Album Reviews

Album review: Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Liverpool (Deluxe) (ZTT/Salvo)

By | Published on Friday 28 January 2011

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Originally released in 1986, ‘Liverpool’ was often dismissed as an expensive flop, given its high recording costs and poor sales when compared to 1984’s ‘Welcome To The Pleasure Dome’.

In truth, the music world – and the tastes of the public – had simply changed in those two years, with Live Aid being the pivotal moment when all the adventurous new pop of the previous five years gave way to conservatism, with the new romantics and futurists struggling artistically and commercially (see: The Human League, Heaven 17, OMD, Duran etc).

So ‘Liverpool’ is no dud, even if it lacks the sense of fun and playfulness of its predecessor, in part reflected by the music, which is far rockier here, and shows the group weren’t just puppets of Trevor Horn and Paul Morley (with the fingerprints of both placed only sparingly here), although with only eight tracks, you suspect there wasn’t an abundance of great ideas. But what we have is at worst competent, and at best, brilliant (see the three singles, the electronic proto-Balearica of ‘Maximum Joy’, or ‘Is Anybody Out There?’, which revisits similar territory to ‘The Power Of Love’ and, whilst not quite that memorable, is still a decent piece of epic stadium balladry in its own right).

Completists will welcome the bonus material on the two CDs here, including all the b-sides (mostly just respectable cover versions), alternate versions and two twenty minute cassette mixes, which allow Horn and co to satiate their remix hunger. Sadly, the astonishing twelve-inch mix of ‘Rage Hard’ is absent and, whilst it does appear on ZTT’s new ‘Art Of The Twelve-Inch’ compilation’ (which perhaps explains, if not excuses, its absence), it really should have been a bonus track here too, especially given some of the jams and demos were probably best left on the cutting room floor really.

Aside from that small gripe though, this is a welcome re-issue. MS

Physical release: 7 Feb



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