Imagine for a brief moment that you are approaching your 13th birthday. You may have experienced some success in your life before, but now you are worried about what you will be leaving behind in the world. What would you do? Would you give more to charity or volunteer more? If you’re Robert Smith, lead vocalist of The Cure, you go down a different route. Instead, you make Disintegration. The eighth studio album by The Cure is slowly nearing its 35th anniversary on May 2nd, and it is about time that we look back on it and see just how well this gothic album really holds up.
When it comes to the history of this album, we need to go way back. We need to go all the way back to 1987, fresh off the tail of Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me, The Cure’s previous album. It was an absolute smash hit, but the idea of being a pop star wasn’t sitting right with Robert. As part of a coping mechanism with this stress, he soon turned to psychedelics to hopefully alleviate the stress. Then there was the fact of Rober Smith’s age. He was swiftly realizing that in a year he would be 30, a sort of unstated deadline for artists to make their most iconic pieces. Eventually, partially due to said substances, Smith had finally decided on what this album would be. Stepping away from the more pop-based trappings of the last album, the band decided to return to its more gothic roots. The hope was that this darker album would show the listeners just how misunderstood the band really was! Smith’s dismay over his age leaked into the composition and form of the album. After a year of recording and 32 tracks recorded, even though 12 would actually make the final cut, Disintegration was finally finished.