A Secret Wish [25th Anniversary

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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. The year 1986 started positively—the single "p:Machinery" gained the number 1 chart position in Spain (for one week)—but ended in disaster. Identical to A Secret Wish, except this version has in matrix "NIMBUS ENGLAND", not "MASTERED BY NIMBUS". Offiziellecharts.de – Propaganda – A Secret Wish" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 15 January 2022. It was an epic goodbye: A Secret Wish was a triumph of pomp and bombast, producer Stephen Lipson – Trevor Horn’s keenest protege at Sarm Studios – using his Synclavier digital synthesiser and sampling system to full, overwhelming effect. If you want a definitive example of 80s techno wizardry used in the services of great songwriting, look no further.

The third and final single, p:Machinery, expanded the short mix from the album into another 9-minute epic whose vision of a population enslaved to industrial technology easily invokes Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, so much so that I used to play the single while running taped scenes from the film on TV. The enormous “Polish” mix of this song has always been scarce on CD, with a Japanese release in 1988, and a later reissue (with some shoddy and superfluous remixes) in 1995. Another benefit of the new edition of the album is that the extended mix provides the climax of the second disc and sounds even more enormous, its brass fanfares accurately described in a review at the time as conjuring images of cities rising from the sea.

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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. 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'. The other exclusives... "Testament One" is a new but irrelevant interlude and "Testament Three" is simply the intro to the mix of "Murder of Love" on "Wishful Thinking". The 'Goodnight' mixes of "p:Machinery"&"The Chase" are very close to the finished album versions but well worth having for the subtle differences, particularly in the intro to the former and the verse of the latter. a b c "Propaganda | full Official Chart History". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 15 January 2022. 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!

The group relocated to the United Kingdom and released the single " Dr. Mabuse", named after the fictional character made famous by filmmaker Fritz Lang. The single reached the Top 30 in the UK Singles Chart, [2] and the Top 10 in Germany. The group appeared on various TV shows in the UK, including Channel 4's The Tube. Here, as well as performing "Dr. Mabuse", the group also gave one of its few performances of a cover version of Throbbing Gristle's song " Discipline". [3] The drummachine is bloody rudimentary. Boaaah... It was always the weakest point of the ZTT but on the FGTH albums it was still excuseable. Employing about every Weimar Republic and Wagnerian reference in the book, ZTT created something as grand and illusory as anything they had put together. The concept was so high, the music they assembled could have been almost incidental were it not so inventive, and at times brilliant. It’s a hallmark of musical obsession when you find yourself buying the same album over and over. Propaganda’s meisterwerk from 1985, A Secret Wish, was finally released in a definitive double-CD version this week, the fourth edition I’ve bought (after the original vinyl and two other CD releases). This new set is easily the best of the lot. 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]A Secret Wish has been reissued a number of times– including as a deluxe 20th anniversary edition and as a multi-channel SACD. The most recent re-release is the 2010 double CD deluxe edition which marks the album's 25th anniversary. 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. Propaganda may have come from Düsseldorf, Germany’s Beat Central, home of Kraftwerk and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF), but they sure knew how to create a catchy tune. Bejewelled" contains audio flaws at 1:17 and 1:19 - which also appear on 2018's " The Eight Testaments Of Propaganda" - but not on the original 1985 " Bejewelled" 12".