The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the title Disintegration is sitting in a hotel courtyard after our show in Athens drinking some sort of Greek vin blanc until dawn with Robert. At some point I asked him if 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia was still his favorite record and he said he couldn't even listen to it anymore because he broke up with his girlfriend, (whatever, big wuss). And then he said "Courtney, this record is making your band huge and it's going to be the worst time of your life."
Um, WTF?
"Listen. When we released Disintegration, we went back out on tour, but this time we were playing stadiums. I would walk out onstage every night and on the part of the crowd directly before me, I would see hundreds of white baseball caps... and most of them not on frontwards! It was the most depressing time of my life."
Well, turns out he was right. Seems that for any real artist, fame takes all the fun out of getting rich. Fuckin' Disintegration. – Courtney Taylor-Taylor, The Dandy Warhols
My parents had introduced me to The Cure when I was younger, and I remember I quickly became obsessed. I spent a whole weekend going through their entire catalog. Of all the albums, Disintegration became the first Cure album I ever truly fell in love with. Nobody does love and heartbreak quite like Robert Smith. "Pictures of You," in particular, became my all-time favorite Cure song. Few lyricists have the gift of writing something timeless that pulls at your heart no matter what your age or sex. Disintegration pulled me out of some of the biggest emotional chasms I've ever fallen down, by pushing me through them. Sometimes you need to allow yourself the luxury of feeling the lows in life... And know that you aren't the only one that feels them. – Emily Lazar, September Mourning
Disintegration is the quintessential Cure record for me. I can't help but feel a joyous sorrow and hopeful despair, adrift in a dark sea of emotion, when I play these songs. It's like being buoyed up by a love song that is deeper than the sea itself. The songs, the production, that bass line on "Fascination Street" are a defining statement in music that I still go back to. "Lovesong" lives in my heart, always. – Greg Norton, Husker Du/Porcupine
As a kid I remember being heart broken by a girl at elementary school and I used to play "Pictures Of You" of The Cure and just cry my eyes out. Now I look back at those times and think how great it was to have their music be part of my personal soundtrack." – Vega De La Rocha, Metalachi
The main influence that The Cure's Disintegration had on me, at about the time when I was just starting to work with Nine Inch Nails, was the album's sheer focus of will to completely envelope the listener in the mood that Robert Smith envisioned. I had loved the previous albums The Head on the Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me for their breadth of landscape, how each song touched on different moods and energies yet maintained this great pop thread that was still always purely The Cure. Disintegration, however, was like a hammer to the head reminder that no one could plunge you into a Gothic abyss like Robert Smith and company, and not let you come up for air until the record was done. It reminded you that you could still be totally consumed by any emotion as if you were 15 and in love for the first time, and in pain for the first time, and alone for the first time, and free for the first time. Pure genius. Still jealous. – Sean Beavan, 8MM