The Cure “Disintegration” released 30 years ago today, May 2nd, 1989. The Cure’s sensuous goth masterpiece was their 8th studio album and to that point their biggest hit; it still remains The Cure’s best-selling album and likely their most beloved. It went to #3 in the UK and to #12 in the US with its hit singles like “Lovesong” and “Pictures of You,” both ubiquitous features during my college freshman year. Disintegration was (thankfully) a marked departure from The Cure’s previous album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me from ‘87, which was fairly bright pop (for The Cure, anyway), and a return to the shadowy atmosphere of their early 80′s recordings like Pornography. Disintegration is pretty much as close to perfect a record can get: each song flows seamlessly to the next but never becomes redundant or boring. I love the singles: “Lullaby” (#5 UK, #74 US), “Fascination Street” (the deep, ominous groove on this one makes it my top single from the LP, reminding me of the Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography days – it went to #46 in the US and to #1 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart; it was not released as a single in the UK), “Lovesong” (#18 UK, #2 US – their first and only US Top 10 hit and composed by Robert Smith as a wedding present to his new wife, Mary Poole) and “Pictures of You” (#27 UK, #71 US). But my favorite songs are the lush and less mainstream tracks like “Plainsong” – all shimmering wind chimes and ennui, “Closedown” – gorgeous goth perfection, “Last Dance” – the goth-jangle-guitar on here so so beautiful, and oh my god the flow from “Prayers for Rain” to “The Same Deep Water As You” is so thunderously sumptuous that I almost want to cry and then that same emotion carries into “Homesick.”

Disclosure: this particular record is a relatively new acquisition – a reissue double LP with gatefold cover. Back in the day I bought the CD (because, well, of course I did). We wanted to get an original vinyl release but were informed by an even bigger vinyl nerd expert that the original’s quality, quite frankly, sucked. With a run time of over 70 minutes, compressing the music to fit a standard release made the sound tinny: an anathema to an album like Disintegration. Also the vinyl produced from the mid-80′s on (until relatively recently) was cheap and the packaging even worse. On this reissue, the songs are luxuriously spread over four sides and cut from the original master tapes so the sound is…perfect.