The 1982 Listening Post - The Cure - Pornography

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Released: May 4 1982 The Cure Pornography Genre: Psychedelic Goth Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5 Jim’s Rating: 5 out of 5 Highlights: One Hundred Years A Short Term Effect Siamese Twins The Figurehead Allen's Additional Highlights: The Hanging Garden “I know for a fact that we recorded some of the songs in the toilets to get a really horrible feeling, because the toilets were dirty and grim.” - Robert Smith, Rolling Stone, 6/18/04 “It doesn't matter if we all die Ambition in the back of a black car In a high building there is so much to do Going home time, story on the radio.” Over the course of their career, The Cure have covered as many moods and styles as Eve has faces, but “Pornography” establishes itself as their heaviest, most despairing, and most singular album from its outset. If the druggy, whirling guitars, thundering drums, and sinister bassline of “One Hundred Years” isn’t evidence enough, then those opening lyrics Robert Smith wails seal the deal. The third in a progression of albums with hazy, indistinct cover art, the searing red of “Pornography” heralds its sharp tonal shift from the previous albums’ fade to grey. The Cure abandons the minimalism of their previous albums: gone is the tight, sharp pop punk of “Three Imaginary Boys” and the meandering stoicism of “Faith.” “Pornography” is a defining album of the goth canon. Here The Cure amped up its angst to match the dark energy of Bauhaus or The Birthday Party, while running it all through more flanger and delay pedals than Siouxsie could shake a stick at. Only the relatively gentle, measured “Siamese Twins” harkens back to the previous album’s tone. The rest of the disc plays like a tiny mouse casting a towering shadow -- a modest three piece has been transformed into a hulking giant through muscular performances and a cavernous reverb. The darkness of “Pornography” obscures the fact that this is in fact a heavily psychedelic album, made clear in songs like “A Short Term Effect,” which is replete with murky Arabesque guitars and vocals that are so effect-laden the spiral downwards into the abyss. Whether or not this album was a commercial success, it surely was a boon to digital effects manufacturers. Reportedly the band was drunk and tripping for most of the sessions, not to mention overworked, but their state of mind was captured perfectly by producer Phil Thornalley. (Thornalley’s work would help usher in their forthcoming moodswing on the positively buoyant follow-up single “The Lovecats”, which he not only produced but also played its famous stand up bass line.) It’s hard to pick highlights, as for me the entire album is strong. It becomes impenetrably heavy in the final cut (the album’s title track), but the song is nonetheless thematically fulfilling. Beyond that, the album lacks an obvious single. While the band would prove its mettle as a singles act by the time the 1986 compilation “Standing on a Beach” was released, “Faith” and “Pornography” traded artistic vision for viable standout tracks. Neither 81’s “Primary” or 82’s “The Hanging Garden” matches the stunning non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes,” and are to my mind their weakest singles of their first decade. “The Hanging Garden” is a good track, with its martial beat and crisper sound, but I find both “A Short Term Effect” and “A Strange Day” to be catchier. That said, I can’t fault the band for its more daring choice. “Pornography” is perhaps the band’s ugliest album, but if you don’t mind wallowing the horror. it's one of their most distinct and fulfilling. Ask me to name my favorite Cure album and my answer will change with the day, with “Head on the Door” and “Standing on a Beach” (cassette version with the B-Sides) as other contenders. It’s not as forgiving as “Faith” or rich or mature as “Disintegration”, but it hits harder than either the former’s funereal walkabout or the latter’s finely texured soundscapes. The band imploded in the course of making it, which no doubt makes it an uncomfortable listen, but it’s drummer/keyboardist Lol Tolhurst’s favorite Cure album, and I can’t disagree.

The 1981 Listening Post - The Cure - Faith

The 1981 Listening Post The Cure - Faith

1981

#157

By John Bland

The Cure
Faith

Genre: Post-Punk/New Wave/Goth
Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

John’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Highlights:
Primary
Other Voices
Doubt
The Drowning Man
Faith 

When I was in high school, I had a massive crush on a Goth girl. Being as non-Goth as it was possibly to be at the time (my sartorial preferences wavered between neo-Preppy and paleo-Preppy), I rushed to the nearest thrift store and stocked up on black overcoats, used black Doc Maartens, black sweaters, black vests, black t-shirts and assorted random accoutrements to pin on said overcoats and vests. I put on eyeliner but only ended up looking like somebody had punched me in the face twice. I slathered my hair in Dippity Do. I moped around. I freaked the fuck out of my parents. 

I bought a couple Cure cassettes, and pretended to know what they were singing about. 

Goth Girl ended up dating somebody on the football team. (I mean, what the fuck!?) I went back to my Preppy ways and abandoned any pretenses of melancholy. Well, until I got to college and took a poetry class. 

‘Faith’ is a pretty depressing album... and much, much too short. It’s really good, but it is not Music To Play in The Middle of a Pandemic. If my high school self had really listened to this, I mean, REALLY listened to it, and not just flashed around copies of the cassette so a certain girl would THINK I’d listened to it... well, actually I’m glad I didn’t, because high school was depressing enough as it was. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/1qL9O6xT5zW2h4JtWaT2us?si=j_Apo16KT7Kco4LT63AsPw

The 1980 Listening Post - The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

#177

April 22 1980

The Cure

Seventeen Seconds

Genre: Goth Rock

Allen’s Rating: 5 out of 5

Lori’s Rating: 4.5/5

Allen’s Highlights:

Play for Today

A Forest

Seventeen Seconds

Lori’s Highlights: 

A Forest

At Night

In Your House

Disclaimer:  I'm a YUUUGE Cure Fan, so this may be biased.  This is the kind of record that is like a painting; it's just best to listen to the thing as a whole, and the more you hear it the more it grows on you.  I can appreciate this especially for the insight into The Cure's progression.  It's a new lineup and it does at time sound tentative, but that pays off.  'A Reflection' is an instrumental and with a voice like Robert Smith's you'd wonder, "what's that about?" but it's an introduction to the rest of the minimalist and experimental tone of the record.  A 'warm up stretch' if you will (and you will).   Somehow, Smith (King of the Minor Chord) manages to make an artsy, sparse and kinda scary album sound like it should be the soundtrack to a Ghost Prom, it's haunted but, yeah, it still ROCKS and somehow retains a danceable quality.  It's like if dread and fog combined to make a sound but also wanted to go to a party.  The lyrics to In Your House are great; I can't tell if it's about a stalker, a broken hearted lover, or a murderer.  But who cares with a beat like that?  This album teeters on creepy but it's just too interesting.  On another note, not to start a fight or anything, but if Lovecats (not on this album) could be included in the next CATS remake, I think that would be a real game changer.  Poor CATS.  Anyway,  I can't be the only person to have thought of this.  

https://open.spotify.com/album/2KWHRfKSRpgsxNGIl2nQva?si=WDYQNV5WToKIuMUK9zk7og

The 1980 Listening Post - The Cure - Boys Don't Cry

The Cure - Boys Don't Cry

#37

February 5 1980

The Cure

Bye Don’t Cry

Genre: New Wave

5 out of 5

Highlights:

Boys Don’t Cry

Plastic Passion

10:15 On a Saturday Night

Object

Jumping Someone Else’s Train

Subway Song

Killing an Arab

Fire In Cairo

I listened to this in the original format, Three Imaginary Boys, years ago so, I was sort of stunned that it came up on the list. But this is the version that was released in 1980 so I will give it a go as it’s actually different than the first album. 

This release had to be cobbled together from the Three Imaginary Boys version and, weirdly, “Killing an Arab” is not available. But, “Fire in Cairo” is and I am left wondering…what was Robert Smith’s Middle East obsession about? Surely that’s been written about. 

While Smith and the band would be known for it’s darker, gothier inclinations, I think we forget just how much their music was originally informed by that minimalism-meets-mod revival. In many ways this is angular Power Pop. And when you think about songs like “Friday I’m in Love” and some of the other big hits, it’s all right there. Smith LOOKS the part, but this band isn’t all dour and dark. (Although the road map for that is all over “Another Day”)

The Cure is dancing in the same halls as Adam and the Ants early days (“Object” “World War”) and even The Jam or the Vapors (“Jumping Someone Else’s Train”)  at times and even Tubeway Army. This is such an album of the era. It rocks, but the subject matter is a laser focused arrow into the heart of outsiderism. The moody Cure that we all know and love are still Friday night Underground Hopping jitter-boys. 

(The version of “Killing an Arab” I listened to is a live one and it’s spectacular. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/three-imaginary-boys-deluxe-edition/286659190

The 1985 Listening Post - The Cure - The Head on the Door

The Cure - The Head on the Door

#303/938

August 26 1985

The Cure

The Head on the Door

Genre: Alternative 

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:

In Between Days

The Blood

Six Different Ways

Push

Close to Me

For some reason my roommate Eli had access to a four track recording device. I don’t recall why. And maybe it wasn’t even him. Although I think it was. And into it we recorded some terrible version of, I think, “Killing an Arab”. Is this right? Maybe. It was fun. I remember that.

There was a girl, her name was Allison. I think it was. She was in my acting class. She liked me. I think. Her father was an executive at Atari. Or Coleco. Or Intellivision. One of them. She was very goth. Or she wanted to be. She came to my dorm one night when no one was around, rifled through my roommate’s records and put on The Cure’s “Let’s Go to Bed”. We did. It was…not great. But that’s on me.

I was driving through the Maine roads on a summer night. The girl I had a desperate crush on was with me. She turned me on to a lot of music. She was more than an influence. I wanted to impress her. I put on The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds. “It sounds like Duran Duran”, she said. I was crushed. 

There are other stories like this. 

The girl who I met after my divorce, who hated how I drove but liked my daughter, since she had a daughter and she adored the Cure. I called a friend who was on Mad TV and got her passes to the show. 

The roommate who tried to beat the crap out of me cuz I was talking about his excellent record collection. He owned the aforementioned Cure single but also The Glove. 

The only CD my soon-to-be-wife’s mother had on hand when I met her was Standing on a Beach: The Singles.

The Cure pops in and out of my life all the time. 

And, yet, I never really dove in. 

This is the first time I’ve heard The Head On the Door. 

It won’t be the last. 

This is spectacular. Yes, it’s poppy as hell. And I don’t mind in the least. It’s Day-Glo and Guyliner and Capezio shoes and parachute pants and I love the shit out of it.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-head-on-the-door/282971465

The 1984 Listening Post - The Cure - The Top

The Cure - The Top

#90

April 30 1984

The Cure

The Top

1.75 out of 5

Holy hell is this one ugly record. I’d always been told that The Top was the bad Cure record but that history has not prepared me for this listening experience.

I mean, it was bound to happen. I’ve loved everything Robert Smith has done since 1978 with both the Cure and The Glove. So, he was bound to have a misstep. The plodding “Wailing Wall” feels phoned in and half-assed. On some songs, like “Dressing Up” Smith sounds like he is actually trying to throw up. Not stifle it, attempting to induce it. Blech.

Side Two starts off with the psychedugly “The Caterpillar”, which could’ve been great, had it not been for Smith’s vocal contribution. 

Considering how much I adored Blue Sunshine this is an enormous comedown and waste of everyone’s time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-top/286646424

The 1983 Listening Post - The Glove - Blue Sunshine

The Glove - Blue Sunshine

8/23/1983

The Glove

Blue Sunshine

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Like an Animal

Sex Eye Makeup

Punish Me With Kisses

This Green City

Orgy

Wasn’t this a big deal when it came out? Robert Smith’s side project?

If someone said, “What if The Cure and Siouxie and the Banshees teamed up?” This is exactly what it should sound like.

Because that is EXACTLY what it is. Robert Smith and Steven Severin’s “supergroup” of sorts.

Remarkably, and probably thanks to Eric the Record Thug, I think I’ve heard every track before. A lot more than once. And I KNOW that I tried to recreate the drum beat on “Punish Me With Kisses” on Yeast Infection’s “Sex Dog”. Or that other track we tried to lay down. It’s all so familiar. Is this on heavy rotation on Sirius??

I adore this album and I’m so glad I got to revisit in 36 years later.