The Cure “Seventeen Seconds”

sfilzen — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 18:00:29 +0000

The Cure “Seventeen Seconds” released 42 years ago tomorrow, April 22nd, 1980. Fiction Records. Today, April 21st, is The Cure’s mastermind Robert Smith’s birthday (b. 1959). Seventeen Seconds is The Cure’s second LP, the first to feature Simon Gallup on bass after original bassist Michael Dempsey’s departure; they also added Matthieu Hartley on keyboards (both were formerly in the post punk band Magazine Spies). Infused with dark, ambient “gloomscapes,” Seventeen Seconds is widely considered to be one of the first goth rock albums. One reviewer says about “The Final Sound,” [it is] “so positively gothic you could almost be fooled into believing that it was lifted from the soundtrack of some Hammer horror gorefest.”

I absolutely adore Seventeen Seconds and vividly recall the first time I heard the single “A Forest” (#31 UK), sometime in the early-to mid-80’s on an old King Biscuit Flour Hour radio show recording, probably rebroadcast on a local college station. I was totally transfixed: blown away by the music’s ability to bring up feelings and experiences that I had in no way ever experienced (I would have been about 12 or 13 years old with zero concept of what “goth” was. Up to that point my reflections on forests included Girl Scout camp, which I loved, and picking berries or looking for rare flowers with my mom, which I hated – bugs, mud, getting scratched by pickers and branches, etc). My other favorite songs are “Play For Today,” the darkly jangled “M” and the title track “Seventeen Seconds.” Seventeen Seconds went to #20 in the UK and 40 years after its release, squeaked onto the US charts at #186 in 2020.

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David Bowie “Low”

sfilzen — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:05:56 +0000

David Bowie “Low” released on this date, January 14th, 1977. Low was the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno, who provided the instrumentation for the first track on Side B, “Warszawa.” The album is steeped in musical experimentation, other-worldly ambience and pain (written during the period when Bowie was kicking his cocaine addiction).

The single “Sound and Vision” from Low reached #3 on the UK charts. The album itself reached #2 in the UK and #11 on the US Billboard chart. Its critical impact was lasting: Rolling Stone included it in its 500 greatest albums of all time and Pitchfork’s website places it at #1 in its top 100 albums of the 70′s.

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The Cure “Seventeen Seconds”

David Bowie “Low”