A dreamy deep dive that signaled the goth icons’ new stadium-sized ambitions.
Disintegration
The Cure
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Four years after The Head on the Door’s bona fide melodies marked a definitive break with the claustrophobic intensity of the goth icons’ early-’80s run, The Cure’s eighth album sharpened those pop instincts and enlarged their vision to stadium-sized proportions.
“By the time you get to Disintegration, it’s weirder and darker, and I was all about it.”
Kaskade
Disintegration is a deep dive into a singular mood: wistful and deeply melancholy, informing (and informed by) waves of British shoegaze and dream pop. Alt-rock staples “Pictures of You,” “Lovesong,” and “Fascination Street” are as immediate and indelible as anything in their catalog, but the band tempers its emotions so that even the major-key tonality of a track like “Plainsong” is marked not by brightness, but a deeper, richer hue.
There’s an echo of their prior, character-defining bleakness here, but this time, the descent into despair is strangely welcoming, as if Robert Smith had discovered that on the coldest nights, wrapping up in one’s own loneliness is the only way to stay warm. And in the process, he brought goth—and its fans—into the mainstream.