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Disintegration is the eighth studio album by English rock band the Cure, released on 2 May 1989 by Fiction Records. The record marks a return to the introspective and gloomy gothic rock style the band had established in the early 1980s. As he neared the age of 30, vocalist and guitarist Robert Smith had felt an increased pressure to follow up on the group's pop successes with a more enduring work. This, coupled with a distaste for the group's newfound popularity, caused Smith to lapse back into the use of hallucinogenic drugs, the effects of which had a strong influence on the production of the album. The Cure recorded Disintegration at Hookend Recording Studios in Checkendon, Oxfordshire, with co-producer David M. Allen from late 1988 to early 1989. During production, founding member Lol Tolhurst was fired from the band. Disintegration became the band's commercial peak, charting at number three in the United Kingdom and at number 12 in the United States, and producing several hit singles including "Lovesong", which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains The Cure's highest selling record to date, with more than three million copies sold worldwide. It was greeted with a warm critical reception before later being acclaimed, eventually being placed at number 326 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called it the "culmination of all the musical directions The Cure were pursuing over the course of the '80s". Background The Cure's second album Seventeen Seconds (1980) established the group as a prominent gothic rock band characterised by what Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described as "slow, gloomy dirges and Smith's ghoulish appearance". Three singles were released during 1982 and 1983 that were a significant divergence in style for The Cure; essentially, pop hits. "The Love Cats" became The Cure's first single to infiltrate the top ten in the United Kingdom, peaking at number seven. This shift is attributed to Smith's frustration over the band's labelling as a predictable gothic rock band: "My reaction to all those people ... was to make a demented and calculated song like 'Let's Go to Bed'." Following the return of guitarist Porl Thompson and bassist Simon Gallup in 1984 and the addition of drummer Boris Williams in 1985, Smith and keyboardist Lol Tolhurst continued to integrate more pop-oriented themes with the release of the group's sixth studio album The Head on the Door (1985). With the singles "In-Between Days" and "Close to Me", The Cure became a viable commercial force in the United States for the first time. (more...)