Welcome to the Remastered Pleasuredome
1984's Welcome to the Pleasuredome was never an album by Frankie Goes To Hollywood to me. To me it was an album by The Trevor Horn Project - which of course never existed, but could have done, had Horn taken the approach to master producer that Alan Parsons did. To me, Pleasuredome is as clear a statement of the cutting edge of studio art in the mid 80s as there is; the fact that it features as musicians some random Scousers instead of Parsons' cherry-picked session musicians is by the by; they were there, they were cheeky in a Scouse kind of way (really the same cheek that got The Beatles noticed, but with 20 years of updated attitude and a fraction of the untapped talent) and they served Horn's purpose. In a way, they were every inch an invented band.
This was a major turning point for Horn; and like most turning points it's part way around the corner rather than having full sight of the next straight. He'd come from being a founder member of Buggles, then producing the likes of Yes (of whom he was even a member for one brilliant record, Drama) and Dollar to this, and for better or for worse made a defining statement of the time. Also audible here are shades of what's to come - War could be an ArtOfNoise studio creation, as could most of the title track; there's also a lot here that foretells his genius work with Seal, most notably Power of Love and Relax. Also listen for the precursors to Propaganda, Grace Jones (another example of a personality to front Horn's genius) and even his work with the Pet Shop Boys on Introspective. It wouldn't be the last time he'd use a front to court controversy either - remember that Horn was behind Russian lesbian schoolgirl tabloid shock fodder TaTu, and there too, the music was actually better than one might expect from such an enterprise.
Odd then, given that its genius lies in the way it sounds, that it's sounded so bleedin' awful on CD since it was unceremoniously dumped on silver disc in the early days of CD. It sounds flat, muddy and completely lacking in dynamics. There are a hundred thousand double vinyl editions kicking around second hand shops and charity bins (how many people really remember that this was a double album?) but the market that picked it up back in the day means that very few of them are in any sort of playable condition today, leaving us with a flat lacklustre CD edition. Perhaps it's been the legalities around Frankie's music and the ZZT label in general that's left us with such a poor product for so long. That's all changed though with the reissue of Pleasuredome in a remastered form with a bonus disc of unreleased (or at least long lost) goodies.
So given that this disc has been crying out for a remaster job for so long, and that remastering isn't always a good thing, how has it fared. The answer is simple - it's a complete revelation!
From the opening forest sounds of The World is my Oyster... the presence is there; exotic birds squawk from the speakers creating a soundstage that simply isn't there on the original master, and when the bass kicks in on the monster title track (13 minutes 41, prog-pickers!) a big monster grin appeared on my face, just like the one I had in '84 when I heard the album for the first time on vinyl. I have barely listened to this in a decade just because it sounded so goddamn awful on CD, and I've never been able to find a decent copy on vinyl.
It's easy to dismiss as a crappy pop record and its improbable, irreverent cover versions just as easy to dismiss as a joke, but using Edwin Starr's War as a backdrop to Ronald Reagan (well, an impressionist one imagines) delivering an eloquent soliloquy on revolution is nothing short of genius, and at the height of the cold war, following it with the classic Two Tribes just to fire the point home. And who can forget "Prince Charles" discussing the nature of orgasm randomly opening side 2? The other covers are ridiculously well (if audaciously) chosen; a dreamy euphoric version of Ferry Cross The Mersey, interrupted after a minute and a half by the reality of an exchange in the local dole office, interrupted again by a bar brawl version of Springsteen's Born to Run.... On paper it sounds utterly atrocious, but listening to it all the way through it's a perfect picture of a dreamer on the dole in Thatcher's Britain fighting to keep his dreams alive.
The album ends of course, with the bone fide classic Power of Love, which is just, well, sublime. It was then and it is now. This again, is a masterstroke of production. Holly Johnson's vocal is of course stunning, but without the soaring strings and perfectly counterpointing acoustic guitar it would be a pub singer wailing after too many whiskies. Once again - not Frankie, Trevor.
In terms of the remaster package, there's a lot of the artwork that graced the double-vinyl reinstated in an extensive booklet, and the original cover image has also been put back. Some of the other imagery has been understandably kept within the pages of the booklet to prevent closer inspection shocking the delicate. There are interesting snippets from "The Frankie Screenplay" which I'm not entirely sure existed, but does serve as a context setting history of the band and where the music contained herein has gone since it was recorded. It's not all good news though. I miss the fact that in the original edition The Ballad of 32 is spelled in three different ways across the package (Ballad, Balled, Ballard) and the bonus disc is by and large strictly collectors only. The 12" of Power of Love is lovely, but adds little to the verging on perfect original; the sixteen minute version of Relax stretches the idea to breaking point and beyond, but does serve as an academic exercise in how the track was put together. The demos show what the band was capable of (and the chasm between that and what Horn finally put together for them) but are charming in a listen-once kind of way.
But no matter what you think of it Pleasuredome is a defining album of the 80s, and listened to now, 25 years later, it still defines that time; the optimism, the depression, the threat and above all the music. For those with an eye for the finer details, we salute you.