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THE REVIEW
In 1982, Pornography was released.
Anecdotes about the album's release? I have no idea, as it was several years before I was born.
I was once told that I would never be able to truly understand the messages of albums from even a recent past that doesn't belong to me; I could love their musical greatness, admire their historical importance, but I would never understand them.
I could never agree with that.
This monument of dark music contains the anxieties and frustrations of a generation that isn't mine, but they cannot fail to belong to me; and they are expressed with a lyricism that cannot fail to involve me.
Robert Smith, then the dictator of his Cure (when he starts to consider the musical ideas of the rest of the band, the musical conversion will begin), is at the peak of his splendor. Indeed, to be consistent, one should say he was at the bottom of his personal abyss.
The sustained pace of the drums and the guitar wails in "One Hundred Years" are the first tears of a disconsolate cry, which continues with the depression over the futility of one's life in "A Short Term Effect" and arrives at the dark hallucination of "The Hanging Garden".
By the time you reach "Siamese Twins", you're already dazed, and the band that has cried with us demonstrates it by slowing down the rhythm of a march progressively more desperate in tone. "A Strange Day" is certainly Smith's compositional peak in lyrics, with a surreal opening far beyond the hallucinatory limit ("Give me your eyes, that I might see the blind man kissing my hands").
We are almost at the end. And death's approach is emblematic of the cold. "Cold", purely gothic.
The end finds us confused. Perhaps because we're still alive.
Disturbing voices in a furious and tribal advance until now disillusioned but beginning to see a light. Dangerously on the verge of a nervous breakdown ("One more day like today and I'll kill you"), it's time to react.
The Cure's album Pornography comes out in 1982. It starts by saying "It doesn't matter if we all die".
It ends with hope. "I must fight this sickness, find a cure".
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Summary by Bot
The Cure's 1982 album Pornography is a profound exploration of despair and hope. Robert Smith leads with intense lyricism reflecting generational anxieties. Each track builds a dark atmosphere culminating in a fight against inner sickness. This album remains a powerful monument of gothic and alternative music. It connects emotionally across generations through its musical depth and poetic lyrics.Tracklist Lyrics Videos
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley and led by singer-songwriter Robert Smith. Since the late 1970s they have moved between post-punk, gothic atmospheres and pop-oriented experiments, producing widely admired albums such as Disintegration and Pornography.89 Reviews
Other reviews
By vanamente
Robert Smith’s sad and lonely existentialism has probably hit rock bottom in his personal journey through drugs and visions.
Pornography is the Cure’s masterpiece album, but for those unfamiliar with them, it’s perhaps better to start from much further back.
By lucarandi80
The Cure knew very well they were recording their greatest masterpiece; it was felt in the air, it was clear.
They cannot be commented on with simple words because the right nouns and adjectives to do so have not yet been invented.
By Rocky Marciano
Pornography is anguish, fear, and discomfort; the assault of "One Hundred Years" is a metropolitan nightmare.
The apocalypse of the title track continues with a Smith increasingly down but still not wanting to lose the battle.
By Daedal
The masterpiece of the first dark generation.
"Pornography" ends after a gloomy 43-minute journey into the alienating landscape that is Robert Smith’s mind.
By Il Tarantiniano
"For me, this is their dark album par excellence along with 'Faith' and 'Seventeen Seconds.'"
"The instruments suffer the most, the singer emits sudden cries of hatred as if he was crying."
