In 2011 Prog argued that German synth-pop band Propaganda’s 1985 debut album A Secret Want had far more of a progressive side than many realised on the time.
Regardless of ZTT’s fame as the final word house of pop-pranksterism and radical post-punk, in some ways the label stored prog’s beliefs alive within the mid-80s. Other than the truth that its in-house producer, Trevor Horn, was a someday member of Sure, there have been the bands – Frankie Goes To Hollywood with their lavish gatefold sleeves, Steve Howe guitar solos and tracks alluding to Pink Floyd; and Artwork Of Noise with their Shut To The Edge-referencing music titles and a focus to studio sorcery.
Then there was Propaganda. They had been ZTT’s token arty Germans, two of them male, two feminine, who the label’s publicist/provocateur, ex-NME scribe Paul Morley, took to describing as “ABBA from Hell.”
One of many band, Ralf Dörper, had been a member of business outfit Die Krupps. However the inclusion of classically-trained musician and composer Michael Mertens pushed Propaganda’s 1985 nine-track debut album in the direction of prog, with the help of Horn, his protegé Steve Lipson, and string arranger David Bedford (sure, the one who orchestrated Tubular Bells).
A Secret Want had an eight-minute opening monitor, Dream Inside A Dream – primarily based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe – full with prolonged flute solo and the type of keyboard prospers usually heard on albums bearing Roger Dean work.
The monitor Dr Mabuse had been launched as a single in February 1984, however the label had been too busy with Frankie to observe it up. Regardless of: impressed by noir filmmaker Fritz Lang, the Horn-produced Mabuse nonetheless sounded superb 18 months. Pomp? Verify. Circumstance? Verify. Wagnerian bombast and epic grandeur? Verify, mate.
An unsettled Morley had given Lipson a variety of post-punk albums within the hope of cleansing his palette of its prog tendencies. Each of them gained out in a way; A Secret Want is a triumph of melodic concision and proto-techno programming as a lot as a victory for instrumental finesse and studio extra, from the synth swells and Chris Squire-goes-cosmic-funky bass half on The Homicide of Love to Frozen Faces and its pan-piped, Teutonic froideur.
ThebestGermanicart-prog-electro-popalbumintheworld…ever!
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