We Got the Beat

Celebrating despair and sorrow: The Cure reissues Disintegration

Robert Smith’s midlife crisis hit him a bit earlier than most. He was about to turn 30, and even though his personal life was buoyed by the fact that he was about to get married, his professional life was in turmoil.

He was dissatisfied with the perception of The Cure as a pop band, yet he also felt partly to blame because he hadn’t produced an album he considered powerful enough to be a true, lasting classic. Since most bands or artists achieve albums like that before hitting 30, the pressure was on.

Smith responded to that midlife crisis not by getting a sports car or having an affair. He and The Cure emerged in 1989 with Disintegration a pitch-black stunner of an album that plumbed the depths of desperation and sorrow.

Now being re-released with all kinds of goodies attached, the album is a testament to Smith’s genius for producing luscious misery.

The extras in this deluxe edition reissue aren’t what I would consider essential to anything but Cure completei-sts. The new stuff is largely a bunch of home demos and instrumentals that show the album in various levels of progress. There is also a live set from Wembley Stadium highlighting the band’s faithful, live performances of the entire record.

You can also go online to hear even more demos and outtakes, showing if nothing else that it was a prolific recording time for Smith.

Irony abounds in the fact that The Cure was releasing a willfully gloomy record and ended up with a run of hit singles, including “Pictures Of You,” “Lullaby,” “Fascination Street,” and “Love Song,” which nearly topped the charts, peaking at No. 2 in the United States. These hits showed that Smith could deliver exotic catchiness like no one else and that the band, while in turmoil (keyboardist and longtime member Lol Tolhurst was ousted during the album’s recording), was masterful at delivering these tricky concoctions.

The singles also showed that there was more to The Cure than the Goth stereotype that was frequently hung on the band. “Lullaby” may tell a spooky tale about Smith’s spider-infused nightmares, but its spiky guitar riff and violin squeaks are darkly alluring. “Love Song” may be a moving testament to devotion, but the minor chords, low-key arrangement, and Smith’s anguished delivery somehow make those words more powerful, as if showing just how much bleakness love has to endure.

The single most emblematic of the entirety of the album is “Pictures Of You,” a triumph that still delivers chills. The interplay between Smith and Porl Thompson on guitar and the stirring chord changes produce peak after glorious peak, while the vocal is a heartbreakingly honest portrayal of the fine line between nostalgia and obsession.

All of the darkness can be a bit overbearing at times; the lengthy dirge “The Same Deep Water As You” and the title track drag on at a combined 17-minutes plus. But these are the exceptions, because for the rest of the album, the band produces luxurious soundscapes in which the listener can’t help but wallow.

Rich textures and subtle musical touches practically beg for repeated listening to imbibe it all. “Plainsong” mixes soulful guitar licks with Roger O’Donnell’s Vangelis-style keyboards; “Homesick” builds from a simple piano figure into a gloomy eddy of sorrow; a wheezy harmonium bookends the album closing “Untitled.”

The long running times of these songs never seem to be long enough, so potent is the spell that they weave.

Smith laces his morose musings through it all, the frustration and disappointment in his voice eventually reduced to a defeated moan by the end as he sings “I’ll never dream of you again.” If anybody doubted The Cure’s ability to pull off a complete album, Disintegration steamrolled right over those doubts.

After 21 years, it remains the masterpiece its creator doubted he could ever make.

Adobe Flash Required for flash player."Lullaby"

Adobe Flash Required for flash player."Love Song"

Adobe Flash Required for flash player."Pictures of You"

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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