pornography

The Cure plumbed the depths of despair and self-loathing with this dark, dense, gothic monster of a record.  'Pornography' was recorded with producer  Phil Thornalley at RAK Studio One in London.  Robert Smith says:  "When we did the 'Faith' album in 1981, goth hadn't been invented then, we were actually a raincoat band. We were inventing goth with that album and 'Pornography'; but we weren't, we were just playing emotional music. I was feeling a bit desperate at the time, the band as a whole was a bit despairing, we thought it was going to end with 'Pornography'. The record label had given up on us and the crowds were pretty much non-existent. We went around the world and played to the same five hundred people everywhere we went and we couldn't see how we were going to play to more. And we were taking vast amounts of very strong drugs and actually didn't really give a shit. And that, somehow, gave rise to goth."

Even though Fiction Records owner Chris Parry had Thornalley polish 'The Hanging Garden' as a potential single, it was never released.  Somehow, the album went to number eight on the British album chart.  It was the last album on which Lol Tolhurst played drums before he switched to keyboards.  He says:  "'Pornography' is my favourite because of the great sound of the drums and the whole record! The way we recorded the drums gave them such a big huge sound it was beautiful. The drums on that record are like a monolithic mantra!"

Bassist Simon Gallup recalls:  "Nothing really mattered to me. One allowed oneself to be quickly frustrated with many things. Then nihilism took over. We sang 'it doesn't matter if we all die' and that is exactly what we thought at the time."
During the tour, Gallup quit after a fist fight with Smith:  "It's just basically that Robert and I are both really arrogant bastards, and it got to such an extreme. I suppose you just can't have two egocentrics in a band, and Robert was sort of 'the main man.'

Smith admits:  "Lyrically, content-wise, 'Pornography' is just a very odd record that was made by a very odd group. I don’t think I would recognize myself around that time. I was undergoing a lot of mental stress. But it had nothing to do with the group, it just had to do with what I was like, my age and things. I think I got to my worst round about Pornography. Looking back and getting other people’s opinions of what went on, I was a pretty monstrous sort of person at that time."





http://www.thecure.com/

'One Hundred Years'

"The soldiers close in under a yellow moon 
All shadows and deliverance 
Under a black flag 
A hundred years of blood "







'The Hanging Garden'

"Creatures kissing in the rain
Shapeless in the dark again"





'Siamese Twins'




'The Figurehead'





'A Strange Day'

"My head falls back
And the walls crash down
And the sky
And the impossible
Explode
Held for one moment I remember a song
An impression of sound
Then everything is gone
Forever"





'Cold'




'Pornography' 

“I must fight this sickness
Find a cure.”







'Pornography'

full album:



All songs written by the Cure (Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, and Lol Tolhurst)

Side A
1.One Hundred Years – 6:40
2.A Short Term Effect – 4:22
3.The Hanging Garden – 4:33
4.Siamese Twins – 5:29
Side B
1.The Figurehead – 6:15
2.A Strange Day – 5:04
3.Cold – 4:26
4.Pornography – 6:27