"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
A pleasure dome erect"
"In 1984 did Frankie a pleasuredome release" and life was never quite the same. The songs, the album and the group made one of the biggest impacts on music and life since the rumour that Paul was dead or Jerry Lee Lewis had married his 14 year old cousin.
'Relax' was released in 1983 as a single and music video. The video was banned by the BBC and MTV which probably only helped boost it's slow move on the charts into a run for the top, staying 5 weeks at #1 in the UK. Next came 'Two Tribes' and 'Power of Love' in 1984 and then in October of the same year, the album dropped. Songs of homosexuality, bondage, war, masturbation and orgasms - and you could almost dance to it! The double LP entered the UK Albums Chart in the #1 spot because it already had pre-release advance sales of over 1 million copies.
Even though the album was fantastically successful there was some criticism. Those 3 previously released singles were on the album, but they had all been re-recorded and remixed. The main reason appeared to lie with the producer, Trevor Horn. Seems his involvement included replacing some of the band's own work with session musicians and even sometimes playing bits himself. He was possibly reliving his earlier years when he was co-writer of the song 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and one half of The Buggles, the duo who sang it.
On the vinyl version the first side of the first disk, apart from a couple of minutes at the beginning, is taken up with the title track 'Welcome to the Pleasuredome'. Starting off with animal and bird noises the song picks up in tempo and beat and after a couple of 'Who-ha's' Holly Johnson sets out on his almost 14 minute slightly misunderstood marathon of a song. Inspired by Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' the song was accused of glorifying debauchery, but has been defended as being about the dangers of it.
'Relax' is next, possibly the only song about ejaculation since Max Romeo's 1968 cheeky little number 'Wet Dream'. As well as being a solid driving singalong song it also generated double it's weight in T-shirts. They were everywhere.
I tend to lump 'War (...and Hide)' and 'Two Tribes (For the Victims of Ravishment)' together which is totally wrong and totally unfair, but there it is. 'War' is the Edwin Starr song given lots of percussive backing and a Ronald Reagan voice-over. 'Two Tribes' gets it's title from a Mad Max 2 quote “For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war”. Like Mad Max, the theme of the song is 'working for the black gas'. After 'Two Tribes' there's a 30 second chat from Prince Charles where he talks about orgasms. If it's ever credited it's called 'Tag' (unlisted track).
In the interests of full disclosure, it's not really Prince Charles, anymore than it's Ronald Reagan in 'War'. It is in fact none other than Chris Barrie, better known to millions as either Rimmer on Red Dwarf, Brittas on the Brittas Empire or one of voice actors on Spitting Image. He returns at the end of the album as Reagan on the track 'Bang' to tell us that "Frankie say - no more".
The other criticism was the inclusion of cover versions of songs rather than original material. In fairness, apart from Edwin Starr's 'War' 3 of the 4 covers run consecutively on side 3 so if you are offended by them they can easily be skipped. Personally, I like them. 'Ferry (Go)' is just a sub 2 minute dream segment of Gerry and the Pacemakers 'Ferry 'Cross the Mersey' ending in a broad Scouse conversation ..
Him: "I'm sorry I've left me cards at 'ome"
Her: "Well you're late as well. That's three times on the run." .... and after a bit more banter there's a sudden 'HA!' and the band break into Springsteens 'Born to Run'. Four frenetic minutes later there's a 180 degree shift and the strains of 'San Jose (The Way)' drift along .. it's the Dionne Warwick classic 'Do You Know the Way to San Jose'.
Those last three covers have been described as "what happens when a band decides to release a double album and doesn’t have enough material to fill it" but you'll need to decide for yourselves.
A few more tracks and we get to their other UK #1 hit 'The Power of Love'. As with a lot of their music, there were a multitude of re-mixes and extended versions. That's apparent by their compilation albums. They only released 2 studio albums but there were at least 12 compilations. On some versions of the song Chris Barrie comes back and works his impersonation magic.
As a last little tidbit of trivia, the video for 'Two Tribes' was directed by Godley & Creme, ex-10cc members who famously directed the video of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush singing 'Don't Give Up'.
On the whole I like this album. It has life, humour and variety. Play the songs, wear the T-shirt.
"Frankie Says Relax"
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