Wednesday, February 20, 2008

500. The Cure - Pornography (1982)
















Track Listing


1. One Hundred Years
2. Short Term Effect
3. Hanging Garden
4. Siamese Twins
5. Figurehead
6. Strange Day
7. Cold
8. Pornography

Review

We've finally reached the midway point in this thing, album 500! And this is an album which will raise my page hits to no end, finally adding the word Pornography to the site. Now whoever searches for "Robert Smith Porn" can find their way here! Actually I don't think there is any Robert Smith porn, and if there is I don't particularly want to see it, unless it is from when he was young when he was actually quite attractive. Moving on.

This is by no means the best Cure album on the list. That said, it is definitely a slow-burner and I have been liking it more and more the more I listen to it. To the point where I started feeling quite underwhelmed by it and now I quite like it.

There are some faults to point to here, it is a bit derivative of Joy Division particularly on the bass lines, but that is really not a tremendous criticism as Joy Division was great. On the other hand it really works as one of the darkest Cure albums ever, none of the sunny Robert Smith of later years here, this is all gloom. And I love me some gloom.

Track Highlights

1. The Hanging Gardens
2. A Strange Day
3. Siamese Twins
4. Pornography

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Often cited as the most disturbing product of The Cure, the album's opening lyrical line is "It doesn't matter if we all die".

Despite the fact that very few critics in the British press gave the album a favorable review, Pornography charted well in the UK and has gained much more respect over the years, now considered one of the key Gothic rock albums of all time.

Pornography is also the last Cure album to feature founding band member Laurence Tolhurst as the band's drummer. He became the band's keyboardist and this also marks the first time he played keyboards on a release by The Cure.

The Hanging Garden, sorry for the poor sound-synch but that's the fault of whoever put it up:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This one is a 10 for me. The proto-industrial drum beats, wailing guitars and the most bleak and depressing lyrics ever make for an incredibly fascinating album. I have to say, i'm going to be disappointed if you give Disintegration a higher score than this one...The Cure was definitely better in their early days, although Disintegration and Bloodflowers do come close to what they used to be.