“Pictures of You” by The Cure

"Pictures of You" drifts in from Disintegration, the Cure's eighth studio album, released in 1989. In March 1990 Fiction Records put it out as the fourth and last single from the record, cut down from the full album version, and it climbed to No. 24 in the UK.

Robert Smith sings it, plays guitar and keyboards, wrote the words and co-produced with David M. Allen. Porl Thompson's guitar glimmers alongside his, Simon Gallup plays bass and adds keys of his own, Roger O'Donnell fills the air with still more, and Boris Williams holds a slow, steady heartbeat under the lot. The whole band, Lol Tolhurst included, shares the composing credit. The result is a vast, glistening fog of chiming guitar and synth wash that takes its sweet time arriving, with Smith's voice floating through it like somebody talking in his sleep.

The 12-inch singles spun it out further: an extended remix running to 7:59, and an Extended Dub Mix, later collected on Mixed Up, rebuilt with brand-new drum and bass parts. Rolling Stone placed it at No. 283 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2011, Billboard ranked it ninth among the Cure's 40 greatest songs in 2019, and Mojo put it at No. 11 on its own list of the band's best in 2023.

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