Disintegration

The second Seventeen Seconds album secured The Cure's reputation as an outstanding gothic rock band. Stephen Thomas Earlvine described the period in The Cure as “the slow, gloomy songs and Smith’s disgusting appearance.” ^[5]

In 1982 and 1983, two singles were released that contained elements of pop music uncharacteristic for the style of the group ^[5] . “The Lovecats” became the first single of The Cure, which entered the top ten best songs of the UK (7th place) ^[6] . The sound was changed because Smith was unhappy with the reputation of the predictable Gothic rock band for The Cure: “To answer these people, I wanted to write a crazy and calculated song, such as“ Let's Go to Bed “” ^{[7 ]} .

After returning to the composition of guitarist Porl Thompson, bassist Simon Gallup in 1984 and the arrival of drummer Boris Williams in 1985 , Smith and Tolhurst continued to bring elements of pop music to the band. So, the sixth studio album The Head on the Door (1985) was born. After the release of the singles “In Between Days” and “Close to Me”, The Cure first became known in the USA ^[8] .

The double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me made the group even more commercially successful: after its release, tickets for the The Cure world tour were sold out. Despite this, friction began to arise between the members of the group. Tolhurst began to consume excessive amounts of alcohol and ceased to benefit the group ^[9] . To patch this hole, the second keyboard player Roger O'Donnell appeared in The Cure.

The new musician immediately realized that Tolhurst burdened the rest: “I could not understand why he remained in the group. He could afford to hire a teacher and take lessons every day, but he was not interested in learning. He just liked being a member of the group ” ^{[9] [10]} . The rest of the participants were also not comfortable with Tolhurst’s behavior, and when the keyboard player began to drink even more, Smith said that his behavior reminds him of an “underdeveloped child who is always driven with a stick” ^{[9] [11]} .

At the end of the tour in support of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me Smith felt out of place and left with his bride in Maida Vale ( English Maida Vale ). To get out of depression , the musician began to regularly use LSD . Then he realized that The Cure was misunderstood by the audience, and decided to return to the dark theme during the recording of the next album ^[12] .

Meanwhile, Smith was about to turn 30 years old. This scared Robert, since he believed that all the masterpieces in rock music appeared before their creators reached this age ^[13] . So, Smith began to write songs without the participation of other members of the group. The material he recorded was sad and depressing.

In the summer of 1988, the band members gathered at Boris Williams' house, and Smith showed them the demos he had made. The leader of the group was ready to release songs alone if the others didn’t like them: “I would love to record them myself. If the group decided that this was wrong, everything would be in perfect order ” ^{[13] [14]} . But the bandmates approved of them, and by the end of the summer, thirty-two songs were recorded on a 16-track tape recorder at Williams' house ^[13] .

When The Cure arrived at Reading at Hook End Manor, Smith decided that he wouldn’t communicate with anyone. Robert later admitted that he was a bit arrogant, but at that time he wanted to be in a slightly unfriendly atmosphere ^[15] . The musician tried to move away from the mood that can be heard on the album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and pop singles, and create the atmosphere of the fourth album Pornography ^[15] .

At this time, suicide , as a social phenomenon, attracted the attention of Robert Smith ^[16] . Shortly before the start of the Disintegration recording in one of the nearby cities, two teenagers committed suicide. Later it became known that during this they were listening to the early albums of The Cure. Smith kept a newspaper clipping about the incident attached to the wall at the recording studio, but commented on the situation as follows: “I know, this is tragic, but at the same time terribly funny. Obviously, this has nothing to do with us. They just chose us. ” ^[17]

In the meantime, Tolhurst only distracted the rest of the band: during the recording of the album, he spent most of his time drinking and watching MTV . Smith ceased to recognize his colleague: “I no longer understood who he was, and he himself did not know this anymore. I shouted at the others, because the manner in which we communicated with him was absurd ” ^{[16] [18]} .

Robert did not expel Tolhurst from the group just because he felt a duty to an old friend. Then the other The Cure musicians issued an ultimatum that they would leave if Lol wasn’t fired before the end of the recording. When Tolhurst arrived to record the album, having again gone too far with drinking, there was a conflict that put an end to his stay in the group ^[16] . In an April 1989 interview with New Musical Express, Smith said that Lol was married and might return to The Cure by Christmas ^[19] . But that did not happen. Although the musician’s surname appears on the album opposite the inscription “other instruments”, Smith and the rest of the band say that Tolhurst did not participate in the recording ^[20] .

Disintegration marked the group's return to the dark sound of the gothic rock style, in which The Cure albums of the early 80s were recorded ^[21] . Smith wanted to record an album that would reflect his depressed state at that time ^[15] . The sound of Disintegration shocked representatives of the American record label Elektra Records ^[22] , and Smith was asked to postpone the release for several months. Robert replied: “They believe that I specifically tried to be gloomy. After that, I realized that the record companies didn’t get a damn about what The Cure was doing, and what The Cure was all about ” ^{[23] [24]} .

In Disintegration, you can hear a lot of keyboard and synthesizer parts , lingering guitar riffs and Smith's brooding voice . The first song of the Plainsong album, according to journalist Jeff Apter, “perfectly transfers the listener to the mood of the album” and “diverges in the flow of the guitar and synthesizer until Smith picks up a microphone and performs some fragments of the text so mysteriously (for example, “I'm so cold”), as if they were Qumran manuscripts ” ^{[25] [26]} . Smith felt that “Plainsong” would be a great opening for the album and described it as orchestral and luxurious.

The text of the optimistic “Pictures of You” is still very touching (“screamed at the make-believe / screamed at the sky / you finally found all your courage to let it all go”) ^[26] . Allmusic journalist Bill Janovitz on the song: “This is The Cure at its best: a magnificent smooth part of the synthesizer, into which the guitar’s moves, bass and Smith’s romantic text are performed with passion” ^[27] .

The third track of the album “Closedown” consists of a keyboard base and a slow sad part of the guitar. The song became a means for Smith to express his physical and professional shortcomings ^[26] .

Despite the far from cheerful mood dominating the album, the song “Lovesong” became a hit in the USA. Nat Regmget (Allmusic) about the song: “ Rhythm section : Simon Gallup / Boris Williams, create a good tight rhythm, while Smith and Porl Thompson add guitar inserts and bezels, adding piquancy. Smith presents the text gently, with a touch of passion. ” ^[28]

Smith wrote Lovesong as a present for the wedding of his sweetheart, Mary Pool. It seemed that her text did not fit into the general mood of Disintegration , but Robert considered the composition an important part of the album: “This is an open expression of emotions. This is not an attempt to be smart. Ten years passed before I came to quietly sing a frank love song ” ^{[15] [29]} . Lovesong showed a change within Smith himself: he used to think he should hide his feelings.

The idea of ​​the song “ Lullaby ” was born to Smith after a childhood memory: if Robert could not sleep, his father sang him lullabies: “He always invented them himself, and they always had a bad end. Something like: sleep, baby, sleep, or you'll never wake up again ” ^{[26] [30]} .

You can hear many different effects in the album: for example, in order to achieve a slow dull tempo in the song “Prayers for Rain”, a flanger and many others were used ^[31] .

Disintegration was released in May 1989 and took third place on the UK chart, and the single " Lullaby " was on the fifth ^{[32] [33]} . Until this time, the group had not yet achieved such success ^{[32] [33]} . In the USA, the label Elektra Records first released the single “Fascination Street”, due to the fact that the music sounded in the movie “ Lost Angels ” ^[34] . The third single, Lovesong, finished second in the US ^[35] . The success of Disintegration was so impressive ^[21] that in March 1990 (a year passed after the release), the single “Pictures of You” took twenty-fourth position in the UK ^[36] . Moreover, in the UK, Disintegration became gold , and by 1992 more than three million copies had been sold worldwide ^[37] .

Rolling Stone put the album three and a half stars out of five. Commentator Michael Azerrad said that “although Disintegration does not open up new horizons for the group, it successfully shows what it does best.” ^[38] Chris Roberts, columnist for Melody Maker weekly, wrote that The Cure had stopped releasing pop records and described the album as “promising, claustrophobic, often touching and often monotonous” ^{[39] [40]} . Journalist Robert Cristgau rated C + and expressed his dissatisfaction with Robert Smith’s depressed mood ^[41] . Steven Thomas Erlvine (Allmusic) directed the album four and a half stars out of five and praised The Cure: “the band’s gloomy sound has never been so beautiful, and the songs, starting with the energetic“ Fascination Street ”, ending with the ominous“ Lullaby ”with a refined guitar sound , have never been so thoughtful and memorable ” ^[4] .

Disintegration is on many of the "best of the best." Rolling Stone placed the album at 326 in the list of “ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ” ^[42] . The German analogue of the magazine entrusted entries 184th place in the same list ^[43] . Melody Maker named the album the best ever released in 1989 ^[44] . Q magazine put him on the 17th line in the list of 80 best albums ^[45] .

After the work on the album was finished, Smith said that the group began to play in the style of arena rock, despite all his efforts to prevent this ^{[26] [46]} . Also, the leader of The Cure said that the name Disintegration was suitable for work as well as possible, since relations within the group ceased to be ideal and the golden period of creativity came to an end ^[26] .

Immediately after the release of the album in Europe, the Prayer tour took place. The group gave many notable concerts, among them: in front of a forty thousand audience in Paris , at the festival in Roskilde , in London at Wembley Stadium ^[33] . After the European tour, the members of the group decided to get to America by ship instead of an airplane. Smith and Gallapp were afraid of flights and even wanted to cancel part of the planned concerts, but the record company and tour organizers insisted on their own and even offered to hold additional performances. The first concert in the United States was held in front of a forty-four thousandth audience at the Giants Stadium in New York . The band members were not happy about this, and Smith himself said that they never wanted to become so significant ^{[47] [48]} .

During the tour of western America, the Pixels, Shelleyan Orphan, and Love and Rockets performed as the opening act for The Cure. The concert at the Dodger Stadium attracted 50,000 spectators and generated $ 1,500,000 in revenue. The band’s growing popularity led Smith to a breakdown: he said that he could no longer cope with all this and the current tour would be the last ^{[48] [49]} . Conflicts occurred between Robert and the rest of the group, and cocaine use only worsened things ^[48] .

Meanwhile, in 1990, Lullaby became the "best music video of 1989" at the Brit Awards . In 1991, The Cure released the Entreat live album, which included Disintegration songs performed at a Wembley concert. Soon, despite the announcement that The Cure would never tour again, Smith accepted the offer to become the headliner at the Glastonbury Festival. Keyboardist O'Donnell left the band after two years in the band and was replaced by guitar technician Perry Bamount. A little later, Smith was influenced by the acid house style that was popular in London at that time, and in 1991 he released the album of remixes of songs The Cure Mixed Up ^[48] .

All texts are written by Robert Smith, all music is written by Smith, Gallup, O'Donnell, Thompson, Tolhurst and Williams.

The official website of the group announced the re-release of the legendary album in May 2010. The new version will be released in three forms: Deluxe 3 CD, Double vinyl and budget CD. ^[50]

• The first Deluxe Edition, Single CD and Double Vinyl discs include the original album.

Deluxe Edition Song List

All texts are written by Robert Smith, all music is written by Smith, Gallup, O'Donnell, Thompson, Tolhurst and Williams.

• Tracks marked with ( * ) have not been previously released

All texts are written by Robert Smith, all music is written by Smith, Gallup, O'Donnell, Thompson, Tolhurst and Williams.

• Robert Smith - vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass;
• Simon Gallup - bass, keyboards;
• Porl Thompson - guitar;
• Boris Williams - drums;
• Roger O'Donnell - keyboards;
• Lol Tolhurst - indicated “other tools”, but in reality did not take part in the recording ^[20] .

Album

Singles

The album influenced the Agatha Christie band. In 1989, a program for the song “ Lullaby ” was broadcast on “Program A” , and after watching this program, the manager of the Russian group told the musicians that they should develop in the style of The Cure. ^[60] В этом же году «Агата Кристи» отправилась выступать на фестивале советского рока в Глазго и привезла оттуда виниловую пластинку с альбомом Disintegration ^[60] . Анна Жавнерович в своей статье «Сыворотка правды» пишет, что песня «Корвет Уходит В Небеса» — «структурная и мелодическая калька известного трека „Fascination Street“» ^[61] , но сами участники «Агаты Кристи» не согласны с этим мнением ^[60] .

The Killers bassist Mark Stormer calls his band's Day & Age album secondary and says the song Good Night, Travel Well could easily end up on Disintegration ^[62] .

Shura from the Bi-2 group believes that the achievements of the album Disintegration used the group Blur and Coldplay ^[63] . The musicians of the Russian group themselves made their version of the song “Lovesong” ^[63] .

• Jeff Apter. Never Enough: The Story Of The Cure. - Omnibus Press, 2005. - ISBN 978-0-8256-7340-5 .

• Album “Disintegration”: history, comments and translations of songs (project “Rock songs: interpretation”)