Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Rage Hard: The Sonic Collection

SACD pressing. Reproduced by legendary original Frankie Goes To Hollywood producer Trevor Horn. Album Description

Good Song Selection - OK Surround Sound - Questionable Versions

Having practically everything by FGTH already in my collection, I was excited listening to the music in 5.1 surround sound. Some negative reviews were, however, a warning that the sound may disappoint.

On that sound issue, I both agree and disagree. The mixes are in a way immaculate and the lack of bass is, from my point of view, not wholly justified. The problem lies much more in the sound style of that period; very crystal and "pure" at the expense of depth. This means that the mixing would really needed a re-mix of a sort or even some re-recordings to be up to par of today's accepted sound imaging. Hence, the 5.1 mix is not as good as one maybe could have hoped for but compare the original sound to albums such as Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and it becomes obvious that the comparison is not justified.

The song selection is excellent: San Jose, Ferry Cross the Mersey and Born To Run being absolute delights. The choice of having the full length album version of Welcome ... adds further value to the set. There are, however, two very dubious choices of versions, worse yet their biggest hits, Relax and Two Tribes. The versions one would expect are either the single versions or the 12 inch ones. Sorry, but the chosen versions are the inferior versions taken from the Welcome.... album. This applies especially to Two Tribes which of course has the classic well known 12 inch version. The album version differs also considerably from the single version, lacking the ferocity and innovativeness in production which had in a sense been cleaned up, and sterilized, for the album. This alone is worth ducking a star from this release.

Despite some shortcomings this set is well worth buying and surround sound wise excluded a great compilation of their biggest hits. Hopefully Welcome To The Pleasuredome will one day also be released in a 5.1 version, including then hopefully the other mixes of Relax and Two Tribes.
May 25, 2008

Frankie Say Bang!

There's been a few words written about this SACD here so I think we need to clear the air.The surround mix on this collection was supervised by Trevor Horn,the producer extraordinaire whom originally twiddled Frankie's knobs.So it seems very strange to me that people keep saying it has no bass.Why would a producer make a surround mix of some of his classic work and not include a bass track?The simple answer to this is he did.An explanation for some listeners not getting a full bang from their system is they either don't have a sub-woofer,or they are listening to SACD through a small home theatre system,who knows.As is generally the case,if you have good equipment/speakers/amp you should have great sound.From my personal experience,SACD does not sound very good through the small satellite speakers that come with a lot of "in the box" home theatre systems.Mine sounds thumpin'.

There is some great music on this disc and whilst it is very heavy on the "Pleasuredome" album(if you can program your player you can play nearly all of the Pleasuredome album in 5.1),I for one am grateful for the inclusion of tracks from "Liverpool"."Maximum Joy",the track that really should have been a single gets a new lease on life in 5.1.There is also a different,shorter mix of "War" on the surround layer.I think this has been included so we get a different version to the mix we know from previous releases.A big plus is the full length version of "Ferry Cross The Mersey" the original b-side to the "Relax" 7" vinyl single.Very cool.

My only gripe with this compilation,and it's a very small one,we only get radio versions of the hits,it would have been nice to get one or two of the awesome extended mixes that were made of say,"Two Tribes" or "Warriors".

"Shooting stars never stop!!!"

Frankie Say,No More..... January 27, 2008

a SONIC delight

Previously I had only heard of the one song "Relax" so I am a neophyte to FGTH (Frankie goes to Hollywood). First of all the surround mix by Trevor Horn is remarkable. I was totally captivated the sounds swirling throughout the room--STEREO is DEAD...long live surround! The music is uplifting and full of energy. It has fast become my favorite SACD. My friends who don't have a universal player (SACD, DVD-audio) are jealousy cause they can't enjoy the RAGE HARD SACD because it doesn't come in DVD-audio. Buy it if
you have an SACD player, sit back and let the music engulf you and take you to another realm! Play it LOUD!!! February 27, 2004

What a let down !

For years I have been listening to the CD version of Welcome to the pleasuredome,the Cd is well recorded with powerfull bass and punchy drums. When I saw that it was now out as a SACD multichannel disc I had to have it. This type of music is perfect for that. Boy was i shot down to find that the SACD versions of all the songs were different than the CD, washout versions from god knows what! The vocals are locked into the center channel and are dry as a camels [rear]! The versions on the CD ROCK what happened here? They should have just released WTTPD as a SACD. Save your money and if you dont own the CD buy that!
FRANKIE SAY...... YOU GOT RIPPED OFF !!! February 4, 2004

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