The Cure - Disintegration

The Cure - Disintegration

Published in 1989

Wikipedia

Dear Mr. Lumsdon,

Due to your lobbying, and the thing which I will not talk about that occurred yesterday, I have acceded to your request to do The Cure.  Do not believe that this incessant lobbying will work every time, but in this case, you have won out.  Also, I will attempt to not make any jokes about how this album must reflect the state of your soul after that which must not be talked about, nor about how the title reflects what happened to your team in said event, nor how, if you were trying to throw me, this album would have depressed me enough to play like shit, but I played like shit anyway.  I'm just the kind of classy bastard to not hide behind these easily alluded to jokes.  I merely point you to Mr. Crabbs' reference to Matthew 20:16, and move along.

Onto The Cure:

Look, you either like them or you don't.  Actually, that's not true, let me start over.

Look, either you're depressed or you're not.  If you are, or have ever been, The Cure is going to sound a lot like what was going on in the deeper recesses of the cesspool that presumably is your mind.  If you're not, and have never been, you're going to need to stop lying to yourself, and think back a bit.

Depressing music, for what it is worth, is something about which I am of two minds. Sometimes, when you are feeling the emotions, or merely want to invoke a response from that part of your brain, it can be the most liberating and beautiful music.  Sometimes, when you are feeling good about life, and the world is not as shitty as it usually is, it can sound like a bunch of pretentious whining.  This is actually where The Cure succeeds, more than most "sad bands".  They make it really enjoyable to listen.  You want to hear more, because the feeling and the sound mesh so well together that you can't stop them, you can only participate.

I mean, I love The Cure, but seriously, I am just sitting here at work getting depressed.  It's some really low sounding music, and while that can be a great addition to a mood, sometimes it's just oppressive   Also, the singles, which are considerably more "upbeat" (it's a relative term in this case) are usually the least sprawling and the tightest of the album.  They are designed to get in and out, which is nice in a pop song.  The sprawl is in the emotional songs.  There is maybe one song on this album that is under 4 minutes.  That's an insane amount of time for some of these songs.

Oh, something weird that I hadn't noticed about The Cure.  At least on this album, a quarter of the song is dedicated to an intro, that slowly introduces all of the background parts, even before the lead guitar kicks in.  That guitar, by the way, plays very simple lines, that are picked up immediately by the vocals.  It's a strange way to do a song, because the lead in makes you really desire the vocals to kick in, then the guitar makes you think the vocals are kicking in, then the vocals kick in, which makes a ton of anticipation part of the beginning of every song.

The album sounds deep.  There is not much space in the songs, mainly due to the effects.  Reverb is The Cure's friend, and echo boxes must have been used a bunch on this album.  It's actually interesting to listen for the times when there isn't a sound on display.

I started out this essay of sorts with a sentence, and I'd like to go back to it.  Either you like it or you don't.  It's one of those divisive bands that either ignites the passions of fandom in you or you go, "What a bunch of emo crap" and I can't say that you're wrong.  There is a part of me that wants to tell the second group that true emo crap doesn't make you feel the way that this does, with it's peaks and valleys, emotional resonance and it's ability to make you feel feelings that are not part of your current state of being, but then I'd be called some sort of derogatory term for saying that.  So, I'll say it this way.  The next time you are feeling low, put on this album, and you might find something that resonates with you.  If you do, you're already a Cure fan, you just didn't know it yet.  But, if you are one of those people, like me, who feels emotions very deeply, do not put this album on if you are depressed.  Because this shit is like heroin.  You'll start feeling super depressed, and completely down, and you'll be dragged into the infinite spaces, as Pascal would say.

So Scott, on this, the day of your epic heartbreak for reasons not to be mentioned, when you have fallen so low from being so high, I would advise you not to listen to this album.  It will not console you, it will only deepen your depression over the terrible events that occurred yesterday.  It was lovely playing with you sir, and I hope we meet in the same situation again, and the result is exactly the same, bitch.

:heart:

"Disintegration is the best album ever!"

Matt

For those of you don't know:

What happened is this.  I'm playing hockey this spring season, and the playoffs started on Sunday.  My team, The Travellers was the number 8 seed going against the number one seeded Black Shaft Revelations.  In a shocking upset, the Travellers took the playoff series and moved on, eliminating the Black Shaft, which is Scott's team.  Afterwards, he told me that it was necessary for the Cure to come out soon.