BEFORE I FORGET

I mentioned in last weekend's posting on Josef K that I intended at some point to do something on Propaganda. Prompted by a nice comment left behind, I've decided to something sooner rather than later.

The first time I ever heard anything by the band was in early 1984 when Whistle Test, the BBC2 music show, closed an edition with the first airing of their debut single Dr Mabuse. Until that point, all I knew was that they were on ZTT, were labelmates of Frankie Goes To Hollywood (who were then the biggest band in the UK) and were being championed by Paul Morley, a journalist who many think is a tosser, but who I think is one of the best writers I've ever come across.

So, I recorded the video onto a VHS tape....and watched it again and again and again over the next few weeks. I of course rushed out and bought the debut single, helping it on its way to a Top 30 placing.

But just as quickly as they had burst on to the scene, they disappeared. History now informs us that ZTT were so overwhelmed by the success of FGTH that all other acts on their roster had to take a back seat for the best part of a year. So when I read in April 1985 that Propaganda were going to release their follow-up single more than a year after Dr Mabuse, I was more than intrigued.

That single was called Duel, a lovely bit of electro-pop that fitted in just perfectly with so many of the other musicians I was developing a love for, and in particular Pet Shop Boys. There was also something quite erotic about the vocal delivery of Claudia Brucken, but visually it was the other female in the band - Susanne Freytag - who really did it for me. The band actually were on UK telly quite a bit around the time of Duel, including a couple of live songs that were aired on the above-mentioned Whistle Test during which they proved, as a live act, they could cut it, albeit there were backing tapes involved.

But Propaganda were victims of an FGTH backlash with many music journalists questioning just how much of the success of them and ZTT was down to the production skills of Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson and the hype-skills of Paul Morley rather than any talents the musicians might have.

So it was a skeptical world that greeted the July 1985 release of A Secret Wish, the debut LP by Propaganda. I remember one Sunday evening that veteran Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale played the full 9 minutes of the instrumental opening track, Dream Within A Dream, and thinking that it was just gorgeous. It reminded me of a number of the early 80s instrumentals that Simple Minds had released as b-sides, only they had been taken forward and given a bigger and cleaner production....so I was gobsmacked to tune into the show next week and hear Annie read out a number of angry letters from listeners who had been appalled that some much of the previous show had been given over to such a 'dreadful dirge.'

That's when I knew Propaganda could never win over the great British public. Too arty for some, too plastic for others and too clever by half for the rest. Oh and of course they were German.....

I still love that debut LP. I even fell for the marketing scam and bought a remixed version of it that appeared some six months later, although to be fair, it was a decent enough record on its own. I even bought at least one ZTT compilation LP just to pick up yet another different version of a Propaganda song. But by the time the band got round to releasing their second LP in 1990, I was no longer interested. It coincided with a short time when music wasn't that important in my life....

There's a really interesting wikipedia article on Propaganda that's well worth a read. I was surprised to learn that they're still going strong. Click here for more.

Rather than pull something down from the debut LP, I thought I'd go into the cupboard and dig out some vinyl, and the 12" single of Duel which became their biggest-selling hit, reaching #21 in the UK charts:-

mp3 : Propaganda - Duel (bittersweet version)
mp3 : Propaganda - Jewel (cut rough mix)

Oh and here's some visuals to jog your memory, three clips that make up a 20-minute mini-concert that went out on The Tube on Channel 4 :-









Happy Listening and viewing.