This September has been long but filled with good quality music. Certainly one of the highlights is the return of New Order. Gorillaz have meanwhile teamed up with Robert Smith for their six episode of the Song Machine Project. Otherwise interesting comeback from The Shins and La Femme.
New Order - Be a Rebel
James Blake - Godspeed
Temples - Paraphernalia
Rhye - Helpless
La Femme - Paradigme
SG Lewis, Robyn, Channel Tres - Impact
The year 1990 has been one of the most exciting years ever, maybe due to the fact that it was between the two decades when music styles shifted and the songs were influenced by the past decade but also looking into the future with new technologies. For some artists it was a clear career peaks when they released their best selling albums and/or singles. This year belonged to Depeche Mode, Madonna, Sinead O'Connor, but at the same time Euro dance and Brit pop exploded.
Over the next month we will feature the best singles from the 1990 that comes as a result of the Singles poll that was up this summer. Stay tuned!
SRSQ (pronounced seer-skew) is the solo project of Kennedy Ashlyn who was previously a female half of Them Are Us Too who released two studio albums in 2015 and 2018 respectively. The duo split after the tragic death of Cash Askew who was Kennedy's close collaborator, friend and the other half Them Are Us Too. In 2018, Kennedy also released her first solo album through which she explored sorrow and loss in darkwave rhythms.
Now in 2020 she is back with a new single which is in the same vein and the previous releases, Ethereal Wave and dream pop of the perfect quality which takes cues from the best of the past including the likes of Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance. Her single "Temporal Wave" was released in end of last year while the video (below) for the song was premiered in March 2020.
Thirty years ago The Heart Throbs released their debut album Cleopatra in 1990 and one of the outstanding songs from this album was "Dreamtime". There is this interesting fact that the two members of The Heart Throbs, the sisters DeFreitas were actually sisters of the late Pete DeFreitas of Echo & the Bunnymen fame who died in the motorcycle accident in 1989 at the age of 26. Pretty much underrated "Dreamtime" holds in it the best from the two decades and still sounds very contemporary.
This year in February, Holly Johnson turned 60, and we thought it would be a nice occasion to pay tribute to him and his former band Frankie Goes to Hollywood with this 7_Songs feature. Johnson’s career start goes back to the late 70s Liverpool punk scene out of which the nucleus for Frankie Goes to Hollywood took shape. Inspired to take a name after the title from the news article in the New York Times, it seemed that Frankie Goes to Hollywood would be there for big things, and indeed, with the first single and the album release they found pop stardom.
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
In 1984, FGTH released “Relax” which was not only a tune but also a motto and a symbol of the mid-80s and at the same time the band’s biggest hit. One could say that it had an impact on the general pop culture also hitting the street fashion and there was also a themed video game. “Relax” was also an introduction to the band's brilliant album Welcome to the Pleasuredome which gave birth to a string of hits, out of which three reached no.1 in the UK charts. The album was produced by Trevor Horn and released on his ZTT label. It was rich, provocative and decadent with excellent production and a festival of influences which could easily be referred to as progressive disco as an end product. With the release of the second album, Liverpool, fame faded and the tensions between the band members were growing. The band managed to release three more singles from it, to tour again, after which Johnson decided to leave the band. He also had to go into a legal battle with the record company, winning the dispute in the end.
Photo courtesy of theartsdesk.com
In the late 80s Johnson started his solo career when he was signed to MCA, released his solo album Blast and managed to have a series of hits including “Americanos” and “Love Train”. In the early 90s, Johnson was diagnosed with HIV and thinking this was his end, he wrote his autobiography A Bone in My Flute. Eventually he turned more to art, but never really left the music business. He recorded songs and performed occasionally.
The band never reunited even though in 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. However, a reunion performance did not transpire.
Holly Johnson never performed again with Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
There is not a single thing in the world that sums up the 1980s as perfectly, FGTH and Welcome to the Pleasuredome does for the 80s. In particular, 1984 seems to be the year of the band, when they almost made 4 consecutive No.1 in the UK. Frankie was the mega sensation, the artistic concept and even a brand. They were hitting the Euro dance floors and beyond, and they were shocking the conservative adults to gain prominence. They had that perfect formula, if you are going to do pop, attack it.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax
"Relax" was the debut album by FGTH which also gave them the international breakthrough. It is one of the most controversial and most commercially successful records of the decade. It was banned by BBC because of its lyrics that we interpreted to be explicit. Despite all the scandals, the song sold 12 mill records around the world and won the Brit Award for the best song in 1985. It also went beyond music, hitting the street fashion with the T-shirts with the slogan Frankie Says Relax.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - The Power of Love
This was the third single from their debut album and also the third consecutive No.1 which rounded up a successful year for FGTH. This song is often referenced as a Christmas single due to the music video that features Nativity, and also because it was released ahead of Xmas in 1984. In tone, it was also different from the previous, which were louder made for clubland. The song went platinum in Canada, Germany, New Zealand and triple Platinum in their native UK.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome
This was the title track to the debut album and the only single release that did not reach the UK No. 1 despite having this potential. The spoken-word introductions to both 12-inch mixes are adapted from Walter Kaufmann's 1967 translation of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. The video, by Bernard Rose, features the group stealing a car, going to a carnival and encountering all manner of deceptively "pleasurable" activities.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Rage Hard
In 1986, Frankie Goes to Hollywood released their second album, Liverpool. This album saw more use of the band than the debut album and expressed a rockier sound than their debut, but it was still pretty much powerful in rhythm and form. It was FGTH's first single to be released on CD and even Cassette. It reached number one in the German official charts and No. 4 in the UK.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Warriors of the Wasteland
Another single followed from Liverpool, which many think is one of the best tracks on the album. Some interesting inspirations were drawn from T. S. Eliot, but Johnson also cited the 1981 Mel Gibson film, Mad Max 2, and the 1979 film, The Warriors as inspirations. This song barely made it in the Top 20 in the UK and commercial success was starting to decline. FGTH would release one more single before disbanding.
Holly Johnson - Love Train
After the split of FGTH, Holly Johnson released his debut album Blast 1989 and "Love Train" was the first single to be taken from it. Even though it was clearly a dance track, it featured the guitar solo from Brain May from Queen. The song reached No.4 in the UK and also had success in Europe. The song was issued as both 7” and 12” including several versions of the song.
Holly Johnson - Americanos
"Americanos" was another single from Blast that managed to make a big impact on the charts, reaching No. 4 in the UK and was a commercial success across Europe. Chris Heath of Smash Hits described the song as a "80s update of David Bowie's Young Americans in both its content and its spirit, where he acknowledges the superficiality of the American dream but isn't narrow-minded enough to simply condemn it.”
Singles cover photos courtesy of discogs.com
For the complete Frankie Goes To Hollywood / Holly Johnson discography, as documented in music videos, please check the following the link below.
The Times kicked off the 90's decade with the release of "Manchester"|. It was pretty much summing up so many things related to the Manchester music scene and England, and at a perfect timing on the crossroads between two decades.
New Order are back with their first new single in almost five years. The new single is called "Be a Rebel" and is out on Mute. It is available on all streaming services and YouTube link below.
