Fretplay.com The Cure CD reviews The Cure guitar tabs The Cure CD reviews The Cure tabs Pornography


The Cure - Pornography Audio CD

A fair review of the The Cure "Pornography" 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.

The Cure Band: The Cure
Title: Pornography
Rating:
Release Date: 2006-03-28
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: One Hundred Years 2: A Short Term Effect 3: Hanging Garden 4: Siamese Twins 5: Figurehead 6: Strange Day 7: Cold 8: Pornography

this is one of the best
highly recommended for all cure fans!!. this is one of the best cure cds! the reissue sounds great! totally does it justice.


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.
.


Pornography of a soul....
I have only a handful of their work, but this one sticks out more than anyone, because of its relentless, overwhelming sense of despair. This, along with Disintegration, are my favorite Cure albums. It is reminiscent of Pink Floyd's The Final Cut, Skip Spence's Oar, and Nick Drake's Pink Moon in terms of hearing a soul in torment and a band in deepest depair.

Robert Smith was extremely depressed and doing a ton of drugs when he made this album, and his misery bleeds through every groove. The opener, One Hundred Years, set the tone with "it doesn't matter if we all die", and it sails the seas of blood from there. I really like the songs One Hundred Years, The Hanging Garden (the cheeriest song on the album, which isn't saying much, and not suprisingly, the album's only single), and the title track, which is a great closer. Smith's vocals are especially strong on this one, showing much more emotion than he usually does. I've always found his voice rather flat, but here his despair makes him sing better than he usually does.

The album sounds like a lot of Public Image Limited's early work. The sound is coarse, cacophonous, and edgy, and it really, really works. If I had to take two Cure albums to an island, I would take this one and Disintegration. .


A Masterpiece of Gothic Despair!
The music is filled with anger, hate, sorrow, fear, rage, and despair; all pieces of the darker parts of the human psyche. There is no question in my mind that Robert Smith's head was in the lowest pit of hell when he wrote this album. The listener is taken on a gothic roller-coaster ride through dementia starting with the line "It doesn't matter if we all die" all the way to the vampiric conclusion "I must fight this sickness". Such emotion in this album, and you can't pull away from listening to it. There is something about the way the music is constructed and performed that keeps your ears alert and numbs your mind to the pain that is being expressed. You find yourself understanding the agony of the performers.

This record was way ahead of its time and, until 1989's "Disintigration", was The Cure's greatest achievement in the studio. Every song is great and they flow from one to the next in a perfect order. This album is flawless; a magically written, masterfully performed accomplishment in music.


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.

Search guitar tabs

#ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
[ Search tabs | Guitar tabs | Bass tabs |
Easy guitar tabs | Guitar solo tabs |
Acoustic guitar tabs | Guitar chords |
How to read guitar tabs ]
Forum topics
Music forums
- Bands and artists - Songwriting and lyrics - Tablature talk - Promote your band
Instrument forums
- Guitar basics - Gear & accessories - Bass guitar
Community
- The pit - Site Feedback - Reviews
[ User survey | About us | Privacy statement ]