A secret wish

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A secret wish
Propaganda studio album

Publication
(s)

July 1985

Label (s) ZTT Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Synth pop

Title (number)

9

running time

40:28

occupation
  • Rolf Dkörper
  • Michael Mertens
  • Claudia Bridges
  • Susanne Freytag

production

Trevor Horn, Stephen Lipson

Studio (s)

SARM Studio, London

chronology
- A secret wish Wishful Thinking
(1985)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
A secret wish
  DE 24 07/29/1985 (20 weeks)
  CH 14th 08/04/1985 (12 weeks)
  UK 16 07/13/1985 (13 weeks)

A Secret Wish is the debut album by the Düsseldorf-based synthpop band Propaganda . It was released in July 1985 by the British music label ZTT .

background

After the commercial success of Trevor Horn 's debut single Dr. Mabuse (titled after the film of the same name by Fritz Lang ) from March 1984 Andreas Thein left the band in the summer. Thein had composed the title together with Ralf D Körper and Michael Mertens, who was classically trained with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. Dkörper and Mertens composed and wrote new songs. Claudia Brücken , who is married to the music journalist and ZTT co-founder Paul Morley , and the trained goldsmith Susanne Freytag contributed additional music. The title Sorry for Laughing comes from Paul Haig (Josef K) and Malcolm Ross (Josef K / Orange Juice ).

Since Horn was tied to the production of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's debut album Welcome to the Pleasuredome , he left the production to his then sound engineer Stephen Lipson, who started his career as a music producer with A Secret Wish . The production used "the very latest technology" and cost "a fortune" as numerous prominent session musicians were hired. Guest musicians on the album include Steve Howe ( Yes ), Stewart Copeland ( The Police ), David Sylvian ( Japan ) and Glenn Gregory ( Heaven 17 ) as well as other studio musicians, as well as the two producers Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson.

Even before the album was released, a second single, Duel , was released in April 1985 . Three months after the long-playing record , the third album in the ZTT catalog, a version in the then new Compact Disc format followed , with alternative versions typical for the label. At that time the band was on a world tour of Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan with the former rhythm section of the Simple Minds ( Derek Forbes and Brian McGee ). P. Machinery was released as the third single , before ZTT finally released Wishful Thinking , a remix album based on A Secret Wish , in late 1985 . Despite the commercial success of propaganda, ZTT Records concentrated on the even more successful Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which in 1986 led to the further disintegration of the original line-up, a legal dispute with ZTT and finally to the dissolution of the record contract.

Track list (original version on LP)

number title page
1 Dream Within a Dream Side A (Within)
2 The Murder of Love Side A (Within)
3 Jewel / Duel Side A (Within)
1 P. Machinery Side B (Without)
2 Sorry for laughing Side B (Without)
3 Dr. Mabuse (First Life) Side B (Without)
4th The Chase Side B (Without)
5 The Last Word Side B (Without)
6th Strength to Dream Side B (Without)

The text of Dream Within a Dream contains the text of the poem A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe from 1849. Jewel and Duel are two titles, but are mentioned as one title on the album cover. There are two differently instrumented versions with the same text. Reynolds describes Duel as "sugar-sweet and catchy" and Jewel as "raw and metallic like new buildings on pop". With The Last Word and Strength to Dream it is exactly the opposite, actually a title, the instrumental The Last Word is based on Dr. Mabuse and Strength to Dream closes the album with the opening line of the first track.

Title list of the original CD

number title
1 Dream Within a Dream
2 The Murder of Love
3 Jewel
4th Duel
5 Frozen Faces
6th P. Machinery
7th Sorry for laughing
8th The Chase
9 Dr. Mabuse

The CD was released about three months after the LP. It was completely remixed and, compared to the LP version, shortened by the titles The Last Word and Strength to Dream, instead the title Frozen Faces was inserted. The tracks Jewel , Duel and P. Machinery have been remixed compared to the LP version. With a total running time of the CD of 51:58 minutes, there would technically have been enough room for the discarded titles.

After the original CD version there were other releases such as the Japanese CD reissue , the 20th Anniversary reissue , the SACD release and the 2010 2CD Deluxe "Element Series" Edition .

reception

Keith Farley from Allmusic awards an album pick and describes A Secret Wish as "Synth-rock with an eye toward orchestrated pop and a bit of sampler experimentation" ("synth-rock with an eye toward orchestrated pop as well as a bit of sampler experimentation ".) Dave Thompson reviews the album in his book Alternative Rock as" sophisticated and very European "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Chart sources: DE CH UK
  2. a b Simon Reynolds: Rip It Up And Start Again . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2007, ISBN 978-3-85445-270-6 , p. 518 (Chapter 26 Raiding the Twentieth Century: ZTT and Frankiemania ).
  3. booklet of the ZTT CD126 (90288-2) 1985
  4. Keith Farley: A Secret Wish. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved April 13, 2012 .
  5. Dave Thompson: Alternative Rock . Miller Freeman, San Francisco 2000, ISBN 0-87930-607-6 , pp. 816 .