  This week I'll be doing a feature on the handful of albums that have shaped me to be the person you see today. I was inspired to to do this after I blew the dust off my copy of The Cure's 'Pornography' last night and gave it a spin. Man oh man did the memories come flooding back. To those unfamiliar with The Cure's work other than their sugary fun hits like 'Friday I'm In Love' , 'High', 'Lovecats', 'Just Like Heaven' etc I imagine them to be portrayed as a slightly wierd yet ultimately superficial band with some fat dude up the front with big hair and make up.
But what never ceases to amaze me and the main reason why I love the band so much is the vast scope of emotion they've poured into all their songs over the past 25 years. Ok, granted the Cure's lineup has basically changed every 2 years which will account for the amount of variety in their music, but good ol' fat Bob keeps on rockin and I have no idea how he survived writting this album. 'Pornography' has often been voted 'the darkest' or 'most depressing' album of all time by the likes of NME, Rolling Stone etc. But the words 'dark' and 'depressing' don't even begin to describe how horribly heart breaking this album really is. It was actually quite firghtening to realise that these songs were once so much a part of my life that they were basically my soundtrack.
Every track swirls and washes into another with a deep grief, the lyrics bring up images of black haired girls, hanging gardens, black flags, and who can forget : 'A hundred years of blood, crimson, the ribbon tightens round my throat, i open my mouth, and my head bursts open, a sound like a tiger thrashing in the water, trashing in the water' . It was actually rumoured to have been written about the suicide of Joy Division's Ian Curtis a year before its relaese in 1982. What makes me most uncomfrtable about listening to this si the fact that Robert Smith actually lived on to write such stupidly happy songs like 'Lovecats' and 'Mintcar', at least when you listen to Joy Division , you pretty much know what you're gonna get, this might sound wierd, but the fact that Ian Curtis died brings some kind of sick comfort.
'Pornography' is just disturbing. Admittedly yes, I do suffer from manic depression (like every other fucker on earth) and this album might not be for everyone, but its definitely worth a listen. I'll leave you with the lyrics to my favourite Cure song ever, track 4 on Pornography..... SIAMESE TWINS I chose an eternity of this Like falling angels The world disappeared Laughing into the fire Is it always like this? Flesh and blood and the first kiss The first colours The first kiss We writhed under a red light Voodoo smile Siamese twins A girl at the window looks at me for an hour Then everything falls apart Broken inside me It falls apart The walls and the ceiling move in time Push a blade into my hands Slowly up the stairs And into the room Is it always like this?
Dancing in my pocket Worms eat my skin She glows and grows With arms outstretched Her legs around me... In the morning I cried Leave me to die You won't remember my voice I walked away and grew old You never talk We never smile I scream You're nothing I don't need you any more You're nothing It fades and spins Fades and spins... Sing out loud We all die!!! Laughing into the fire... Is it always like this? 
