Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome (ZTT)

When a group has stamped its sound and style so thoroughly on a year as Frankie did on 1984, there can be a problem moving on. A short time later the same style and sound that took you to the top can sound dated. The Escape Act: where Frankie try to become a long-term chart-topping group, a Duran Duran. At first this appeared a strange way of attempting that feat. Releasing a fourth single off the album looked like going back rather than forwards. But it now seems to me that 'Welcome' is in fact saying goodbye, heralding the end of this particular Frankie type of song. On the B-side may lie the future. "Happy Hi" sees Frankie in a new mood. Quirky, whimsical, it is genuinely different. On the evidence of it I'll put my head on the chopping block to predict that Frankie won't be a one year wonder after all. Play Frankie, play on. (Paul Bursche, No 1, March 23, 1985)

It doesn't quite fit together. The presentation, the sleeve notes, neither square with the group their audience. The record, always a fine album track, is a bloated self-important grand daddy of a single, more to do with the self-indulgence of early Seventies types than the vibrant, exciting sensational scam that Frankie's sales and Frankie's marketing people tell us they are. It is in fact a beautifully executed piece of pomp and that has no part in the past, present or future as the full colour poster of this review might say. Disappointing. (Jim Reid, Record Mirror, March 23, 1985)

Jill: Everybody's heard this song lots of times already. Rose: And I like the album version better anyway. I do think it's about time they did something new - you can only stretch a song so far, you know. Jill: I do like "Happy Hi!" on the B-side - Frankie go electrobop. (Jill Bryson & Rose McDowell [Strawberry Switchblade], Smash Hits, March 28, 1985)