In 1984 Frankie Goes To Hollywood burst onto the world stage. The first single, Relax, reached Number 1, spawning a plethora of 12” remixes and also helped to launch the ubiquitous FRANKIE SAY T-shirts. Relax’s cover and content were nearly as outrageous as the group itself, including its two openly gay members. The second single, Two Tribes, about the threat of nuclear war, shot straight to Number 1, where it stayed for 9 weeks. An extraordinary double-album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, followed and the group got their third number one single, The Power Of Love, soon after. And it was still 1984!
While Frankie would release four more singles, another album (Liverpool) and go on two tours, they could never match the heights of 1984. For many, Frankie slipped from memory. But not everyone.
Frankie Fans Say Welcome To Our World tells the story of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and how Frankie touched the lives of so many people and how their music still continues to impact fans even today.
Back in May 2020 I wrote that I was thinking about writing a book about Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I had been thinking about this for a while, but the way in which it could be done hadn’t crystallised yet. However, the #TimsTwitterListeningParty for “Welcome to the PleasureDome” helped me to see a way forward. The main issue then became timing and how to get more Frankie fans involved. The first part was taken care of by altering my plans for when I would write novel 4. As for the second part, I realised that a survey was needed.
Although I could put together a book based on my own experiences and ideas, it would be much more interesting to gather together ideas, stories and such like from as many fans as possible. It is these stories that will ultimately shape the book. To help get these stories, I put together a survey which got 130 responses.
I am aiming for the book to published in 2024 (I had hoped for it to be much earlier than this, but a number of things slowed my writing progress, as may end up being discussed in the book itself).
Frankie Fans Say will be available as an eBook, paperback, and hardback.
I am also working on another Frankie-related book, Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Song by Song, to be published in 2025.
Other relevant posts
- Title and cover reveal
- Book Review: “A Bone in My Flute” by Holly Johnson
- Book Review: “Nasher Says Relax” by Brian Nash
- Influential albums
- “Welcome To The PleasureDome” – Tim’s Twitter Listening Party
- “Liverpool” – Tim’s Twitter Listening Party
- “Blast” – Tim’s Twitter Listening Party
- Old Bands, New Music
- “432-1: Open The Vein” by Nasher – Essential Listening for Contemporary Britain (and beyond)
- “Europa” by Holly Johnson – Frankie’s Third Album?
- The Power of Frankie and Going to Liverpool
- Blast from the Past – But Better
- Holly Johnson in Concert – Holly Says Relax
- British/European/American Music in Japan
- ‘Japan Says ‘Western Pop’?: No Thanks, Don’t Do It‘ (details about article)
- ‘Japan Says Western Pop? No, Thanks, Don’t Do It’ (details about presentation)
- ‘Two Tribes, United by Music: Western Pop in Japan’
- ‘Western Pop Acts in Japan: Putting the Cult into Culture’
- 1980s Japanese Pop Magazines – First Impressions
- ‘Natural Symbols’ and ‘Learned Symbols’ – how Frankie helped get me interested in symbolism
- Nostalgia and Computer Games – includes discussion on the Frankie Goes To Hollywood computer game
- Book Review: “Frankie Says Relax” by Siobhan Curham
- Book Review: “Let’s Make Lots of Money” by Tom Watkins
- Book Review: “Adventures in Modern Recording: From ABC to ZTT” by Trevor Horn
- Favourite Poems – Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
- Favourite Poems – Kubla Khan
- Welcome Back To Vinyl
- Favourite Photos: Frankie Say Superlambanana
- The World is Frankie’s Oyster – a Google map of locations related to Frankie Goes To Hollywood
- Frankie Say WHAT? A final chat (for now) with ChatGPT/OpenAI
- Frankie Say Chat with Bing
- Chatting with Google Bard about FGTH
- Frankie Went To Montreux
Christopher P. Hood 