Pornography

Pornography is the fourth studio album by British band The Cure, originally released in 1982 and re-mastered and re-released in 2005. Once described as "Phil Spector in Hell", it is "The Cure's most gothic album".
Recorded with the group on the brink of collapse, it represents the conclusion of the musical phase which began with Seventeen Seconds and Faith. Robert Smith has stated that Pornography is the first of his "trilogy" of albums that best define The Cure, the second being Disintegration and the third being Bloodflowers. Slant Magazine listed the album at #79 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980's".
Following the band's previous album, 1981's Faith, the non-album single "Charlotte Sometimes" was released. The single, in particular its nightmarish and hallucinatory B-side "Splintered in Her Head", would hint at what was to come in Pornography.
In the words of Robert Smith, regarding the album's conception, "I had two choices at the time, which were either completely giving in [committing suicide] or making a record of it and getting it out of me". He also claims he "really thought that was it for the group. I had every intention of signing off. I wanted to make the ultimate 'fuck off' record, and then sign off [the band]". Smith was mentally exhausted during that period of time: "I was in a really depressed frame of mind between 1981 and 1982". The band "had been touring for about 200 days a year and it all got a bit too much because there was never any time to do anything else".
The band, Smith in particular, wanted to make the album with a different producer than Mike Hedges, who had produced Seventeen Seconds and Faith. The group settled with Phil Thornalley. Pornography is the last Cure album to feature founding band member Lol Tolhurst as the band's drummer (he then became the band's keyboardist), and is also the first time he played keyboards on a Cure release. The album was recorded at RAK Studios from January to April 1982.
On the album's recording sessions, Smith noted "there was a lot of drugs involved". The band took LSD and drank a lot of alcohol, and to save money they slept in the office of their record label. The musicians usually turned up at eight, and left at midday looking "fairly deranged". Smith related: "We had an arrangement with the off-licence up the road, every night they would bring in supplies. We decided we weren’t going to throw anything out. We built this mountain of empties in the corner, a gigantic pile of debris in the corner. It just grew and grew". According to Tolhurst, "we wanted to make the ultimate, intense album. I can't remember exactly why, but we did". The recording sessions commenced and concluded in three weeks. Smith noted, "At the time, I lost every friend I had, everyone, without exception, because I was incredibly obnoxious, appalling, self-centered". He also noted that with the album, he "channeled all the self-destructive elements of my personality into doing something".
Regarding the album's musical style, NME reviewer Dave Hill wrote, "The drums, guitars, voice and production style are pressed scrupulously together in a murderous unity of surging, textured mood". Hill further described it as "Phil Spector in Hell". Trouser Press said about the track "A Short Term Effect": it "stresses ephemeralness with Smith's echo-laden voice decelerating at the end of each phrase". Ira Robbins observed that "the song closest to basic pop" is "A Strange Day": it "has overdubbed backing vocals plus a delineated verse and chorus wrapped in some strangely consonant guitar figures". The journalist also commented: the song "Cold" "gets the full gothic treatment", with "grandiose minor-mode organ swells". Describing the title track, writer Dave McCullough said: it "tries to copy Cabaret Voltaire, all shuddering tape noise".
Polydor Records, the company in charge of Fiction Records, the label under which the album was released, were initially displeased with the album's title, which it saw as being potentially offensive. Following the album's release, Simon Gallup left the group.