“Fascination Street” by The Cure

"Fascination Street" is a slinky, sinister prowl from the Cure's eighth album, Disintegration, and in 1989 it was issued as a single only in North America. That was because their American label wouldn't put out the band's first pick, "Lullaby", as the opening single; "Lullaby" led the way in Britain and came out in the US later.

Simon Gallup's bass line is the star here, a thick, stalking figure that sets the pace, with Boris Williams' drums pounding steadily behind it. Smith and Porl Thompson spin webs of guitar, Roger O'Donnell's keyboards spread like fog, and Smith, who also produced and engineered it with David M. Allen, sings it like a man heading out into the night with bad intentions. Smith wrote the words, and the music is credited to Smith, Gallup, Thompson, O'Donnell, Williams and Lol Tolhurst.

It gave the Cure their first number one on Billboard's then-brand-new Modern Rock Tracks chart, and it stayed there seven weeks. An extended mix produced by Smith, Chris Parry and Mark Saunders, with a four-minute instrumental introduction, led off the 12-inch and maxi-CD singles, while a shorter edit went on the 7-inch and cassette. The long version resurfaced in 1990 on Mixed Up, a whole album of remixes, while the shorter one found its way onto Galore (The Singles 1987-1997).

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.