The Best Record of 1989: Day 17

#4 The Cure, Disintegration vs. #125 Cher's Heart of Stone

Good morning!

Today we’re taking a look at records from The Cure and Cher.

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Note: As many of you know, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 1989 challenge and noted that I'd be occasionally writing some of these up.

I've started doing some quick hits of each matchup and posting them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There'll probably definitely be some typos.

Check 'em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks are always appreciated.

KA—

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I’ll save everyone some time: Disintegration is one of my Desert Island Discs. Some Cure fans will swear by a record like 17 Seconds. For others The Head on the Door is a hill they’re willing to die on. A chaos agent or two might even throw a vote in for Wild Mood Swings.

Me? It’s this record, and it’s not even close.

Last fall, as

Sam Colt

and I wrapped up or top 100 records of all time, I slotted Disintegration in at #4. Nothing has changed in the ensuing months. I’m resharing that blurb in full below:

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Do kids these days still go through their “Cure phase?” Growing up, it just seemed like something you were supposed to do, even if you weren't feeling particularly miserable. There was always a bit of irony there.

Robert Smith was feeling down when recording this began. He felt pressure to follow up on the success Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me had brought, and he was disillusioned with the band’s newfound popularity. He escaped those closing walls by taking a lot of LSD. Disintegration was every bit a group effort, but the result feels like we’re on one of Smith’s trips.

This was Sam’s #38 pick, and he wrote that he “…threw on some headphones and was blown away by how big everything sounded…” I’m not sure when Sam first put this record on, but I can tell you my first impression was almost the same. Even when they wandered a bit, the band’s previous records felt (relatively) compact. This was much more sprawling. Languid in parts, haunting in others. It was—and is—a sonic kaleidoscope, “Plainsong” especially. “Fascination Street” feels like the most on-brand track on the album, and even that sounds like new ground. The title track’s riff is as good as any the band ever recorded. The shattering of a mind never sounded so catchy.

For my part, I described the record as “A masterpiece. Gorgeous, lush music from the elder statesmen of the alternative/goth/whatever world. Reach into the bag and pick whatever superlative you want; they all fit. It was a record so good that one of their best tracks from that era (“2 Late”) was relegated to being a B-side. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was one of the first CDs I ever bought. Growing up, I had a poster of Head on the Door in my bedroom. But if the house is on fire, this is the record I’m grabbing.”

In that same issue, I named Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On my #36 pick, which, according to Sam, was an act of war. It became the yardstick against which every one of my future picks would be compared. I feel the same way with Sam “only” rating this #38. Gaye was looking to heal a splintered world. Smith was looking to heal his splintered mind. Both wound up delivering the best work of their careers.

At any rate, I think it’s pretty clear that we both hold this record in high regard—and rightly so. It remains the band’s magnum opus. Start here if you're looking for a definitive record by The Cure.

Smith was uncomfortable with the band's newfound popularity and wound up making one of their most significant records. Disintegration also had a love letter to Smith’s wife (“Lovesong”) that became one of their biggest hits, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. That’s some next-level irony.

As for me? I’m pushing 50 and am still in my “Cure phase.”

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Do I really l need to talk about Cher? For real? Um, okay…well, let’s see…

“If I Could Turn back Time” is pretty representative of the “big” pop from that era. It was this sort of bombastic, polished sound that launched 1000 grunge bands in response. Not a bad song per se, but the world was ready for something else, and this was the sort of thing that proved to be an accelerant.

There are 11 other songs on the record. They have things like chords, verses, bridges, and choruses. There’s a lovely duet with Chicago’s Peter Cetera that got a lot of airplay in my mom’s car. K103 probably just set it to autoplay. No one would’ve minded. It’s nice.

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Bottom Line: Disintegration is a masterpiece. Heart of Stone is a record that happened to come out the same year.

My vote: In case it wasn’t obvious, my bracket and my vote will both be going to Robert Smith & co.

Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!

Check out the full bracket here.

Info on the tourney, voting, and more is here.

As always, thanks for being here.

KA—

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