The album that threatened to turn The Cure into the one thing frontman Robert Smith hated most, a stadium rock band, turned 25 this month. Drinu Camilleri celebrates the works that were to signify the beginning of the end of an era.

Robert Smith in Lullaby, The Cure’s biggest commercial hit.

Released on May 2, 1989, The Cure’s Disintegration was a coming home of sorts. The album stands at the doorway between the last dying moments of a decade known for its arena rock excesses, and a new one whose first half would be defined by the rediscovery of rock music’s raw energy.

In 1989 Robert Smith was a rock singer turning, believing that it was impossible to make a great rock record after that age. Moreover, he felt the increasing pressure to follow up on the group’s past pop successes, even if still somewhat quirky and on the fringe, with more permanent work.

Sonic synergy

Whereas the previous few albums were a foray into diversity, flicking through many different moods, Disintegration feels like a night hike along the yellow-lit streets of urban dread.

The band takes its time with the songs both in terms of song lengths and structure. Only Lovesong manages to, barely, clock in below the standard duration of 3:30 usually required for radio play.

The artwork for Disintegration.

The album is awash in synthesisers, with many of the songs featuring long, lush and unhurried intros lasting over two minutes, carefully building layer upon layer of luxuriant keyboards and wallowing, heavily-processed guitars.

Often, the vocals discreetly come in after one is led to think that the track is going to be instrumental. The voice joins as effortlessly as any of the other layers of atmosphere that so characterise this record.

And this is one of the key features of the album. There is no soloist, no trading of solos, and no instrument taking the spotlight. Disintegration is an exercise in building sonic synergy.

Sadly, the same could not be said about the band itself. Relationships between the band members fell apart and calling the album Disintegration was, in Smith’s own words, “kind of tempting fate, and fate retaliated. The family idea of the group really fell apart, too, after Disintegration. It was the end of a golden period.”

Release and singles

Recorded between November 1988 and February 1989 at Hookend Recording Studios in Checkendon, Oxfordshire, and produced by David M. Allen and Smith, on its release the album peaked at number 3 in the UK albums chart, the highest position reached by the band to date.

Four singles were released: Lullaby, Fascination Street, Lovesong and Pictures of You.

Lullaby, containing allusions to a cannibalistic spider man (no reference to the comic superhero), speculated by some to be a metaphor or addiction and depression, was the first song released from the album.

To date, it is the most successful single released by The Cure, reaching number five in the UK and Austria, and reaching number three in Germany and Ireland. Its music video was directed by Tim Pope and edited by Peter Goddard. Featuring Smith playing both the spider man and his intended victim in bed, it won Best Video at the 1990 Brit Awards.

The Cure would never regain the commercial and critical peak they achieved with Disintegration

Lovesong, would peak at number two and be the band’s only top 10 entry on the US Billboard Top 100; in the UK the single reached number 18.

The song may be more recognisable to later generations through one of the several cover versions by other acts, including a reggae rock version recorded by American band 311 for the film 50 First Dates.

More recently, a version was recorded by Adele on her 2011 album, 21, while locally, Maltese singer Ira Losco covered the song on her 2007 album Unmasked.

Rolling Stone music critic Michael Azerrad gave Disintegration three-and-a-half stars, saying that, “despite the title, Disintegration hangs together beautifully, creat-ing and sustaining a mood of thoroughly self-absorbed gloom”.

The unexpected success of Disintegration, in terms of album sales and record attendances, became a turning point. Unused to such pressure, Smith reportedly said that the band had: “Despite my best efforts, actually become everything that I didn’t want us to become: a stadium rock band.”

An enduring work

The Cure never regained the commercial and critical peak they achieved with Disintegration.

Twenty-five years on, the album is still their best-selling, in a career spanning five decades. The album was voted at number 326 on Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘500 Greatest Albums of All Time’, while the magazine’s readers placed it in 9th place in the 10 best albums of the 1980s.

For someone intent on creating an enduring work before turning 30, that may just be the perfect benchmark of success.