Customer Reviews

Welcome to the Pleasuredome

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Frankie Goes To Hollywood is the '80s band famous for creating a bookend of an era. With the release of their monumental "Welcome To The Pleasure Dome" double album in 1984, they have effectively put the final finishing touch on the art form that began 20 odd years earlier with another band from Liverpool -- the Beatles.

When the Beatles emerged on the scene in 1964, they have astonished the world with their completely new brand of music. What the Beatles offered at that time was a 180 degrees turn, away from the anemic doo-wop tepid music, and into the full blooded rock. Their music was delivered with extreme white heat intensity that remained unmatched to this day. In short, the Beatles showed the world how the music should sound, how the songs should be written and performed, how the recording studio should be used, and in general, how to change the world. The world, in turn, listened very attentively, but the rest of us simply didn't have it in us to fully internalize and live according to the new set of instructions.

The only other band that managed to somehow approach the set of instructions left to us by the Beatles was Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Alas, they could do it only for a few short months, before they simply imploded under such white heat intensity. So yes, another thing that the Beatles managed to impress the world with is their stamina. Frankie obviously didn't have the stamina, nor did they have any staying power. They died as quickly as they emerged, like a meteorite appearing for a few fleeting moments in the night sky.

What they left in their wake is this gem of an album. Basically, this album manages to accomplish two things: a.) summarize pretty much everything that happened in music up until that point (same as what the Beatles did in their own way in the early '60s), and b.) indicate how should the music of the future sound like.

Same as with the Beatles, no one was able to take the set of instructions Frankie left us on their seminal "Welcome To The Pleasure Dome" album and run with it. Instead, the music business dissipated into either largely monotonous hip-hop genre (with insane quantities of repetition), or into nostalgia, the 'me too' attempts by various musicians to restore the past glory of the '60s/'70s. During the past 25 years, we haven't been blessed to hear anything as substantially new as we can hear on this album.

Luckily, we now have this diamond, the precious jewel that comes only once in a generation, restored to its full glory. The sound quality of this remaster is simply to die for. If you happen to have access to a high end audio system, give this CD a spin -- you'll be absolutely blown away. Nothing else approaches the sheer white heat sonic intensity of this album. The brilliant, super edgy sound on this remastered CD will rip a hole through your heart and through your brain.

Back in the early '80s, some people really knew how to produce music. That was before the days of cheap-ass computer software that mainly smothers over vital nuances in music.

Overall, this CD is the most brilliant thing that happened on the music scene since last year's remastering of the Beatles catalog. Run, don't walk, and buy this remastered CD!

I loved this music when it came out and now this expanded version makes it even better. Move the furniture out of your way and dance, dance, dance!