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The Cure “Disintegration” (1989)

Though he may despise and disdain the term, Robert Smith, with his pot kettle black eyeliner, moussed, tousled hair and dour almost-dopey mopiness, will always be the archetypal goth, the poster boy for bedroom gloom and overwrought, affected misery. The Cure was far from a one-trick pony with a limp, but angst and depression are stamped repeatedly on the forehead of Disintegration, the crowning achievement of Smith’s career. His moody contemplation and inner turmoil goes Technicolor Cinemascope on this record; the guitars, flanged and phased beyond recognition, chime and soar, the vocals and drums reverberate through the cavernous bunker of the production, while layers of synthesized strings and weeping keyboards supplement the texture. These songs are sweeping and tenaciously grandiose – stadium-sized music for sun shy shut-ins and poetry scribblers. Opener “Plainsong” announces the record’s sound, with Smith’s voice echoing desperately across the freezing Wuthering Heights moor, while the “shimmering” (definitely among the most overused words in pop criticism) bells on “Pictures of You” underpin the longing of the tea-soaked madeleine cake lyrics. The straightforward, sullenly heartfelt “Lovesong” is the most accessible track, while “Lullaby” is the sexiest, with a near-funky stop-start rhythm, punctured guitar jabs and whispered vocals. The desolate essence of the album can found within the watery twins “Prayer for rain” and “The Same Deep Water as You:” plodding, winding requiems of remorse and reprehension. Though it nearly runs out of momentum by the time the wistful pump-organ of the untitled final track materializes in the haze, Disintegration is an elegy to loneliness, a bombastic display of histrionic pomp and the uncontrollable circumstance of just feeling sad, a true fucking epic blurred by flowing tears. —S. Paul Brown

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