Disintegration (The Cure Album) - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

Robert Smith's depression prior to the recording of Disintegration gave way to the realisation on his twenty-ninth birthday that he would turn thirty in one year. This realisation was frightening to him, as he felt all the masterpieces in rock and roll had been completed well before the band members reached such an age. Smith consequently began to write music without the rest of the band. The material he had written instantly took a dismal, depressing form, which he credited to "the fact that I was gonna be thirty". The Cure convened at Boris Williams' home in the summer of 1988 where Smith showed his band-mates the demos he had recorded. If they had not liked the material, he was prepared to record them as a solo album: "I would have been quite happy to have made these songs on my own. If the group hadn't thought it was right, that would have been fine." His band-mates liked the demos and began playing along. The group recorded thirty-two songs at Williams' house with a 16-track recorder by the end of the summer.

When the band entered Hook End Manor Studios in Reading, their attitude had turned sour towards Tolhurst's escalating alcohol abuse, although Smith insisted that his displeasure was caused by a meltdown in the face of recording The Cure's career-defining album and reaching thirty. Displeased with the swollen egos he believed his band mates possessed, Smith entered what he considered to be "one of my non-talking modes" deciding "I would be monk-like and not talk to anyone. It was a bit pretentious really, looking back, but I actually wanted an environment that was slightly unpleasant". He sought to abandon the mood present on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and the pop singles they had released, and rather recreate the atmosphere of the band's fourth album Pornography (1982). Suicide was another subject Smith thought about on several occasions. Shortly before the band started recording Disintegration, two teenagers committed suicide in a nearby town. It was revealed that the pair played The Cure's early albums during the act. Smith kept a newspaper clipping of the incident pinned to the wall in the studio: "I know it's tragic, but at the same time it's grimly funny because it obviously had nothing to do with us. We are just singled out."

Tolhurst, meanwhile, was becoming a nuisance. The band found him impossible to work with, and he spent most of the recording process drunk and watching MTV. The members of the band, except for Smith, would taunt and physically abuse Tolhurst simply to get a reaction. Smith recalls that Tolhurst turned into someone he did not recognise: "I didn't know who he was any more and he didn't know who he was either. I used to despair and scream at the others because it was fucking insane the way we were treating him." At that point, Smith was allowing Tolhurst to remain in The Cure simply because he felt an obligation as an old friend. The other band members, finally, threatened to quit if Tolhurst was not fired before the end of the recording session. When Tolhurst arrived to the mixing of the album excessively drunk, a shouting match ensued and he left the building furious; this effectively terminated his tenure with The Cure. Smith and the rest of the group confirm he contributed nothing to the record. Thereafter, O'Donnell became an integral member of The Cure, instead of simply a touring musician. Despite Tolhurst's ejection from the group, Smith told NME in April 1989, "He'll probably be back by Christmas. He's getting married, maybe that's his comeback." Tolhurst did not return.