Disintegration
| The Cure
Disintegration
Disintegration is the eighth studio album by English rock band the Cure, released on 2 May 1989 by Fiction Records. The record marks a return to the introspective and gloomy gothic rock style the band had established in the early 1980s. As he neared the age of 30, vocalist and guitarist Robert Smith had felt an increased pressure to follow up on the group’s pop successes with a more enduring work. This, coupled with a distaste for the group’s newfound popularity, caused Smith to lapse back into the use of hallucinogenic drugs, the effects of which had a strong influence on the production of the album.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
June 10, 2010. Disintegration does not “scatter.” It’s a single, grand, dense, continual, epic trip into core stuff the Cure did well. They’d always been good at this kind of album, too.
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Consequence of Sound
May 4, 2019. The Cure’s Disintegration Remains a Record for Hopeless Romantics of all Generations. Robert Smith creates a lush landscape that listeners can revisit throughout their lives.
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Soundblab
December 12, 2018. They say the way to tell if a book is well written and holds the reader’s interest is that it is impossible to put down once picked up. The Cure’s eighth studio album, "Disintegration”, is the musical equivalent of that good read. Once the opening wind chimes of “Plainsong” ring in your ears, you are hooked.
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BBC
It is, of course, a touchstone goth album, with its relentless death imagery, dramatic sweeps of synth and eight-minute drowning-metaphor symphonies; but such is its single mindedness of intent and vanquishing beauty that it somehow avoids risible self-indulgence.
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Atwood Magazine
May 30, 2019. It has been thirty years since The Cure released their masterpiece Disintegration and it still possesses the same energy and urgency it ever had.
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Billboard
May 1, 2014. Indeed, "Disintegration" had "commercial suicide" written all over it, but it proved gloomy in all the right ways, climbing to no. 12 on the Billboard 200 -— the Cure's highest chart placement to that point.
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AllMusic
It's fitting that Disintegration was their commercial breakthrough, since, in many ways, the album is the culmination of all the musical directions the Cure were pursuing over the course of the '80s.
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Rolling Stone
July 13, 1989. . . . while Disintegration doesn’t break new ground for the band, it successfully refines what the Cure does best. Even if his work no longer packs the shock value it once did, Smith has finally gotten things unequivocally, utterly and completely right.
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The Guardian
May 25, 2019. The Cure: Disintegration review – album set flatters to deceive, and then prolongs the pain.
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The Quietus
May 7 2014. The fact that much of Disintegration was a funereal dirge, with lyrics reeking of self-absorbed self-flagellation, mattered not a jot. In a year of mighty albums, Disintegration was The Daddy.
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CUIndependent
February 5, 2016. Robert Smith has created a timeless, magnificent and dark piece of work with Disintegration. For years to come, the album will continue to inspire and motivate future generations.
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Punknews.org
January 13, 2004. All in all this album is one of The Cures best but it takes a bit of getting used to and the length to some songs are lengthy and are drawn out.
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NME
May 2, 2019. It’s hardly a controversial opinion, but surely it has to be the finest Cure album. . . . nothing captures their windswept, glacial magnificence more perfectly than this 1989 masterpiece. It’s pretty much the album dry ice was invented for.
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AV Club - Music
June 8, 2010. Accordingly, Disintegration was both a retreat and a victory when released in 1989. While expanding the gloomy vistas of The Cure’s earlier work, it became the group’s bestseller.
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Classic Rock Review
April 4, 2014. With Disintegration, their eighth studio album, the group made a slight turn back towards the introspective Gothic rock they had forged in their early years but added a more mature perspective to the mix.
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Drowned In Sound
May 26, 2010. Disintegration is a classic album full of songs that have had thousands of words written about them already. If you don't own it, you should go to the shop and buy a copy.
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KTSW 89.9
February 9, 2019. Released in 1989, Disintegration helped The Cure stray away from their pop icon status that had been established through their previous work Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me in 1988. Despite the universal success and a no. 35 spot on the Billboard 200, lead singer, Robert Smith, vowed to create a musical masterpiece by the age of 30. And at the age of 29, he released arguably one of the greatest records of the 80s.
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Immortal Reviews
September 28, 2017. The Cure's Disintegration is an ode to depression, capturing the hopelessness of it in a perfectly parallel form. It understands pain, becoming its own cure for its sorrows.
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The Student Playlist
May 3, 2019. Disintegration’s celebrated status lies in The Cure’s ability to marry the melodic tendencies that had brought them commercial success in the three-minute pop single format with extended, gothic and complex structures stretched out to, in some cases, nearly 10 minutes. It’s a terrific example of musical architecture.
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Albumism
May 1, 2019. It’s a work of true genius—a masterpiece that will never stop giving.
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Sydney Morning Herald
March 16, 2019. Heavy on synthesisers, backward-run tapes and droning guitars, the album is dominated by penetrating drums and bass. Smith's weepy, petulant voice and church-bell guitar make for the poetry.
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Classic Albums
So at the end of it all, Robert did it, didn’t he? Before the age of 30 he’d created the massive masterpiece called Disintegration.
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Slicing Up Eyeballs
May 24, 2010. Disintegration found Robert Smith sliding back into the thematic darkness of the Pornography era, but with that record’s bleak, brittle sheen replaced by much-needed melody and musical depth. The resulting album still stands as The Cure’s greatest achievement, a work that’s both filled with despair and heart-rending beauty — as if Smith, however fleetingly, finally struck the right balance between his twin musical personas.
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Uncut
June 28, 2010. Melodic, emotional, clear-headed and powerful, it’s an example of a powerful, personal record connecting with millions of people and becoming a hit.
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Turntable Lab
No matter how seriously they took themselves, or how focused on image (or anti-image) they were, The Cure never stopped themselves from being huge. We still keep going back to Disintegration. Recommended.
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GIGsoup
May 2, 2019. It’s rare that a band’s finest achievements arrives eight albums and thirteen years into their career. Rarer still is an album which so perfectly encapsulates a band’s ethos that it renders their lesser effort practically obsolete. ‘Disintegration’ is both of these things.
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GoldenPlec
April 30, 2017. This is a genre defining work which is as important to goth as 'Sgt Pepper’s' or 'Pet Sounds' are to rock.
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Smells Like Infinite Sadness
April 27, 2014. The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’ Turns 30, a look back at one of the best albums of the 80’s (or any other decade). A timeless gothic masterpiece.
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Progarchy
November 8, 2012. 1989’s Disintegration serves as the adagio of the Cure trilogy: beginning in 1982 and ending in 2004. To me, the album only has one serious flaw — the few seconds of silence between each song.
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George Starostin's Reviews
The melodic and "artistic" potential of the record will get around to you sooner or later, but don't force them to get around to you. Just soak in the romantic, 'noble' spirit of the thing. It goes without saying that this kind of stuff might be especially near to you if you're a big aficionado of XIXth century romanticism and/or end-of-the-century poetry - Mr Smith is definitely going for the throat on here, and there's really nothing else quite like this album in existence.
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Reddit
May 23, 2019. Disintegration is truly one of those albums that somehow trumps everything else in a genre full of amazing talent and amazing records. It's that album that is seen as the golden standard of "this is how you do it".
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The Death Of The Mix Tape
February 9, 2015. Anyway, this record is a monumental success in the world of Alternative Rock, and it’s still hailed as one of the best albums of all time.
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PULUCHE
March 1, 2013. The Cure’s eight studio album Disintegration is The Cure’s finest effort in transforming melancholy sentiments into relatively cheerful music.
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Howl & Echoes
March 13, 2015. . . . Disintegration was critically acclaimed; described deservedly as getting things “unequivocally, utterly and completely right”. Indeed, Disintegration pulls you in and makes you feel things – warmth and comfort, bitter, torturous, heart-wrenching sadness and beautiful, spine-tingling joy.
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Written In Music
May 21, 2010. . . . The Cure achieved the absolute star status they had earned for years. Although the two previous albums The Head On The Door (1985) and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987) were already of very high quality, Disintegration topped those albums with perfect unity in songs, atmosphere, excitement and ambition. As if front man Robert Smith had saved the very best songs for this album.
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Scott's Spectacular Song Selections
January 14, 2018. Disintegration is the Cure’s eighth studio album and is one of their best, as well as one of the all-time best records ever recorded.
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HHV Mag
February 5, 2019. "Disintegration" was not only going to be The Cure's most successful album, but also the contradictory list. Simple, because in the world of 1989, swept between inner contemplation and exaltedness, it hit the right note.
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Popdose.com
June 14, 2010. Disintegration is one of the band’s best achievements, blowing away the preconceptions people had of the band by embracing them with an all-inclusive vengeance. The highs are higher, the lows are lower and there have been few occasions where they’ve been quite as lovely or powerful.
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The Manchester Review
May 15, 2010. With the equivalent of five discs’-worth of new, re-mixed or re-mastered tracks to go at there’s no question that this re-release represents good value, although the online freebies are perhaps the most essential material.
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CVLT Nation
May 9, 2019. The point is that Disintegration, despite its earthly origin, its aural tangibility, is an otherworldly yet empathic creature.
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THE CURE
May 2, 2014. Disintegration remains a mindblowing and stunningly complete album without the two extra tracks . . . . Revel Instead in the sure knowledge that- after the rather exasperating over experimentation of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Disintegration shows that The Cure are back on thrillingly miserable form.
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Muzik Dizcovery
April 30, 2012. Overall, Disintegration is a thought-provoking listen that will pry open your mind and make for a listen unlike any other. As one of the greatest albums of all time, I feel that this album is an absolute must-have for any fan of any music.
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Alan Bumstead Vinyl Reviews
December 2, 2010. The original Disintegration on CD is still one great sounding album. “Recorded to be played loud, so turn it up!” exhorts the inner sleeve.
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Never Let Me Down
September 18, 2011. I really enjoyed this album upon my first listen. For the most part, I felt as if I was floating away to some dark, cloudy dreamscape. The album is deeply emotional, and this is reflected equally in the music and lyrics.
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Everything Gone Green
April 6, 2014. Disintegration stands as a snapshot of just where Smith was at in 1989 … able to embrace his natural “pop” instincts without compromising the “traditional” sound of The Cure. Recommended.
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MusikReviews.de
June 1, 2010. CONCLUSION: With the Deluxe Edition of "Disintegration" a classic album is reissued and equipped with so much valuable (!) Bonus material, that you can not beat it, get it yourself
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OoCities
It’s a good thing that most of the coldly beautiful music here is so amazing, and in many ways Disintegration stands as the band’s masterpiece (albeit a flawed one), a mesmerizing mope rock landmark that's perfect for a lazy day.
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The Rumpus.net
December 10, 2015. As a whole it stands as The Cure’s most cohesive and, as a result, most powerful album.
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Double J - ABC
May 23, 2019. Disintegration was a bleak but heartening collection of 12 tracks, heavy on long, gloomy synth passages but also some of Smith's most beautiful lyrics.
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Thke Irish Times
November 10, 2018. I think the record, besides transmitting a secret insider message of understanding to one’s innate melancholia, has a gorgeous sequencing, each lushly arranged song spilling into the next. Its instrumental passages are even more affecting than than the ones with lyrics.
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Adrian's Album Reviews
. . . 'Disintegration' as a whole really is an album that you can immerse yourself in. It scores over 'Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me' slightly by sheer dint of its cohesion. It loses half a mark out of the ten because the first half is slightly less cohesive than the second, and also the fact, it's entirely possible that 'Disintegration' isn't an album you can just pop on and enjoy. Almost like you have to be prepared for it, not always a bad thing.
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Mark's Record Reviews
Oh man!!! This one is a total score!!! A home run!!! A touchdown!!! Goal-tending!!!! A safety!!! A touchback!!!! A technical!!!! A ground-rule double!!!! What has happened in Robert Smith's life to allow an album this somber to rise out of his psyche . . . . I don't know, and I don't give a hangman's noose, 'cuz this is heaven.
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Hard Rock
. . . everything on Disintegration explodes across a midnight sky where the guitars shimmer like stars and we can share in Robert Smith’s sadness. Ultimately, it’s that emotional connection between the listener and the song that makes this such a special album for even casual fans of the band.
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Robert Christgau
With the transmutation of junk a species of junk itself, an evasion available to any charlatan or nincompoop, it's tempting to ignore this patent arena move altogether. But by pumping his bad faith and bad relationship into depressing moderato play-loud keyb anthems far more tedious than his endless vamps, Robert Smith does actually confront a life contradiction.
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Ultimate Classic Rock
Everything the Cure had learned over the past decade was summed up on their milestone eighth album. 'Disintegration' has it all: goth dirges, endless psychedelic jams, super-catchy pop songs.
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