Greatly sung late 80s pop.
With all the love for BLAST: The record is one-of-a-kind material, you don’t have to spend a lot of money. The label Pleasuredome, founded by Johnson himself and reminiscent of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s first album, is also re-issuing BLAST on a cassette. Nicely designed, available for 18 euros. The record was released three years after the second and last FGTH album LIVERPOOL – that sounds like less time than it meant: in 1989 the 80s were basically over, the huge synth sample orgy of the BLAST opener “Atomic City” had an effect antiquated and awkward.
Camp’n’cheesy, colorful and optimistic, ironic and cartoonish
It’s a good thing that Johnson and his team (which also included New Order producer Stephen Hague) saw the first piece as a kind of greetings from the Frankie kitchen. From “Heaven’s Here” onwards, BLAST develops into a pop record for the 90s: camp’n’cheesy, colorful and optimistic, ironic and cartoonish. The hits are called “Americanos” and “Love Train”.
What’s remarkable is that even the melancholic ballad “Love Will Come” was given the strange fake-funk style that was booming in 1989 – as if yuppie culture was taking its revenge at the end of its decade before alternative rock wiped it all away. who wears trousers and slicks her hair back. Despite all the sound criticism: BLAST is still a great record to this day because Johnson sings outstandingly. Just the crooner moment in the chorus of “Feel Good”: Let’s ask ANOHNI what she copied here.