The Cure's eighth album arrived when Robert Smith defied label expectations for radio-friendly singles and instead crafted a sprawling meditation on mortality and romantic decay. Recorded at Hookend Studios with producer David M. Allen, its cathedral-sized production and extended compositions marked a deliberate retreat into atmospheric melancholy.

What could have been commercial suicide instead became their biggest American success, with Lovesong reaching number two while alternative rock stations embraced the album's Gothic expansiveness. Three decades later, Disintegration remains the template for confessional sadness rendered gorgeous.