Fascination Street (4/22/89) #46 US, #24 AR, #1 MR
Lullaby (4/22/89) #74 US, #5 UK, #23 MR
Love Song (7/1/89) #2 US, #18 UK, #30 AR, #2 MR
Pictures of You (3/31/90) #71 US, #24 UK, #19 MR
Notes:
In 2010, a deluxe three-CD edition of this album added a disc of outtakes and demos and another disc of a live performance of the entire album at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1989.
Awards:
Disintegration
The Cure
Review:
“According to the kids on South Park, this is the best album ever made. According to many depressive Eighties-minded kids, it’s the only album ever made.” RS “Expanding the latent arena rock sensibilities that peppered Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by slowing them down and stretching them to the breaking point, the Cure reached the peak of their popularity with the crawling, darkly seductive Disintegration.” AZ
“It’s a hypnotic, mesmerizing record,” AMG “a pop album realized on an epic scale.” AZ It “is essentially a refinement of everything that preceded it. Retaining the gloomy lyricism that made The Cure one of the best-loved cult bands of the 1980s, the album adds a heightened pop sensibility to the arena-ready rock of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.” TB “The Cure were operating at some kind of peak level right about this time in their history.” AD
“Cure musical trademarks, such as the lengthy introductions, are taken to glorious extremes here.” AD The album is “comprised almost entirely of epics like the soaring, icy Pictures of You” AMG and other “long mood pieces that develop slowly around the listener.” AZPrayers for Rain and The Same Deep Water As You are “rightly placed next to each other on the album, almost like a single fifteen minute long suite…The best movie soundtrack ever to a movie that's yet to be made.” AD
“Apart from subtly differing tempos and moods musically, it’s the lyrics that really hold this album together.” AD “The lyrical focus is intensely personal throughout, and, with the exception of” AZ “the concise and utterly charming Love Song” AMG, “the mood is overwhelmingly dark and brooding.” AZ “This is exactly what Goths called romance in the ‘80s.” AD
“The Cure’s gloomy soundscapes have rarely sounded so alluring, however, and the songs – from the pulsating, ominous Fascination Street” AMG – “a classic Cure track if ever there was one” AD – “to the eerie, string-laced Lullaby – have rarely been so well-constructed and memorable.” AMG “Anchored by complex drum patterns, the layered guitars, soaring bass lines, and rich keyboards blend to create a lush, evocative soundscape that captures the ear immediately; and for all its length, the album is never boring.” AZ
“Robert Smith’s voice shakes like milk as he makes adolescent angst sound so wonderfully, wonderfully pretty.” RS “Here are songs of remembrance that, through their deep candor, transcend the individual level to explore universal longings and fears…Anyone who has experienced the joy and sorrow – especially the sorrow – of love will find his or her deepest sentiments, noble and petty alike, echoed poetically here.” AZ
“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.” AMG “It scores over Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me slightly by sheer dint of its cohesion,” AD leaving the listener with an album “you can immerse yourself in.” AD
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