Pornography

Singer Robert Smith was determined to make the Cure one of the most distinctive groups of any age. After jaunty power pop was in vogue, Smith shifted to tone poems and ethereal freakouts. However, with ‘Pornography’, he entered the downward spiral that prompted the greatest music of his career.

The title track is sheer hell as Smith abandons music altogether. but the remaining tracks are among the finest the ’80s had to offer. ‘One Hundred Years’, with its grinding riff, ‘Siamese Twins’, with its stuttering beat, and ‘the figurehead’ (“i laughed in the mirror for the first time in a year”) are gothic studies in terror par excellence. Nothing sounded like ‘Pornography’, not even other Cure records.