| length = 43:30

| label = Fiction

| producer =

  • Phil Thornalley
  • The Cure

| prev_title = Faith

| prev_year = 1981

| next_title = Japanese Whispers

| next_year = 1983

| misc =

Pornography is the fourth studio album by the English rock band the Cure, released on 3 May 1982

Following its release, bassist Simon Gallup left the band, and the Cure switched to a much brighter and more radio-friendly new wave sound. Although it was poorly received by critics at the time of release, Pornography was the Cure's most popular album to date, reaching number eight on the UK Albums Chart. It has since gone on to gain acclaim from critics, and is now considered an important milestone in the development of the style of music known as gothic rock.

Background and recording

Following the band's previous album, 1981's Faith, the non-album single "Charlotte Sometimes" was released. The single, in particular its nightmarish and hallucinatory B-side "Splintered in Her Head", would hint at what was to come in Pornography.

The band, Smith in particular, wanted to make the album with a different producer than Mike Hedges, who had produced Seventeen Seconds and Faith. According to Lol Tolhurst, Smith and Tolhurst briefly met with the producer Conny Plank at Fiction's offices in the hopes of having him produce the album since they were both fans of his work with Kraftwerk, however, the group soon settled on Phil Thornalley.

On the album's recording sessions, Smith noted "there was a lot of drugs involved". The musicians usually turned up at eight, and left at midday looking "fairly deranged". Smith related: "We had an arrangement with the off-licence up the road, every night they would bring in supplies. We decided we weren't going to throw anything out. We built this mountain of empties in the corner, a gigantic pile of debris in the corner. It just grew and grew".

Polydor Records, the company in charge of Fiction, was initially displeased with the album's title, which it saw as being potentially offensive. Trouser Press said about the track "A Short Term Effect": it "stresses ephemeralness with Smith's echo-laden voice decelerating at the end of each phrase". Smith also said: Siouxsie and the Banshees, "they were a massive influence on me... They were the group who led me towards doing Pornography. They drew something out of me". In 1982, Smith also said that the "records he'd take into the bunker after the big bang", were Desertshore by Nico, Music for Films by Brian Eno, Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love by Jimi Hendrix, Twenty Golden Greats by Frank Sinatra and the Early Piano Works by Erik Satie.

Release and reception

Pornography was released on 3 May 1982. The album debuted and peaked at No. 8 on the UK Albums Chart, staying on the chart for nine weeks. Fiction owner Chris Parry found "The Hanging Garden" to be the album's only potential single, and after being "polished" by Thornalley and Smith, it was released as a single on 12 July, reaching No. 32 on the UK Singles Chart.

Dave McCullough of Sounds felt that despite a "genuine talent still at work", Pornography "has too much music too cluttered a backing for Smith's well-intended observance [...] Robert Smith seems locked in himself, a spiralling nightmare that leaves The Cure making a pompous sounding music that is, when all's said and done, dryly meaningless".

Legacy

Retrospective views of Pornography have been far more favourable. Uncut called Pornography "a masterpiece of claustrophobic self-loathing."

In 2000, Pornography was voted No. 183 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. In 2005, Spin cited the album as a "high-water mark for goth's musical evolution". NME described Pornography as "arguably the album that invented goth". Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 79 on its list of the best albums of the 1980s. In 2011, NME listed Pornography at No. 6 on its "50 Darkest Albums Ever" list. Behind the scenes, Smith's relationship with Gallup was deteriorating. When the tour reached Europe, tensions were so high between the two musicians that they had a fight after a concert in Strasbourg.

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{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Chart performance for Pornography<br/>(2005 deluxe edition)

! scope="col"| Chart (2005)

! scope="col"| Peak<br />position

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{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ 2021 weekly chart performance for Pornography

! scope="col"| Chart (2021)

! scope="col"| Peak<br />position

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! scope="row"| Greek Albums (IFPI)

| 3

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{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ Chart performance for Pornography<br/>(40th anniversary edition)

! scope="col"| Chart (2022)

! scope="col"| Peak<br />position

|-

|-

! scope="row"| UK Albums Sales (OCC)

| 14

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! scope="row"| UK Physical Albums (OCC)

| 13

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! scope="row"| UK Vinyl Albums (OCC)

| 9

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{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+ 2023 chart performance for Pornography

! scope="col"| Chart (2023)

! scope="col"| Peak<br />position

|-

|}

Certifications

References

  • Pornography (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)<!-- This is a licensed stream for the album, which is allowed under Wikipedia polices -->