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Seventeen Seconds

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Seventeen Seconds is the second studio album by The Cure, released in April, 1980 by Fiction Records. It was lionized by some critics, and panned as a "collection of soundtracks" by others. One critic described the album as a "sad Cure, sitting in cold rooms, watching clocks". Despite the mixed critical reception, enthusiastic critics treated the band to long articles featuring numerous photos of a confident and dashing Smith, in the last days of his sans-makeup sans-big hair appearance. There was controversy concerning the band's "anti-image", established by the cover of Three Imaginary Boys, which this album contributed to by blurring the photos of the band's members and the cover art. Musically, the artwork fits perfectly with abstract miniatures such as "A Reflection," "The Final Sound", and "Three". Therefore, the artwork is not detached from the music as it was with Boys; it is not accidental that Smith had control over the cover this time.

Untitled

The album is mainly nocturnal in character, with songs like "At Night" and lyrics such as Secrets' "all night, everything slowing down". Seventeen Seconds represents an amazingly mature Cure, which came very far musically in less than one year. The record features such qualities as echoing far-off vocals, acoustic-sounding guitar, minimalist drum beats, stripped-down lyrics, sparse piano, subterranean basslines, and dry and detached singing. Despite the labels "cold," "morose", "detached", and "minimalist", Seventeen Seconds is an emotional album, it's just that its profundity is indirect. Smith said the record was produced, with Michael Hedges, quickly and with inspiration—that he wrote the lyrics and music for most of the record on just two occasions. The result is an inspired and inspirational record. It is a far cry from a typical commercial musical product, and was successful despite that. A number of musicians and critics have cited Seventeen Seconds as "the" Cure album, despite the contemporary focus on the intoxicating excesses of the equally brilliant Pornography.

Bassist Simon Gallup and keyboardist Matthieu Hartley were added to the band's lineup. Gallup replaced Michael Dempsey, who was relieved by Smith who said his basslines were too ornate and that he wasn't jelling socially with him. Hartley's synth work added a new dimension to the band's newly ethereal sound, although Smith and he clashed over complexity (Hartley wanted to play chords and other complicated things and Smith wanted single notes). Like Dempsey, Hartley made a departure from the group, the latter after Seventeen Seconds.

The new "depressed" atmosphere is seen as the first steps toward two following albums Faith and Pornography. These three are often seen as a trilogy that increases in intensity and ends with chaos, bursting forth from the song Pornography, which ends that record. The records feature virtually the same lineup, are sequentially consecutive, and form a cohesive stylistic direction. Many fans consider this "Dark Trilogy" to be the true Cure trilogy, not Robert Smith's trilogy containing Pornography, Disintegration, and Bloodflowers. His requires greater leaps, given that the records occur far apart in the band's history, and Disintegration was a collection of varied moods and themes, unlike Pornography and Bloodflowers which are more cohesive.

This record was repackaged in the UK (on the A&M label) with Faith as "Happily Ever After"—available as a double album or a single CD. Seventeen Seconds was reissued in the UK 25 April, 2005 (26th in the US) as part of Universal's Deluxe Edition series. The new edition featured a remastered version of the album on the first disc, while the second contained demo and live tracks, as well as tracks recorded by the one-off Cult Hero, a group that featured an amateur singer and which performed 70's style rock along the lines of Easy Cure. There also exists a one-CD version (with only the first disc but still remastered) that was released in late 2005 in Europe, and early 2006 in the US.

Track listing

All songs written by Smith / Gallup / Hartley / Tolhurst.

Original Album

  1. "A Reflection" (Instrumental)
  2. "Play for Today"
  3. "Secrets"
  4. "In Your House"
  5. "Three"
  6. "The Final Sound" (Instrumental)
  7. "A Forest"
  8. "M"
  9. "At Night"
  10. "Seventeen Seconds"

2005 Deluxe Edition

CD One:

  1. "A Reflection" (Instrumental)
  2. "Play for Today"
  3. "Secrets"
  4. "In Your House"
  5. "Three"
  6. "The Final Sound" (Instrumental)
  7. "A Forest"
  8. "M"
  9. "At Night"
  10. "Seventeen Seconds"

CD Two:

  1. "I'm a Cult Hero" (vinyl single by Cult Hero)
  2. "I Dig You" (vinyl single by Cult Hero)
  3. "Another Journey By Train (instrumental home demo)"
  4. "Secrets (instrumental home demo)"
  5. "Seventeen Seconds (live)"
  6. "In Your House (live)"
  7. "Three (alt studio mix)"
  8. "I Dig You (Cult Hero live)"
  9. "I'm a Cult Hero (Cult Hero live)"
  10. "M (live)"
  11. "The Final Sound (live)"
  12. "A Reflection (live)"
  13. "Play for Today (live)"
  14. "At Night (live)"
  15. "A Forest (live)"

Band

Production

  • Producers: The Cure, Mike Hedges
  • Engineers: Mike Hedges, David Kemp
  • Assistant engineer: Martyn Webster
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