The 1986 Listening Post - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Liverpool

#441/2120

October 20 1986

Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Liverpool

Genre: Dance Rock

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Warriors of the Wasteland

Rage Hard

Maximum Joy

Watching the Wildlife

That first one was so delicious. It’s one of those records that almost automatically demands backlash for the next one. And, yes, there’s a lot of familiar on this record but I had heard that it was so bad that I never sought it out. (To be fair, the likelihood of me actually buying this record, despite my love of the first one that was loaned to me on cassette was tiny, money being super scarce for a kid just starting out, y’know?)

But it’s not bad. On the contrary. It’s like Pleasuredome Part 2. Muscular and assertive. But when it’s not, it’s annoying and cloying. What a schizo record. No surprise it’s their last. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/liverpool/1364128357

The 1984 Listening Post - Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome

#279
October 29 1984
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Welcome to the Pleasuredome
4.25 out of 5

Highlights:
Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Relax
Born to Run
The Power of Love

I had a friend who had this on cassette. He played it for me as we did other things. I wasn't really playing attention at the time, except for the Springsteen track.

It’s ballsy to open your record with an ambient track of bucolic nature sounds and then to follow it with a pulsing disco dance title track that’s 13+ minutes long...on a debut DOUBLE album that includes gay anthems and a raucous and, dare I say, best cover of “Born to Run”, so I gotta give props.
Is it excessive? Yes. But it's also fun and rewarding. Not in spite of things like "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and the stadium rock of "The Ballad of 32" but because of them.
Pleasuredome is one of the most 80s albums of all time. And I'm glad I got to hear it again, but really for the first time.
W2tP is a journey. It's not just a collection of songs. It's designed to be an album. Maybe it's conceptual, maybe it's just that the themes are similar.
By the time I get to "The Power of Love" I'm sufficiently exhausted.
Maybe not "exhausted".
Spent.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/welcome-to-the-pleasuredome/1365569059