awesome albums: The Cure’s Disintegration
Archive for the ‘awesome albums’ Category
I’ve been meaning to do a music post for some time but the prospect became too daunting. You see, I wanted to with about my all-time favorite albums. The ones that you can listen to straight through without skipping a track. And let’s be honest, for every band you love and album they put out, there is the inevitable song or two that just never really grips you. So I’ve decided to do this in installments. I’m calling it Awesome Albums, and in each post, I’ll tell you a little about an album I love every song on and I will also embed a player where you can check out one of them.
So what better way to start tan with my favorite album of all time. That’s right: all time. It is The Cure‘s Disintegration, released in 1989. I would even call it their opus. It’s fantastic. Moody and ethereal. Charged and subtle. Little nuances of noise creep in the background, so slight you nearly don’t hear them at all. It makes me think of stars falling form the sky, and perhaps that is because when I first fell in love with it I was star gazing for two long nights in a forest clearing in Oregon back in 1997. Prior to that year I hadn’t given the album a good listen. Maybe it was serendipitous that it eluded me as it had for if I had not had those two stargazing nights than perhaps I would not have become so enamored with it as I had. Oregon is a prime place to watch stars. The air isn’t obscured by pollution the way it is here, outside Chicago. Here, you can hardly see the stars at all. It was such on odd experience to lay in that forest clearing and even though the ground was chilly and slightly damp, I didn’t care; I was mesmerized by the sky. I didn;t even realize that one could see so many stars in the sky. Maybe I just thought there weren’t so many visible at all, from anywhere on the planet. I suppose I hadn’t ever given it any significant thought because I had become to accustomed to the absence of stars. But seeing them….I was transfixed.
That may sound as though I’ve gone off and a tangent–and that may partly true–but that experience is undeniably tied to my love for this album. Strangely bleak and hopeful in the same moment, The Cure‘s Disintegration has the capacity to transpose me into another place. Whether it is back in that forest clearing in Oregon or to another construct within my mind is inconsequential. But that it does, is what’s important.
I love all kinds of music mostly but overall I am more inclined toward melancholy tunes. The Cure’s discography is filled with this kind of stuff. Disintegration may have more of it than their other albums. Even the faster songs, such as the titular “Disintegration” and “Fascination Street” are somehow soft. Each track is full of haunting melodic tones with a tinge of cacophony and often–though not always–riddled with non-sequitur lyrics. They’re poetic. From the titular song:
Now that I know that I’m breaking to pieces // I’ll pull out my heart // And I’ll feed it to anyone // Crying for sympathy // Crocodiles cry for the love of the crowd // And the three cheers from everyone // Dropping through sky // Through the glass of the roof // Through the roof of your mouth // Through the mouth of your eye // Through the eye of the needle // It’s easier for me to get closer to heaven // Than ever feel whole again
by Robert Smith from The Cure’s official site
“Love Song” is probably the most well-known of the album’s tracks. It’s a great song but it’s far from my favorite. There’s lots of other great treats on this disc. I offer up “The Same Deep Water as You” as a sample. It begins with a rainstorm and molds into a beautiful instrumental segment before the lyrics come in. Though it is from 1989, it doesn’t sound that way to me. There’s a timelessness there. This is an album that go on without coming off as dated. I can’t say that about a lot of albums, not even any of the other The Cure’s. So take a listen and see if you agree.
In the very first season of South Park there is an episode called “Mecha-Streisand” in which an evil giant Barbra Streisand comes and brings destruction to the town and it’s up to Robert Smith of The Cure to save the day. And he does, of course. And as he is leaving and walking toward that proverbial sunset, Kyle yells to him “‘Disintegration’ is the best album ever!” I couldn’t agree more.
In the spring of 2010, Disintegration will be re-released in as a 21st Anniversary remastered, 3-CD Deluxe Edition. (It will also be available on a single disc and a double vinyl.) There’s also to be other remastered releases in 2010, so I’ll have to keep on eye on that too. 
