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Album Reviews
Album Review: Propaganda – A Secret Wish (Salvo/Union Square)
By Marc Samuels | Published on Wednesday 21 July 2010
The debut album by Germany’s second best musical export, ‘A Secret Wish’ has been long overdue a reissue and, 25 years on from its original appearance, this is another fine plundering from the ZTT archives.
“The children of Fritz Lang and Giorgio Moroder” as NME wisely observed at the time, Propaganda, like ABC and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, are a group whose best works were masterminded by Trevor Horn and, like those other two, a group you only need to own one album by. And this is it. It remains a classic of its kind, an album that’s variously brutal and dispassionate, cold and warm, lush but unsubtle, epic but intimate.
The singles ‘Dr Mabuse’ and ‘Duel’ may only have been minor hits but they’re easily the equal – conceptually, melodically, lyrically, sonically – of ‘Two Tribes’ or ‘The Look Of Love’. The second CD contains unreleased mixes and twelve-inch versions which, although lacking the invention and charm of the Frankie ones from the same era, are still enjoyable in their own right.
A heady fusion of avant-pop, created by the collision between ZTT’s futurist playfulness and the Düsseldorf quartet’s Teutonic cool, this is a timely reminder of the best the 80s had to offer. MS
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