The Cure Disintegration

Expanding the latent arena rock sensibilities that peppered Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by slowing them down and stretching them to the breaking point, the Cure reached the peak of their popularity with the crawling, darkly seductive Disintegration. It's a hypnotic, mesmerizing record, comprised almost entirely of epics like the soaring, icy "Pictures of You." The handful of pop songs, like the concise and utterly charming "Love Song," don't alleviate the doom-laden atmosphere. The Cure's gloomy soundscapes have rarely sounded so alluring, however, and the songs - from the pulsating, ominous "Fascination Street" to the eerie, string-laced "Lullaby" - have rarely been so well-constructed and memorable. It's fitting that Disintegration was their commercial breakthrough, since, in many ways, the album is the culmination of all the musical directions the Cure were pursuing over the course of the '80s.

Out of all the bands that emerged in the immediate aftermath of punk rock in the late '70s, few were as enduring and popular as The Cure. Led through numerous incarnations by guitarist/vocalist Robert Smith (born April 21, 1959), the band became notorious for its slow, gloomy dirges and Smith's ghoulish appearance, a public image that often hid the diversity of the Cure's music. At the outset, the Cure played jagged, edgy pop songs before slowly evolving into a more textured outfit.

The Cure's 1989 album Disintegration was the band's inarguable artistic peak, and surprisingly also their biggest commercial success to date. A rare feat for any group, but especially unexpected when considering how Disintegration abandoned much of the pop excitement the Cure had been working with through the mid-'80s and returned to the drawn-out and depressive textural rock of their early days. Disintegration's grim grandeur and epic presentation had an air of finality, and its perfect synthesis of everything the band had explored leading up to it put the Cure in a very difficult spot when it was time to follow up. Almost three years passed before 1992's Wish arrived, continuing Disintegration's slow-moving torment on songs like "Apart" and the violin-underscored "To Wish Impossible Things," but bringing back melody and upbeat tempos to a handful of standout tracks…

An ambitious yet practical idea, Trilogy underscores the tonal and lyrical connections between three of the Cure's darkest albums in the last 20 years. The restless, ever-changing band, fronted by goth-gloomster Robert Smith, took up residence at the Tempodrom Berlin for a couple of nights in late 2002 for the express purpose of playing the group's 1982 Pornography, 1989's Disintegration, and 2000's Bloodflowers live and in their entirety…

2 Blu-Ray Standard Edition. In 2018 The Cure performed two historic shows celebrating a 40-year career. ANNIVERSARY: 1978-2018 Live In Hyde Park London - a 29-song, 135-minute anniversary concert and CUREATION-25: From There To Here, From Here To There - captured on the tenth and final night of the 25th Meltdown Festival (curated by lead singer Robert Smith) at London's Royal Festival performing a song from each of their 13 studio albums in chronological order, displaying the evolution of The Cure's music live on stage…