THE SECOND ONLY MAKES YOU WONDER

As mentioned yesterday, it took more than a year for ZTT to get round to issuing the second single by Propaganda.

Similar to Dr Mabuse, the release of Duel on 7" and 12" offered different mixes. And similar to my tale of Dr Mabuse, my 7" version has long been lost. But I have long had the 12" version, and indeed featured in on TVV back in February 2010. And I make no apologies for this cut'n'paste job:-

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 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)

And here is some more visual stuff to enjoy:-

The promo


The only Top Of The Pops appearance:-



live



another live song



and doing a cover version:-



I promise.....no Propaganda tomorrow.