what sinks the back half of Disintegration for me. Early on, they'd have five minutes of slow tempo and then hit you with 'Doubt' ...

Also, the shorter running times make the albums feel much tighter and easier to digest.

assuming you listen to the whole thing throughout all in one sitting? this is just an odd way of evaluating things to me, like we're not talking about a meal, we are talking about music that can be listened to in multiple different ways ... it's not as wtf as saying, "i prefer this style of noodles because they work best for inserting into my urethra" when most people evaluate food based on eating it .... but still ... dunno

i like that the dirges are all stacked on top of each other on disintegration, that’s like why it’s good to me, it’s like you’re slowly sinking into a pool

unpopular opinion but it would be a lesser album if it were shorter

Unpopular, nay, controversial...

the only track on Disintegration i really dislike is "Last Dance" which feels the most dirge-like to me despite only being 5 minutes

i do wish the title track built a bit more intensity as it went along too, it sort of feels like that's what it wants to do but it just stays on the same groove forever. "The Same Deep Water As You" is maybe a little much but it's good to get lost in at the very least