One Hundred Years (1982) – The Cure

In a clamour of stygian proportions, a primitive drum machine rumbles ominously; a bass moans like a grieving wraith; a guitar caterwauls like an elephant being tortured. When the last glimmer of hope has all but vanished, “One Hundred Years” snuffs out the light completely. Robert Smith’s wailing evokes shades of doom, suicide, murder, slaughter, bereavement, decrepitude, strangulation, genocide, and the weariness of enduring what seems like a hundred year ordeal. He doesn’t obsess over the morbid details for their shock value; rather, he’s trying to place his own despair and self-loathing on the scale of human suffering in order to gain perspective. One can only conclude he’s quite a few standard deviations above the pain index average.

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