I didn’t gain any new perspective about Propaganda’s music from this MC mix, but on the other hand I am again and again reassured what a great band they were, or should I said what a great job Trevor Horn did with them. This issue also benefits from a very informative essay about the group, if you are new to Propaganda you’ll learn all you need to know. This used to be my most played non-classical CD, and it still has a very special place now on our SACD shelf. RIP, Andreas Thein (May 30, 2013) Co-Founder Of German Synth Pop Group, Propaganda". The Music's Over. 30 May 2013 . Retrieved 29 April 2014. a b "Discographie von Propaganda" (in German). Offizielle Deutsche Charts . Retrieved 15 January 2022. Yes, the opening nine-minute song featured Freytag’s haunting recitation of Edgar Allen Poe’s A Dream Within A Dream over rippling electro-percussion and wistful trumpet, but it was never less than sumptuously inviting. If the music balanced the harsh with the heavenly, the musicians employed came from pop (The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Heaven 17’s Glenn Gregory), post-punk (Magazine’s John McGeoch) and prog: that’s Steve Howe of Yes providing the superb jazzy guitar solo for The Murder Of Love. Some of the latter is almost mellifluous.

Featuring [Participation With Some Voice And Instruments] – Allen L. Kirkendale*, A. Thein*, Andrew Richards*, David Sylvian, Glenn Gregory, Ian Mosely*, Jonathan Sorrell, S. J. Lipson*, Steve Howe, Stuart Coppland*, Trevor Horn a b c d e f g h i j k l Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Who's Who of Indie and New Wave Music (Firsted.). Guinness Publishing. pp.221/2. ISBN 0-85112-579-4. The Morning Call, 29 Mar 1986". The Morning Call. 29 March 1986. p.59 . Retrieved 23 December 2020. The intertextual reference on this and subsequent releases isn’t surprising given the people involved. Paul Morley took a great delight in embellishing the ZTT releases with quotations—the Frankie album was probably the first chart-topping release with a recommended reading list—while band member Ralph Dörper had been with the Neue Deutsche Welle group Die Krupps prior to Propaganda, and it was his influence which gave them the abrasive industrial edge that I found so attractive. While between groups he released an experimental EP in 1983 under his own name featuring versions of In Heaven from Eraserhead and John Carpenter’s theme from Assault on Precinct 13, and it was Dörper who chose Throbbing Gristle’s Discipline as the demo song which the group used to catch the attention of ZTT. That particular cover version never made it to A Secret Wish although they did perform it live on The Tube, and a later version appeared on the remix album, Wishful Thinking. This recording is happily included on the second disc of the new reissue.

Details

In early 2005, Propaganda, now comprising Susanne Freytag and Michael Mertens, started to release new material on the German independent label Amontillado Music. [7] The limited edition 12" vinyl release "Valley of the Machine Gods" was sold out within two weeks. [ citation needed] Like previous ‘art of the album’ reissues (such as Frankie‘s Welcome To The Pleasuredome) these don’t offer any bonus audio, but what they do offer (apart from the new remastering, which was undertaken by Joel Peters) is new presentation and fresh notes. Ian Peel (who has curated all of the ZTT reissues in the last five or six years) has written new sleeve notes which tell the story of the players, the craft, the impact and the legacy of the album through interviews with band members and producer Stephen Lipson.

Identical to A Secret Wish, except this version has in matrix "NIMBUS ENGLAND", not "MASTERED BY NIMBUS". You'll need to skip to the end of Disc One to hear 'The Last Dance' in its purest form: Lipson's CD mix chooses instead to force the listener to endure the majestic conclusion to 'Dr. Mabuse' segued into a Stars On 45 album megamix before finally giving way to the album's closer. In fact, if there is a criticism that could perhaps be leveled at this reissue, it's that by the 'p:Polish' version of 'p:Machinery' at the end of Disc Two, with its guitar showroom acrobatics, it's hard not to long for the concise, perfect vision of these songs familiar from the vinyl and cassette releases. There's a limit to the amount of indulgence one can take, after all, and to have four interpretations of what was pretty much immaculate on the album is perhaps overkill. But these bonuses are mere gravy: the meat is in A Secret Wish's analogue mix, and that's pretty much beyond criticism. Even accusations of pretentiousness are easily countered by the hints of camp cabaret dropped throughout: the deadpan Hollywood voice in 'Dr. Mabuse' ("Don't be afraid!") or, to be frank, Freytag's entire recitation of Poe's 'Dream Within A Dream'. A Secret Wish was a critical, if not a commercial success. ZTT did their usual robust job of promotion and multi-formatted singles; All three 45s – Dr. Mabuse, Duel and P-Machinery – were issued as cassette singles with running times from 15 to almost 20 minutes. Duel did do-well to reach number 21 in the charts, prompting the band’s one and only appearance on Top of the Pops!I never liked some songs: Sorry for laughing is terrible, The chase is nice but just a filler. Some versions has the Femme fatale which I think is a terribly childish composition musicalwise and doesn't match to the mastery of the symphonic value of the strenght of the album. Last don't least don't we forget: there were already all the counting synth-pop releases out by then in 1985! Depeche Mode was over with their first sampler LP and utilised incredible solutions sonic-timbred and bombastic drumming by then. Kraftwerk has introduced us the way of rhythmisation, the synth-sounds, drumsounds, elegance and transcendence. The Soft Cell was an immediate blast in 1981! Yazoo (Yazz)? No question: was a master. Human League was over with their best period. Alphaville showed us top-end of everything, icl. the drumming also. The Twins - Until the end of time (1985) was just incredible. Telex, Thomas Dolby, Yello was all much known by then... The new thing was here is the symphonic feel but (for me) was no consolation for the albums weaknesses. Then, apart from the tasteless songs almost everything else suffers from similar factors: the synthesizer usage is sometimes rudimentary, sometimes is taste-less. The cold and almost plain sonic timbres of the high-tech instruments are sometimes painful. (That's valid exactly to the 95% of the Synclavier productions. I think there's only a very few people in the world had the time to tweak-out anything valuable from those monsters and the rest was based upon the factory presets. It's halway understood due to the incredible studio-fees and only top-end studios could afford such synths). A typical example is the most of the basses. They were harsh and teasing and a bit emptied-sounding (for me, even THOSE times). a b c "Propaganda | full Official Chart History". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 15 January 2022.

Also present for the first time on the new CD is Do Well, the 20-minute Duel suite which was a cassette-only release, plus a number of other previously unavailable mixes. If you have this double-disc set and the Outside World single collection from 2002 then you’ll own pretty much everything that’s great about Propaganda. A lot of pop music from the 1980s sounds horribly dated now: tinny synths, empty production and a paucity of ambition. Propaganda sound as thunderingly magnificent as they did in 1985, and still unique. It’s a shame that A Secret Wish was their finest moment, things fell apart fairly soon after. But one masterpiece will always be worth fifty Duran Duran travesties.originally released on single p: Machinery (Reactivate) ZTAS 21 (25 Nov 1985), as "(The Beta Wrap Around Of) p: Machinery". Incorrectly marked as "previously unreleased". The first week of July 1985 finally saw the release of the band's debut album, A Secret Wish. [2] which was written by Mertens and Dörper. After receiving considerable critical acclaim and some commercial success, it reached number 16 on the UK Albums Chart. The album was followed by another single, " p:Machinery", in August 1985, [2] which only reached number 50 in the UK, but becoming a bigger hit in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland and even being used in the hit US TV Show Miami Vice (1986 episode: The Fix). [5] The 12-inch version of this release caused controversy (even within the group) as Paul Morley thought it was a good idea to have the sleeve feature a quote by writer J. G. Ballard, praising the activities of the German extremist group Red Army Faction. Ariola, who distributed ZTT's releases in Germany, refused to carry the 12" as a result, so the quote was changed on the German release to another by Ballard, on the aesthetic perfection of German suburbs. [ citation needed] Compiled By [Deluxe Edition Compiled And Curated By], Curated By [Deluxe Edition Compiled And Curated By] – Ian Peel Easlea, Daryl (20 May 2022). "xPropaganda – The Heart Is Strange: "a compelling listen" ". Louder . Retrieved 4 November 2023.