The Cure "Disintegration" [1989]

If pomp and pretension were weaponry, the Brits would still rule the world (and The Cure would be amongst their generals). Fronted by a calculated ladder-climber who gets his jollies behaving like some misfit kid who won't leave his bedroom, the members of The Cure struck gold when they drilled deeply into suburban teen angst, declared they weren't callously exploiting it, and did so with a straight face. Well, not really -- perhaps that's the reason behind all that hideously-applied Joker makeup. Every grandiose sweep of 80s synth, every plunky little amateur guitar line and every wailing whine from Robert Smith makes this entire album sound like the Police's "Every Breath You Take" without all the exciting parts. These guys were old pros by this time, though -- they'd failed goth and bubblegum pop yet still managed to stay signed -- so focused on bringing both the suicidal gloom of their early albums and the overt sell-out studio hack shit from their middle period together in one cloudy, squishy ball of weak, annoying neediness. Throw in some fake Peter Gabriel movie-soundtrack drums and you don't have a make-out album for insecure teenagers -- what you have is a UK submarine of sullen, sunken arrogance. The 80s couldn't possibly have ended fast enough.