Seventeen Seconds  by The Cure

In late 1979, there was tension between Robert Smith and bassist Michael Dempsey. This resulted in the departure and replacement of the latter by Simon Gallup, while Matthieu Hartley (keyboardist) also became a permanent member of the band. Under these circumstances, the Cure recorded their second album in January 1980, which would be titled Seventeen Seconds.

The album would also fall under the new wave framework with a dark and heavy gothic orientation. The significant influence on Robert Smith to give this orientation to Seventeen Seconds came from the tour the Cure did with Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1979. The album is considered one of the first gothic albums or at least one of the records that played a role in creating this musical trend in the following years. "A Forest," which was also the album's first single, adequately encapsulates in its six minutes the entire spirit and atmosphere of the album.

Seventeen Seconds reached No. 20 in the United Kingdom, while impressively reaching No. 186 on the Billboard chart forty years after its initial release, as in 2020 there was a commemorative edition of the album (!)