Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. One Hundred Years
2. Short Term Effect
3. Hanging Garden
4. Siamese Twins
5. Figurehead
6. Strange Day
7. Cold
8. Pornography

Disc 2:

1. Break [Group Home Demo][#]
2. Demise [Studio Demo][#]
3. Temptation [Studio Demo][#]
4. Figurehead [Studio Demo][#]
5. Hanging Garden [Studio Demo][#]
6. One Hundred Years [Studio Demo][#]
7. Airlock: The Soundtrack [#]
8. Cold [Live][#]
9. Strange Day [Live][#]
10. Pornography [Live][#]
11. All Mine [Live][#]
12. Short Term Effect [Live][#]
13. Siamese Twins [Live][#]
14. Temptation Two (AKA LGTB) [RS Studio Demo][#]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #486441 in Music
• Released on: 2005-05-02
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Deluxe Edition, Explicit Lyrics, Import
• Dimensions: .35 pounds

Album Description
Universal UK pressing features the same content as the Rhino/US version, though packaged in the standard Universal 'Deluxe Edition' slipcase. 2 CD set compiled by Robert Smith and digitally remastered from the original master tapes. CD 1 is the original a

Customer Reviews

A Doom & Gloom Masterpiece - Quintessential Goth-Rock
PORNOGRAPHY is the culmination of the Cure's descent into the abyss (first wave) and one of the best goth-rock albums of all time. It's dark, foreboding, eerie and depressing yet strangely beautiful. The drum sound is tribal and bass heavy, the guitars range from moody to disturbingly hallucinatory and the lyrics are bleak and cryptic. In my old tour book from the KISS ME tour, Cure mastermind Robert Smith reveals that while he can appreciate eroticism, he abhors pornography. In this light, pornography is miserable and ugly, thus a fitting title for the album.

BREAKDOWN:

"One Hundred Years" - Casting an apocalyptic shadow of impending doom and destruction, the opening track is super-intense - "Over and over we die one after the other." *****

"A Short Term Effect" - A weird, gloomy track with strange guitar effects, vocal manipulations and a wavering beat. *****

"The Hanging Garden" - With relentless, pounding bass and drums and spiraling guitars, this is a gorgeously gloomy song and worthy single. *****

"Siamese Twins" - a slower song, beautifully morbid and full of loathing. *****

"The Figurehead" - A bleak, depressing song of fear and isolation with a merciless military drum beat. *****

"A Strange Day" - offers a lone ray of hope through the murky desolation of PORNOGRAPHY via escapism. One of the few Cure songs to feature a guitar solo without any other instruments - the segment is intended to represent being instantly hit with the memory of a song. Beautiful. *****

"Cold" - An absolutely dreary song with icy keyboards and brutal, lethargic drums. *****

"Pornography" - Sounding like a horrifying torture chamber scene, the final track is a whirlwind of creepy sounds. The muddled voices at the beginning and end of the track are especially freaky. The final line - "I must fight this sickness / Find a cure." *****

Disk 2

"Break" (Group Home Demo) - A dark and gloomy instrumental sketch featuring an overloaded bass that can be heard rattling a snare drum. Nothing special, really. **1/2

"Demise" (studio demo) - another dark and atmospheric instrumental. **1/2

"Temptation" (studio demo) - a more driving instrumental. Cool sound but pretty basic. ***

"The Figurehead" (studio demo) - similar to the final version but inferior. Like most of Disk 2, this track will mostly be of interest to die-hard fans. ***

"The Hanging Garden" (studio demo) - an airy version with a radically different feel from the album version with different lyrics. Inferior but very interesting; merits repeated listens. ****

"One Hundred Years" (studio demo) - more cold and mechanical than the final version, due especially to the use of a drum machine. Cool sound. ****

"Airlock: The Soundtrack" - This is an unsettling 13 minute avant-garde sound collage full of weird noises and a bizarre, off-kilter piano. It provided the soundtrack to a film used to open Cure concerts on the PORNOGRAPHY tour. Intriguing, but likely too repellent for most fans to listen to more than once in a blue moon. ***1/2

tracks 8 - 13 -- These live tracks sound pretty good considering the fact that they're bootlegs. "Cold" adds some spacey effects that didn't appear on the album while "Pornography" features a recording of those creepy distorted voices. Of particular note is the non-album track "All Mine," previously available on the ultra-rare CURIOSITY cassette. It's a great song, very passionate with bold, angular guitar figures and anguished, longing vocals from Robert Smith. It's quite different from anything else they've done. ****1/2

"Temptation Two" (studio demo) - a more evolved version of "Temptation" with vocals and a faster tempo. Pretty cool but clearly undeserving of a slot on PORNOGRAPHY. ***1/2

Yet another excellent Deluxe Edition Cure set with superior sound, fascinating, rare group photos and an informative essay. This is an absolute must for Cure fans.