Pornography is the fourth studio album by English rock band The Cure, released on 4 May 1982 by the record label Fiction. Preceded by the non-album single "Charlotte Sometimes" late the previous year, Pornography was the band's first album with a new producer, Phil Thornalley, and was recorded at RAK Studios from January to April. The sessions saw the group on the brink of collapse, with heavy drug use, band in-fighting and group leader Robert Smith's depression fuelling the album's musical and lyrical content. Pornography represents the conclusion of the group's early dark, gloomy musical phase which began with Seventeen Seconds in 1980.
Following its release, bass guitarist Simon Gallup left the band and the Cure switched to a much brighter and more radio-friendly new wave sound. While poorly received by critics at the time of release, Pornography was their most popular album to date, reaching number 8 in the UK charts. Pornography has since gone on to gain acclaim from critics, and is now considered an important milestone in the development of the gothic rock genre. The band has performed the album live in its entirety as part of the Trilogy concerts.
Pornografia is a 1960 novel by the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. The narrative revolves around two middle-aged Warsawian intellectuals, who during a trip to the countryside construct a scheme to make two teenagers fall in love.
Publication
The book was originally published in 1960. In 1966, an English translation from French was published in the United Kingdom through Calder and Boyars, and the United States through Grove Press. In 2009 Grove Press published an English translation by Danuta Borchardt, from the original Polish.
Critical response
Upon the 2009 American release, Michael Dirda wrote in The Washington Post that Pornografia "seems as sick, as pathologically creepy a novel as one is ever likely to read. In some ways, it resembles a rather more polymorphously perverse version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses or one of those disturbing fictions by European intellectuals that blend the philosophical with the erotic: Think of Georges Bataille's The Story of the Eye or Pierre Klossowski's Roberte Ce Soir. ... Through its sado-masochistic material and its almost Henry Jamesian analyses of human motives, Pornografia underscores Gombrowicz's lifelong philosophical obsession: the quest for authenticity." Dirda continued: "Certainly, most readers will find Pornografia perturbing, or worse: repulsive, confusing, ugly. As Milosz once said of Gombrowicz: 'He had no reverence whatsoever for literature. He derided it as a snobbish ritual, and if he practiced it, he attempted to get rid of all its accepted rules.'"
Pornografia is the name of a number of films, with the 2003 version being the best known one. In 1992, a short film with the same name was made in Brazil. The 2003 version was a collaboration of the Polish and French film industries.
2003 version
Pornografia (2003) was directed by Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski. It is based on the Witold Gombrowicz novel, Pornografia (1960), set in Nazi occupied Poland during World War II. The film is filled with many intricacies, touching such themes as the European society of the 1940s as a whole, conspiracy, guerrilla warfare, the Nazi invasion, murder, and suicide, as well as eroticism, guilt, and manipulation of youth by adults. The film was released in selected cities across the United States.
Film crew
Several Polish actors of name appeared in the film, including the following:
! is an album by The Dismemberment Plan. It was released on October 2, 1995, on DeSoto Records. The band's original drummer, Steve Cummings, played on this album but left shortly after its release.
Track listing
Personnel
The following people were involved in the making of !:
References
"@" is a studio album by John Zorn and Thurston Moore. It is the first collaborative album by the duo and was recorded in New York City in February, 2013 and released by Tzadik Records in September 2013. The album consists of improvised music by Zorn and Moore that was recorded in the studio in real time with no edits or overdubs.
Reception
Allmusic said "@ finds two of New York City's longest-running fringe dwellers churning out sheets of collaborative sounds that conjoin their respective and distinct states of constant freak-out... These seven improvisations sound inspired without feeling at all heavy-handed or urgent. More so, @ succeeds with the type of conversational playing that could only be achieved by two masters so deep into their craft that it probably feels a lot like breathing to them by now".
Track listing
All compositions by John Zorn and Thurston Moore
?! is the third studio album by Italian rapper Caparezza, and his first release not to use the former stage name MikiMix.
Reception
Reviewing the album for Allmusic, Jason Birchmeier wrote, "The Italian rapper drops his rhymes with just as much fluency and dexterity as his American peers throughout the album. [...] Caparezza's mastery of the Italian dialect [makes] this album so stunning."