Robert Smith and Simon Gallup on stage in Belgium, October 1980
GIE KNAEPS/GETTY
While the discographies will maintain that 1979’s Three Imaginary Boys is the debut album by The Cure, it’s their sophomore full-length, Seventeen Seconds, which is truly an LP of firsts: it was the first record when frontman Robert Smith took control and the first time we were introduced to The Cure’s trademark darkness. In the liner notes to the 2005 reissue of Seventeen Seconds, Smith openly admits: “I’ve always thought of Seventeen Seconds as our opening album, it was the first record I felt was really The Cure.”