Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Frankie Say Greatest

The question arises spontaneously: why buy a best of Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

Frankie Say Greatest is a shrewd commercial move. The singles are present in a remastered version with a superlative audio quality. The remixes that serve as a backdrop at the end of the album, not essential, underscore a certain desire on the part of the production to modernize (in some way) that old irreverent phenomenon that the rowdy Englishmen were.

Holly Johnson on vocals, Peter Gill on percussion, Mark O'Toole on bass, Brian Nash and Jed O'Toole on guitars, and Paul Rutherford... on dance, created a controversial brand;

Jungles of riffs paired with a Village People-like image and an incessantly provocative style.

Relax (and its video) was a massive hit that introduced Frankie to the mainstream audience and, above all, caused the birth of a short-lived Beatles-like Mania (both bands coming from Liverpool, ironic).

The post-punk of the Cure and the romantic theatricality of the Spandau Ballet in the early '80s (to mention just two of the many artists present in the charts) were overshadowed by the worldwide success of the Christmas hit The Power Of Love for a brief, intense moment often forgotten by music critics.

Irony alternated with cheesy romanticism, universal messages of peace with moments of glorious trash that confused a large portion of the audience, and the effect could only be total success.

The high-pitched voice of the leader (who later had a modest solo career) and the pounding rhythms that certainly caused a stir in the worst taverns guaranteed them retirement, but at the dawn of the second album, the chemistry vanished and Frankie was thrown out of Hollywood.

The typical live fast-die young frenzy has a dual effect. Negatively, it concerns artists forgotten in the musical oblivion and remembered only because they are associated with a socio-historical period, positively it concerns the old glories that continue to have a following even among the younger ones, despite the lack of productivity. They are midway, a yin yang with their potential not fully tapped in today's context.

But the glories of the past are still there at one's disposal; the interested lovers of a certain rock-spirited New Wave will surely find food for thought to the tune of

"War uh ah, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing -Sing it again!"