Pop Paradise Netherlands

There’s a new Dutch book out which also contains a chapter about The Cure. It’s called Popparadijs Nederland, written by Tom Steenbergen. Tom was, among other things, product and marketing manager at Polydor, the former record company of The Cure. He did a lot of promotion for Seventeen Seconds in the Netherlands.

The book is a collection of stories about well-known international artists from the 60s, 70s and 80s, who used the Netherlands as testing ground for their international careers. The chapter about The Cure is 7 pages, including photos. Tom tells some interesting personal anecdotes. For instance, about his idea to release a second single off Seventeen Seconds (Play For Today) in the Netherlands. This appeared to be not entirely in line with the band’s views. We all know it didn’t happen, but I’m curious what song would have been on the flip side…

Other artists featured in the book include David Bowie, Blondie and Kate Bush.

40 Years of Seventeen Seconds

2020 marks the 40th anniversary of the second Cure LP Seventeen Seconds. A pivotal release for the band. With this album, they started to define their own unique sound and style. It is remarkable how fast the band produced the album. The recording only took about one week. The same goes for the mixing by Robert Smith and producer Mike Hedges.

If I’m right, Seventeen Seconds was the first Cure LP that was also being pressed in the Netherlands especially for the Dutch market. The manufacturing took place at the Polygram Record Service (PRS) plant in Baarn, not very far from Amsterdam. The outer sleeve was almost the same as the UK pressing. But the labels on the record itself were standard red Polydor labels, unlike the printed UK labels, which were in the same style as the sleeve artwork. This was probably to reduce costs.

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