Even if you didn’t know before, if you’ve kept up with my blog (and bully for you if you have) you’ll have figured out by now that I’m a pretty solid fan of the Cure and despite marginal let downs in recent years, can still find something positive to say about nearly every release on down the line from Three Imaginary Boys all the way through 4:13 Dream. Of their many eras – and yes, there have been quite a few – I have to say that their “heyday” for me was roughly 1980-82 when they began to explore the tragic landscapes that labeled them with the Goth moniker I know they detest. Ironically enough, the three albums of that era: 17 Seconds, Faith and Pornography, are three of the most overlooked by both critics and fans. Of these three, Pornography seems to get the least amount of nods and is probably second only to The Top in most underrated, disregarded Cure album. Pornography is “allegedly” part one of the “Dark” or “Blood” Trilogy that continued with Disintegration and ended (quite unspectacularly) with Bloodflowers. This was a trilogy I’d never even heard of until the latter album was released, so I just thought it was a bit o’ reference/marketing hype, but fine, whatever, have it your way, Bob. But to me, the “Dark Trilogy” of the Cure’s cannon is these three early career, early 80s albums – the dark diamond being Pornography.
Man, I love it.
I mean let’s face it, when the opening lines of the entire album are, “It doesn’t matter if we all die…,” things probably aren’t going to pick up much from there and Mad Bob spends the next 40 odd minutes telling you all about it. That album opener, One Hundred Years, with it’s near (possibly literally) mechanized drums, cranky bass, harsh keyboards and drill-like, spiral-downwards guitars, pretty much sets the blueprint for every other note you will hear on this album. It’s dense, layered, violent and despairingly beautiful.
Things continue as promised with A Short Term Effect, as chiming, almost mocking guitars segue into more heavy-handed drumming reminiscent of say Joy Division’s Sound of Music, but with an abrasive, metallic, hammer-to-anvil crunch that leaves that reference sounding more like a distant early warning than a looming and immediate menace.
When I was a kid first listening to the Cure on the bus late at night after some scholastic dork competition or other, I always thought the jumble drums, staccato bass and spiraling guitars of the album’s only single, the Hanging Garden, was the splayed backdrop for Robert’s view on environmentalism. Later when I saw the video, a morose affair with masks and taxidermy animals in a (you guessed it) garden, that thought was somewhat solidified. Is this an accurate assessment? I dunno. But again, this is the Cure, who’ve never been overly straightforward much less political in their songs. I mean you know the deal is bad, but you don’t always know the why and the wherefore. Still, this song is clearly the “lightest” moment on the record despite the wailing line, “Cover my face as the animals die!” You don’t believe me? Well, get a load of this next number…
Peel back the lyrical imagery and a number of these songs are essentially about damaged relationships (and not necessarily love gone wrong), which is no surprise considering the Cure was splintering at this point and this would be the last album with bassist Simon Gallup for three years. Afterward, drummer Lol Tolhurst would move officially/permanently to keyboards and Robert would take on a more “hands-all” role. And I do have to take a further digression here and point out that while Lol has always been sorta sniggered at for his drumming abilities on early Cure records, he really stepped up to the plate here, bringing the noise with deafening poise and triumphantly setting the foundation for Robert to spew his emotions all over the tiles.
And while Lol would eventually find disfavor in his childhood friend’s eyes, this was still a few years away and the dysfunctional subject of the Figurehead (a fine and fitting follow up/companion piece to Siamese Twins) is someone else Robert feels worthy of his disdain, chiding their purity, speaking of secrets and lies, confirming that he can “never say no to anyone but you” and concluding that he will “never be clean again.” Heavy stuff.
The closest thing to a “pop” song on the album, a Strange Day was for a long time my favorite track. I remember how excited I was when I figured out how to play the guitar breakdown at the apex of the song (all 4 or 5 notes of it). And while the music may be slightly more “uplifting,” the lyrics describe a loss of vision or foresight and then a sense of moving on that basically sums of up Smith’s outlook on the future of his band. It could have easily been a follow up single but really, an interesting thing about the songs on this album is how immediate most of them are, almost catchy. Ease up a bit on the doom and gloom production, speed them up, change the approach, and you’ve got yourself a nice set of pop songs.
The album closes off with two of the bleakest tracks in the set, beginning with the pre-industrial clang of Cold, with a cello-like and forbidding keyboard strain running throughout and accented by cymbals enhanced by so much flange and reverb that they sound like sheet metal being dropped down an elevator shaft. An apparent tale of love in its final stages, Robert conjures images of the past to remind him how dead his present is and his misery is so complete that the soon-to-be-ex’s name is “like ice into my heart, ” finally mourning that nothing can save them. As this song fades in a clamored crescendo of aural emotion, gurgling, back-masked voices erupt and lead into the title track, a din of chaotic drums and scrambled mumblings overridden by an ominous keyboard riff and Robert’s manic, plaintive vocals little more than audible in the overall mishmash of the noise. And yet despite the confusion, this song sums up the album nicely, and as the racket dies down Robert can be heard frantically yelping, “I must fight this sickness, find a cure!” Again, one can’t wonder at the poetic irony here, the strain within the band, the pending and acrimonious departure of Simon Gallup and Robert’s disheartened frame of mind, all coming together and musically narrated in these eight songs.
Everything about Pornography seems to be about endings -- moving on, closure, death, the final details on a time of suffering. After the album came out and the subsequent tour, Robert, feeling the Cure was essentially over, would join Siouxsie and the Banshees as guitarist, recording with them the album Hyaena, as well as his side project with Steven Severin the Glove, and even work with Lol as a duo on some of the Cure’s most popular (and even upbeat) early material, namely the dance-esque singles The Walk, The Lovecats and Let’s Go to Bed. So, as we know, it wasn’t really over.
Also, I have to share this review from Robert Christgau the “Dean of American Rock Critics”:
"In books/And films/And in life/And in heaven/The sound of slaughter/As your body turns . . ."--no, I can't go on. I mean, why so glum, chum? Cheer up; look on the bright side. You got your contract, right? And your synthesizers, bet you'll have fun with them. Believe me, kid, it will pass. C
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