"Welcome to the Pleasuredome" | ||||
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Single by Frankie Goes to Hollywood | ||||
from the album Welcome to the Pleasuredome | ||||
Released |
18 March 1985 November 1993 2000 |
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Format | 7", 12", cassette, CD | |||
Recorded | May–June 1983 | |||
Genre | Dance, new wave | |||
Length | 13:38 (album version) 4:20 (7" version) |
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Label | ZTT – ZTAS 7 | |||
Writer(s) | Peter Gill, Holly Johnson, Mark O'Toole,Brian Nash | |||
Producer(s) | Trevor Horn | |||
Frankie Goes to Hollywood singles chronology | ||||
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"Welcome to the Pleasuredome" is the title track to the 1984 debut album by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The lyrics of the song were inspired by the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In March 1985, the album track was substantially abridged and remixed for release as the group's fourth UK single.
While criticized at the time of release and afterward for being a song that glorifies debauchery, the lyrics (and video) make clear that the point of the song, just as Coleridge's poem, is about the dangers of this kind of lifestyle. This song, along with "Relax", made Frankie Goes to Hollywood even more controversial than they already were.
Despite the group's record label (ZTT) pre-emptively promoting the single as "their fourth number one", an achievement that would have set a new UK record for consecutive number one singles by a debuting artist, "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" peaked at number two in the UK singles chart, being kept off the top spot by the Phil Collins/Philip Bailey duet "Easy Lover". The single spent a total of eleven weeks on the UK chart.
It was the first release by the group not to reach number one and, despite representing a creditable success in its own right, it symbolically confirmed the end of the chart invincibility that the group had enjoyed during 1984. Frankie Goes to Hollywood would not release another record for seventeen months, and they would ultimately fail to emulate their past glories upon their return.
The spoken-word introductions to both 12-inch mixes are adapted from Walter Kaufmann's 1967 translation of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. The recitation on the first 12-inch ("Real Altered") is by Gary Taylor, whilst that on the second 12-inch ("Fruitness") and the cassette is by actor Geoffrey Palmer. It is unknown whether Palmer's concluding "Welcome To The Pleasuredrome" was a genuine mistake or a deliberately scripted one.