“Disintegration” by the Cure

80s Week begins with a mesmerizing alt-rock masterpiece.

Programming note: It’s 80s week! I'm spotlighting some of my favorite records released between 1980 and 1989. Like previous decade-themed newsletter posts, I've selected albums that cover multiple genres and deliberately avoided the well-worn titles that top all "best of" lists for this decade. In other words, no Thriller, Purple Rain, and so on.

Hope you enjoy it! 

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Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!

Today’s 80s music pick is the Cure’s magnum opus, a mesmerizing collection of pop-rock epics.

Genre: Alternative, Rock

Label: Fiction

Release Date: May 2, 1989

Vibe: 🥹

A common misconception about the Cure’s discography is that Disintegration is a depressing listen. Dark? Absolutely. Exhibits a doom complex? In certain moments, sure. But I can’t cosign “depressing” as a categorization. Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Beck’s Sea Change, and even the Cure’s 1981 release Faith all do straight-up dejection and misery far more overtly. Instead, this album is among the planet's most alluring, entrancing sonic experiences. Every emotion is expressed in the most vital terms and poetic detail. However exaggerated it sounds (no wonder it continues to be an “emo” teenager staple), Robert Smith never sounds inauthentic or pandering. You don’t listen to Disintegration—you get lost in it. You swim in its expansive oceans of indigo-colored beauty, letting wave after wave of lush sonics crash over you.

Released on the heels of The Head on the Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, this record was read as a rejection of the band’s commercial viability as a pop act, but I’d posit that this was the next logical step in their artistic growth. They’d mastered the mainstream model, so they had to stretch it to its limit. Beyond its one concise pop offering, the straightforwardly earnest “Lovesong,” it’s impossible to conceive of these songs in anything other than their final forms. Consider “Pictures of You,” a stunner of a nostalgia trip that spends two minutes tugging at your heartstrings with yearning guitars before Smith utters a word. When he does start to sing, we’re immediately drawn into his headspace as he sits there, going through a stack of photographs, painting images of the past in a songwriting masterclass (“ Remembering you standing quiet in the rain/As I ran to your heart to be near/And we kissed as the sky fell in, holding you close/How I always held close in your fear”).

I could go on, but, like the best films and TV shows, I’d rather not spoil anymore. All I’ll say is, if it’s your first time hearing Disintegration or Smith’s songcraft, I envy you.

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈