https://louderthanwar.com/the-cure-pornography-1982-2022-a-40th-anniversary-reappraisal/
QuoteReleased in May 1982, Pornography bore zero resemblance to anything else that was around at the time.
Its sheer impenetrable sense of nihilistic doom and existential angst immediately set it apart from the rest of their contemporaries.
...the band self-destructed shortly afterwards after a fight at a bar in Strasbourg when Smith and Simon Gallup came to blows, the pressure of maintaining the sheer intensity of the material by having to perform it and the rigours of touring anyway, having a detrimental effect on the mental health and wellbeing of the entire band and their crew.
Pornography became The Cure's first epitaph as it were; it literally destroyed the band and a break and a complete rethink was the only way to save Smith's sanity. So he had no other option but to indeed 'fight this sickness' and reconsider his future with the band.