The Cure- Pornography (1982)

This is an early Cure album, from the days when their sound was more of a general soundscape per album than would later be the case. This is, perhaps, not as good as some earlier albums in that there are fewer stand-out tracks; nor does it reach for the fresh new types of sound the band would go on to create straight afterwards. Yet this album is curiously a bit of a grower to the point where, although I wouldn't describe it as a particular favourite, I tend to listen to it quite often. Sometimes you can have a compelling soundscape without particularly stand-out songs, but this is a strangely anonymous Cure album.

And yet the reality behind this album is arguably somewhat more dramatic than any of their other work.

This album is probably the end of an era, the last hurrah of this sort of sound. It's also an aural record of a particular low point, where Robert Smith himself was deeply depressed and the band as a whole were both struggling to stay together and taking lots of drugs. It's an odd listen for me, born in 1977 and therefore far more familiar with the band in their post-Wish incarnation, where they were known to have lots of ironic fun with their gloomy reputation. It can be a shock to hear their early records, this one in particular, and realise that the gloominess is very real indeed.