Disintegration (The Cure Album) - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

Disintegration was released in May 1989 and peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart, the highest position the band had placed on the chart at that point. In the UK, the lead single "Lullaby" became The Cure's highest charting hit in their home country when it reached number five. In the US, due to its appearance in the film Lost Angels, the band's American label Elektra Records released "Fascination Street" as the first single. The international follow-up single to "Lullaby", "Lovesong", became The Cure's highest charting hit in the United States, when it reached number two on the Billboard charts. The success of Disintegration was such that the March 1990 final single "Pictures of You" reached number 24 on the British charts, despite the fact that the album had been released a year earlier. Disintegration was certified silver (60,000 copies shipped) in the United Kingdom, and by 1992 had sold more than three million copies worldwide.

Rolling Stone gave Disintegration a rating of three and a half stars out of five. Reviewer Michael Azerrad felt that "while Disintegration doesn't break new ground for the band, it successfully refines what the Cure does best". He concluded, "Despite the title, Disintegration hangs together beautifully, creating and sustaining a mood of thoroughly self-absorbed gloom. If, as Smith has hinted, the Cure itself is about to disintegrate, this is a worthy summation." Melody Maker reviewer Chris Roberts dismissed the claims that Disintegration was not a miserable record and, noting the tone of the album and its lack of melody ("You'll be lucky to find a tune on here. Or a gag"), he commented that "The Cure have almost invisibly stopped making pop records". Roberts summarised the album as "challenging and claustrophobic, often poignant, often tedious. It's nearly surprising." Music reviewer Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of C+, citing most of his displeasure as a result of Robert Smith's depressing nature: "by pumping his bad faith and bad relationship into depressing moderato play-loud keyb anthems far more tedious than his endless vamps, Robert Smith does actually confront a life contradiction." "As with so many stars," Christgau continued, "even 'private' ones who make a big deal of their 'integrity,' Smith's demon lover is his audience, now somehow swollen well beyond his ability to comprehend, much less control. Hence the huge scale of these gothic cliches." Retrospectively, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the record a four and a half star rating out of five, and applauded the band by saying, "The Cure's gloomy soundscapes have rarely sounded so alluring the songs – from the pulsating, ominous 'Fascination Street' to the eerie, string-laced 'Lullaby' – have rarely been so well-constructed and memorable." Erlewine went on to praise Disintegration for being "darkly seductive", and "a hypnotic, mesmerizing record". Pitchfork Media praised the record, admitting "Disintegration stands unquestionably as Robert Smith's magnum opus." Writer Chris Ott noted that "scant few albums released in the 1980s can boast an opener as grand as 'Plainsong', the most breathtaking, shimmering anthem the band ever recorded."

Disintegration has been included in numerous "Best Of" lists. Rolling Stone placed the record at number 326 on its 2003 compilation of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The magazine's German counterpart placed Disintegration at number 184 on the same list. The album was considered to be the best album of 1989 by Melody Maker, 17th on Q magazine's "40 Best Albums of the 80s", and 38th on Pitchfork's "Best Albums of the 80s". The album placed at number 14 in Entertainment Weekly's "New Classics: The 100 Best Albums from 1983 to 2008." In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at #15 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".