About Pornography
Ultra-fast drum hits like an automatic machine gun, over this guitar full of echoes, the introduction of “One Hundred Years” takes you by the throat. Finally, there is this mortuary keyboard and this sick song: “It doesn't matter if we all die”. At this point, Robert Smith is in the middle of a crisis, the break in his relationship with Mary Poole (his future wife), alcohol, drugs, arguments with the other members of the band, the desire to waltz everything, and this nihilism permeate this album. Inevitably, it is abrasive, without light. Critics were divided when it was released. It was not until several years later that it was appreciated as a landmark in the history of gothic rock.The members of The Cure are still young, with baby faces, jeans and white t-shirts, short hair, but it's as if they have gone from adolescence to adulthood in one fell swoop. In 1980, Robert Smith couldn't manage the sudden notoriety acquired following their petulant single “Boys Don't Cry”, to the point of nausea. A progressive depression prompted him to change to a new, ascetic and spicy music. Pornography thus completes a trilogy descending the spirals of Dante's Inferno, starting with the white of Seventeen Seconds, continuing with the grey of the sad Faith and finishing moping by brooding. The approach is accompanied by a harsh semantics around spleen, death and psychoanalytic solitude.
Simon Gallup's bass makes every track. It is energetic, associated with the frantic rhythmic of Lol Tolhurst, on “The Hanging Garden”, which reminds us of The Psychedelic Furs or even Southern Death Cult. Or it is creeping, serious and even more penetrating, as on “The Figurehead”. As for the other guitars, they only accompany, drawing cutting arpeggios, supporting the rhythm, like the contemplative “Siamese Twins” or the dreamlike “A Strange Day”. The tone is murky, haunting, like these echo effects, these keyboards in the background that haunt the tracks (the fireman “Cold”, masterful as Depeche Mode). Robert Smith sings in a phoneless manner. With no solution to his discomfort, he goes around in circles, letting out unanswered complaints. And at the end, he gives up, allowing himself to be overwhelmed by a deluge of noise and carnage.
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