It has been suggested that Smith’s depression prior to that recording came about on his 29th birthday and the realisation that he would soon turn 30. There’s little doubting that Disintegration reflected the mood within camp Cure, as it is the sound of intense isolation and absolute despair. “It was really pretty savage compared to this.” “When we did Disintegration there was an entirely different atmosphere than the one we had doing this new stuff,” Smith told Melody Maker, in March 1992. had continued to push boundaries and amassed a legion of devoted charcoal-eyed followers along the way. From their stark, icicle, non-image early days of 1979 debut Three Imaginary Boys, its follow-up a year later Seventeen Seconds, 1981’s Faith and Pornography (1982), to the epic, effervescent, technicolour vibrancy of The Top, The Head On The Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Smith and co.

It is fitting, perhaps, that one of pop music’s greatest dreamers and visionary poets, Robert Smith, would make such a connection on his band’s landmark ninth studio album.īy 1992, The Cure could challenge anyone for the crown of biggest group on planet pop.

The British Romantic poets of the 18th and 19th centuries often reflected on how the essence of childhood innocence is timeless and has no limits. “We look before and after, and pine for what is not our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought…” H idden within the liner notes of Wish is a pertinent quote from To A Skylark, written by the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Following the release of Disintegration, The Cure survived a turbulent three years to return with possibly the most Cure-like record in their discography – Wish… By Dan Biggane

The greatest hits the cure torrent