I bought the vinyl version of this album almost twenty years ago. Frankie had come and left Hollywood by then. Through the years, I kept coming back to it. And it holds up very well, for '80's new wave. "Maximum Joy" echos earlier Frankie Goes to Hollywood fabulously. "For Heaven's Sake" is stellar.
July 20, 2008If Frankie's debut album 'Welcome to the Pleasuredome' had many high's and low's, their second and last album Liverpool was more even in quality. Liverpool is more conventional. Although it lacks hits like 'Two Tribes' and 'Relax' it neither has the space-fillers and boring chit-chat of the overlong'Welcome...'. Featuring a string of good songs, my favourites are 'Watching the Wildlife' and 'For Heaven's sake'. It would have been interesting if Frankie wouldn't have split up and too see where they would have gone from Liverpool. This album deserves a listening to anyone who likes Frankie's chart toppers.
March 5, 2001OK, everyone here is massive Frankie fan, and I also admit that the band had a great influence on me. "Welcome.." is the definitive dance album of the '80s. Two years after this enormous commercial and artistical success, the brilliant single "Rage hard" only increased expectations that the second albums would top its predecessor. Finally, "Liverpool" came as a let-down to many people. The band focuses on eight songs, but the problem is that there are a number of badly developed and uneventful tracks on this album. "Rage hard" is one of Frankie's best songs, with a very memorable and boombastic refrain. Apart from this flash of brilliance, it's often downhill. "Warriors.." and "Kill the pain" are fairly average '80s arena rock with shallow lyrics and large-scale production. "Maximum joy" and "Lunay bay" almost seem like filler, they have nothing to offer but aimless noodlings, just as the overly friendly and bland "Watching..", which didn't even make the top-20 single charts in Britian. The last two songs on this album fare better. The atmospheric "For heaven's sake" and the wistful "Is anybody out there?" cast an eye back on Frankie's career. Ironically, the production of "Liverpool" was even more expensive than that of "Welcome..", so the band and their producers obviously spent more time in constructing sounds than writing songs. The final product clearly pales next to the band's previous efforts, and although it does offer a few good songs, it will appeal to hardcore fans only. There's a digitally remastered version in existence which adjusts the slightly muddy sound of the original CD issue. It also contains two bonus tracks, extensive liner notes, and beautiful packaging.
October 10, 2000Very good album. I give it 4 stars because of the debut album Welcome to the pleasure dome which was more original and fresher. But this album is very underrated. Beside the hits: Rage Hard and Warriors there is a lot on this album to keep you listening.
Like the moving ballad Is anybody out there whinch is sing by Holly Johnson with such incredible ease, beautiful! And then there is Maximun Joy a very danceable song but in a different way then Relax was. Maximum Joy is also the title of the forthcoming Best of which is gonna contain a lot of remixes. They really haver tried to make this album different and it worked quite well, Lunar Bay is a bit experimental and not like other bands. Even today the sound original and not typical eighties.
If you like Frankie in a little rougher version than they were on Welcome check this album out. Good! June 17, 2000
 |  | Frankie say: Good stuff from essential 80's band |  |
Okay, so this isn't another 'Pleasuredome' - but then again, how can you be expected to top such a debut? And thank God Frankie didn't try to make an album like their first one. 'Liverpool' consists of 8 songs with no funny tags or conversations squeezed in between them. It kicks off with 'Warriors Of The Wasteland', at first atmospheric and then aggressive, and continues with the pleasantly bombastic 'Rage Hard', arguably the best song on the album. The contents of the disc are actually quite varied. There is guitar rock on 'Kill The Pain', a sequencer/synth orgy on 'Maximum Joy', and lush orchestrated sounds on 'Watching The Wildlife'. The album closes with the atmospheric 'Is Anybody Out There?' which is just as moving as 'The Power Of Love' off their debut. If you can manage to separate the music from all the things that happened during the recording (Holly and the lads' constant fighting about which direction the album should take and Trevor Horn driving everybody bonkers) this actually is an album of very enjoyable songs produced in the typical perfectionist, larger-than-life Horn/Lipson fashion and performed energeticly by the band. Too bad that the Frankie era didn't last, but it sure as h*** was fun.
January 15, 1999More reviews at Amazon.com ...
