Was forced to vote CRAP because of our broken electoral system.

By the time Disintegration was released I was getting into all of the early records. Back then you couldn't listen to a record before purchasing (can't rightly recall if there were even listening stations in stores) but suffice it to say the singles were the only songs I knew, I didn't care for any of them, and I didn't feel like exploring when I was already knee-deep into Seventeen Seconds. Didn't hear 'Plainsong" until much, much later, and, my goodness, what a song! Come to think of it it might be my favorite song with "song" in the title.

Faith > Disintegration

"Wish" might be actually my fave. And their last records I like them lots. I even enjoy Wild mood swings.

From the eighties I'd maybe go with Porno and Head on the door.

Never found Faith that good although it's definitely better than their previous efforts or The Top.

Not a bad album I'd say

I'm a Seventeen Seconds man myself, but SS-Pornography is one of my favorite runs of albums by any band. I'd put Disintegration after that.

That said, I can still remember hearing Plainsong for the first time VIVIDLY, like I can remember how the room smelled and how the light looked when that song kicked in the first time.

Years later (like 94 or 95) my buddy and I went to this little10 lane bowling alley in the rural-ish town I grew up in. They had just put in a jukebox and for whatever reason Disintegration was in there. We decided to play the album in full, which bummed out the two old men working, and the 10 or so other townie bowlers. I proceeded to bowl my best game in my life: 268

It's where their run of magic ended for me, but damn, what a run and what an end. Even if it's really kinda the same thing repackaged across however many tracks there are, it's pretty great. I could listen to it a lot and be happy about it. And sad I suppose.

I gave this record to my wife for Christmas in 2015 about three weeks after she was diagnosed with cancer, and she fuckin' bawled. I didn't mean for it to be as sentimental as it seemed, cuz like, that's a weird cancer record I think, but you know. Just the timing of it all I guess.

Anyway, not crap.

ErikG wrote: Thu May 02, 2024 5:08 pm Overrated. The decline starts here.

A few very good songs but plenty of meh. Some of the B-sides of this era are kick ass (eg Babble.)

I'm a huge fan of almost everything that came before.

Afterwards they did little that interests me.

Abstaining for now.

Edit: their early 80s work is as big an influence on my bass playing (and my band) as anything. A few years ago we finshed a set and as we tore down the sound person put on Pornography. I cracked up. Well played, sound person!

These are my thoughts precisely. Abstain.

Owen nailed my views exactly. Disintegration was like an unexpected flowering of their early dark power before they went all stadium and Robert was wearing football jerseys and hi tops across America.

Owen wrote: Sun May 05, 2024 8:40 am
That said, I can still remember hearing Plainsong for the first time VIVIDLY, like I can remember how the room smelled and how the light looked when that song kicked in the first time.

Me too oddly. It was in a record store in Christchurch New Zealand. It was recommended to me by a very hip clerk that later became an Anglican minister!

I use to go into the store in my silly school uniform (it was an English style boarding school) and I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was incredibly confusing for the hipster staff because normally my blindingly obvious uniform meant I was a farmer into rugby.

I know it sounds crazy, but given the band's quality timeline....

was Lol actually the secret weapon?

jakethesnake wrote: Fri May 03, 2024 7:47 am even worse than Echo &the Bunnymen

Boy I guess I'm in real trouble then.

I'm guessing a number of American youth of a certain age had an experience similar to mine. An older family member or acquaintance had a (cassette) of Standing on a Beach. Having never heard anything like this music before, young me thought the Cure were the greatest thing ever and I listened only to my dub of Standing on a Beach (mostly the A-sides cause the rest was a bit weird) for several years. Then in 1989 Disintegration came out, got to me via Columbia House, and blew my mind. Yes, I had a poster of Robert from this record above my bed.

Then I started crawling through the rest of the catalog and learned what I had been missing. But Distintegration is so good that even Pictures of You can't ruin it.

EDIT: not a double cassette. Just a really long one, forgot how much you could fit on one of those.

ErikG wrote: Tue May 07, 2024 11:16 am was Lol actually the secret weapon?

I know you’re just being droll but reading the accounts of recording this album and KMKMKM are pretty sad, seeing a friend sink into alcoholism must have been hard to bear. Even watching him on rudimentary keyboards in shows from 84 / 85 it’s clear he wasn’t doing much or enjoying it. I must read his book sometime.
Actually I’ve come around to appreciate his drumming a lot more again. Zero swing and few chops, but absolutely crucial to the feel of that early stuff.