Pornography is the fourth studio album by English rock band the Cure, released on 4 May 1982[7] by Fiction Records.

Preceded by the non-album single "Charlotte Sometimes", it was the band's first album with new producer Phil Thornalley, and was recorded at RAK Studios from January to April 1982.

[8] Following its release, bassist Simon Gallup left the band, and the Cure switched to a much brighter and more radio-friendly new wave sound.

[9] In the words of Robert Smith, regarding the album's conception, "I had two choices at the time, which were either completely giving in [committing suicide] or making a record of it and getting it out of me".

[9] The band took LSD and drank a lot of alcohol, and to save money, they slept in the office of their record label.

[9] Polydor Records, the company in charge of Fiction, was initially displeased with the album's title, which it saw as being potentially offensive.

[14] Trouser Press said about the track "A Short Term Effect": it "stresses ephemeralness with Smith's echo-laden voice decelerating at the end of each phrase".

[15] Describing the title track, writer Dave McCullough said that it "tries to copy Cabaret Voltaire, all shuddering tape noise".

[16] Smith said that "the reference point" for Pornography was the Psychedelic Furs' self-titled debut album, which he noted "had, like, a density of sound, really powerful".

[18] In 1982, Smith also said that the "records he'd take into the bunker after the big bang", were Desertshore by Nico, Music for Films by Brian Eno, Axis: Bold as Love / Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix, Twenty Golden Greats by Frank Sinatra and the Early Piano Works by Erik Satie.

The Cure have applied themselves to catching a related collection of the very purest feelings endemic to their age, and holding them right on the spot in their intangible, unspecified, unmanageable and most unpleasantly real form.

"[14] Adam Sweeting of Melody Maker wrote: "It's downhill all the way, into ever-darkening shadows... passing through chilly marbled archways to the final rendezvous with the cold comfort of the slab".

[24] Dave McCullough of Sounds felt that despite a "genuine talent still at work", Pornography "has too much music too cluttered a backing for Smith's well-intended observance [...] Robert Smith seems locked in himself, a spiralling nightmare that leaves The Cure making a pompous sounding music that is, when all's said and done, dryly meaningless".

[16] Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, derided Smith's "glum" lyrics: "Cheer up; look on the bright side.

"[23] Rolling Stone critic J. D. Considine commented that the lyrics seem "stuck in the terminal malaise of adolescent existentialism", concluding, "Pornography comes off as the aural equivalent of a bad toothache.

[22] Trouser Press' Charles McCardell, on the other hand, found that the Cure "imposes an order that at first seems contrary to the basic preconceptions of rock 'n' roll" – noting that "for them, lyrics are everything" and that instruments had been relegated to "merely creating atmosphere" – and hailed Pornography as an "uncompromising and challenging" work.

[25] In 2004, Jaime Gill of BBC Music singled out the album's "sonic depth and sheer relentless conviction" for praise, adding that without these qualities, its "extraordinary misanthropy would be laughable".

[citation needed] In his review for AllMusic, Stewart Mason also described the record as "one of the key goth rock albums of the '80s".

In the period preceding and following the release of Pornography, the group started to develop their trademark image of big hair, smudged makeup and black clothes.