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Pornography [Deluxe Edition]

The Cure - Pornography [Deluxe Edition] Audio CD

A fair review of the The Cure "Pornography [Deluxe Edition]" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Cure reviews here, or go back to the The Cure tabs.

Band: The Cure
Title: Pornography [Deluxe Edition]
Rating:

Release Date: 2005-04-26
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: One Hundred Years 2: A Short Term Effect 3: Hanging Garden 4: Siamese Twins 5: Figurehead 6: A Strange Day 7: Cold 8: Pornography 9: Break 10: Demise 11: Temptation 12: Figurehead 13: Hanging Garden 14: One Hundred Years 15: Airl1ock: Soundtrack 16: Cold 17: A Strange Day 18: Pornography 19: All Mine 20: A Short Term Effect 21: Siamese Twins 22: Temptation Two

the darkest cure ever.
dark does not mean goth. please dont call this goth!why do people insist on calling bands like joy division, the cure and chameleons goth?because they are dark?they dont sing about vampires or other such nonsense!!!would you call radiohead or jesus and mary chain gothic?nooooo,you wouldnt. duh!!this is a great re-issue. the sound of the album is greatly improved,and overall of better quality. the graphics are awesome,but the second cd is for die hard fans only. if you dont loooove the cure,dont buy this and pleeeeeaaaase stop calling them goth. it belittles the artistry of this greeeeaaaat band,and makes them sound like some stupid vampire gimmick group. trust me,they arent. they are one of the most important bands of the past 30 years,and this album is a high water mark for post-punk. they are a truly important band. their darkest,and most disturbed statement. .

Pornography is the Cure's best album
I feel this way because this album releases such a dark aspect of the band that I have not heard since. That is a personal opinion, of course. Seventeen Seconds and Faith paved the way for this album and it's just sad, somber and devastating, yet at the same time you feel so good listening to it, it is beautiful.

The Shock of What Was New
On it's release it was the first of it's kind and to describe its impact as harrowing would be a serious understatement. It's a shame in a way that nowadays this album seems to fit in with a vast amount of similarly aggressive and agonising music.

Seminal it undoubtably was but where other bands strive to achieve the same effect they fail because 'Pornography' is so sincere. Only Nirvana reached the level of outright desperation that brutally stabs out of this recording. But cacophony in itself is not enough. These are really great songs produced by a man who was driving himself way too hard.

In amongst the relentlessly attacking sound, evidence of a great songwriter emerges in moments of astonishing beauty. This is why the Cure's more recent releases fail. Smith was still discovering his ability and wrote as a man in some kind of genuine purgatory. Now, he's wealthy and comfortable and no matter how hard he digs, the well of desparate memories and wondrous revelations have run dry.

So considering it's utterly uncompromising sound it's not surprising that this shocking album didn't sell on release. It left people either stunned (like watching someone having a nervous breakdown at a party) or alienated, after all, it's predecessors were low key and fanciful in comparison.

It marked a change in Smith's life. Although the following album had it's moments of crushing beauty he moved firmly into the land of the 'Lovecats', commercial success and some kind of weird happiness. And unlike Kurt Cobain there really was a happy ending.
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A Doom & Gloom Masterpiece - Quintessential Goth-Rock
It's dark, foreboding, eerie and depressing yet strangely beautiful. PORNOGRAPHY is the culmination of the Cure's descent into the abyss (first wave) and one of the best goth-rock albums of all time. The drum sound is tribal and bass heavy, the guitars range from moody to disturbingly hallucinatory and the lyrics are bleak and cryptic. In my old tour book from the KISS ME tour, Cure mastermind Robert Smith reveals that while he can appreciate eroticism, he abhors pornography. In this light, pornography is miserable and ugly, thus a fitting title for the album.

BREAKDOWN:

"One Hundred Years" - Casting an apocalyptic shadow of impending doom and destruction, the opening track is super-intense - "Over and over we die one after the other. " *****

"A Short Term Effect" - A weird, gloomy track with strange guitar effects, vocal manipulations and a wavering beat. *****

"The Hanging Garden" - With relentless, pounding bass and drums and spiraling guitars, this is a gorgeously gloomy song and worthy single. *****

"Siamese Twins" - a slower song, beautifully morbid and full of loathing. *****

"The Figurehead" - A bleak, depressing song of fear and isolation with a merciless military drum beat. *****

"A Strange Day" - offers a lone ray of hope through the murky desolation of PORNOGRAPHY via escapism. One of the few Cure songs to feature a guitar solo without any other instruments - the segment is intended to represent being instantly hit with the memory of a song. Beautiful. *****

"Cold" - An absolutely dreary song with icy keyboards and brutal, lethargic drums. *****

"Pornography" - Sounding like a horrifying torture chamber scene, the final track is a whirlwind of creepy sounds. The muddled voices at the beginning and end of the track are especially freaky. The final line - "I must fight this sickness / Find a cure. " *****

Disk 2

"Break" (Group Home Demo) - A dark and gloomy instrumental sketch featuring an overloaded bass that can be heard rattling a snare drum. Nothing special, really. **1/2

"Demise" (studio demo) - another dark and atmospheric instrumental. **1/2

"Temptation" (studio demo) - a more driving instrumental. Cool sound but pretty basic. ***

"The Figurehead" (studio demo) - similar to the final version but inferior. Like most of Disk 2, this track will mostly be of interest to die-hard fans. ***

"The Hanging Garden" (studio demo) - an airy version with a radically different feel from the album version with different lyrics. Inferior but very interesting; merits repeated listens. ****

"One Hundred Years" (studio demo) - more cold and mechanical than the final version, due especially to the use of a drum machine. Cool sound. ****

"Airlock: The Soundtrack" - This is an unsettling 13 minute avant-garde sound collage full of weird noises and a bizarre, off-kilter piano. It provided the soundtrack to a film used to open Cure concerts on the PORNOGRAPHY tour. Intriguing, but likely too repellent for most fans to listen to more than once in a blue moon. ***1/2

tracks 8 - 13 -- These live tracks sound pretty good considering the fact that they're bootlegs. "Cold" adds some spacey effects that didn't appear on the album while "Pornography" features a recording of those creepy distorted voices. Of particular note is the non-album track "All Mine," previously available on the ultra-rare CURIOSITY cassette. It's a great song, very passionate with bold, angular guitar figures and anguished, longing vocals from Robert Smith. It's quite different from anything else they've done. ****1/2

"Temptation Two" (studio demo) - a more evolved version of "Temptation" with vocals and a faster tempo. Pretty cool but clearly undeserving of a slot on PORNOGRAPHY. ***1/2

Yet another excellent deluxe Cure set from Rhino with superior sound, fascinating, rare group photos and an informative essay. This is an absolute must for Cure fans.

One of my top three FAV Cure albums!
Some good reviews here to break down each song. .

My summary is simple: Robert Smith demonstrates in this album that he meets the pure definition of a troubadour. Yes, he emerged from a dark place when he wrote these, and I can only imagine what the transformation was like for the band during this time. The lyrics are powerful and the music is passionate. One of the most evocative and listenable albums ever made. Can you tell I love it? :-) This album will not disappoint. .

You can see a complete list of all The Cure discography, or go back to the The Cure tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.