Pornography

Product Information

According to Apter, Pornography would prove to be "enormously influential", and has been cited as an influence by bands such as Deftones and System of a Down. [8] Some would say these three (Seventeen Seconds/Faith/Pornography) constitute the original, ‘definitive’, dark trilogy of early Cure, whilst there exists another school of thought, later perpetuated by Smith himself, which maintains that Pornography was – and still is, actually a key part of two trilogies (the later one being the ‘gloom trilogy’ that takes in this album along with 1989’s majestic and commercial high watermark Disintegration and also 2000’s consciously reflective and retrogressive Bloodflowers). a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Apter, Jeff (2006). Never Enough: The Story of The Cure. Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84449-827-1. Polydor Records, the company in charge of Fiction, was initially displeased with the album's title, which it saw as being potentially offensive. [8] Music and influences [ edit ]

Tolhurst, Lol (2016). Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys. Da Capo Press. p.278. ISBN 9780306824289. Abebe, Nitsuh (12 May 2005). "The Cure: Seventeen Seconds / Faith / Pornography". Pitchfork . Retrieved 13 October 2012. Even to this day, very few albums sound like these two. And to be fair, not even The Cure themselves have ever equalled them, let alone surpassed them. But to be honest, they don’t need to. The legacy is completely perfect as it stands. The Cure: Pornography" (Press release). Fiction Records . Retrieved 11 September 2013. From on-fiction.com In its place were cryptically opaque, bleached out and foggy soundscapes built on sparse instrumentation: Dempsey’s replacement Simon Gallup’s simple basslines, new member Matthieu Hartley’s unobtrusive synth drones, and robotic machine-like drumming from Tolhurst, topped with Smith’s distant, almost disembodied vocals and his economical off-kilter guitar.Roberts guitar sound here made me change my own guitar set up. I went out and bought a digital echo unit, placed upon the top of a mike stand, so I could easily manipulate the controls in real time during a live performance. I did not need to use any other effect pedals at all, just layers of tumbling echo.

Part of me wants to dismiss it's wanton gloominess as alot of self consciously stylised gothic nonsense but at the end of the day I can't help liking it. Released in May 1982, Pornography bore zero resemblance to anything else that was around at the time. Despite it surprisingly hitting the top ten at number eight and thus their most successful album to date (setting off a chain of consecutive top ten studio albums for the band which only ended in 1996), it was the ultimate party-pooper of a record when placed in direct contrast to everything else around it (mostly exponents from the aforementioned New Pop Renaissance). Its sheer impenetrable sense of nihilistic doom and existential angst immediately set it apart from the rest of their contemporaries. Recording sessions were chaotically stop-start, with the band getting ever more immersed in the twin evils of drink and drugs (the most infamous outcome of this ongoing overindulgence was the giant mountain/pyramid of empty beer cans they had assembled in one corner of the studio).Gill, Jaime (2 December 2004). "The Cure Seventeen Seconds, Faith, Pornography (Deluxe Editions) Review". BBC Music . Retrieved 28 October 2012. There will always be endless debates about which exactly is everybody’s favourite Cure record. My obsession with the Pornography album did not happen immediately as I was still largely unaware of their music save for the two hit singles that they had prior to this (A Forest and Primary). I was still far too engrossed in buying the records of Siouxsie and The Banshees and a few of the electronic synth pop bands of the time to really take much notice, despite the obvious fact that The Cure was one of their contemporaries. Wolk, Douglas (October 2005). "The Cure: Pornography". Blender. No.41. Archived from the original on 23 November 2005 . Retrieved 2 November 2015. However, no Cure album before or since has paired its cover imagery with its music as perfectly as Pornography has done. On the album's recording sessions, Smith noted "there was a lot of drugs involved". [8] The band took LSD and drank a lot of alcohol, and to save money, they slept in the office of their record label. [9] The musicians usually turned up at eight, and left at midday looking "fairly deranged". Smith related: "We had an arrangement with the off-licence up the road, every night they would bring in supplies. We decided we weren't going to throw anything out. We built this mountain of empties in the corner, a gigantic pile of debris in the corner. It just grew and grew". [9] According to Tolhurst, "we wanted to make the ultimate, intense album. I can't remember exactly why, but we did". [8] The recording sessions commenced and concluded in three weeks. Smith noted, "At the time, I lost every friend I had, everyone, without exception, because I was incredibly obnoxious, appalling, self-centred". He also noted that with the album, he "channelled all the self-destructive elements of my personality into doing something". [8]