Welcome To The Pleasuredome (album)

Welcome to the Pleasuredome was a highly successful album by British pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, first released in 1984 by Island Records. Several hit chart singles emerged from the album. The title alludes to the lines in a famous poem by English poet Coleridge; In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree....

Band members:

• Holly Johnson: lead vocals
• Brian Nash: guitar
• Peter Gill: drums
• Mark O'Toole: bass
• Paul Rutherford: vocals

with

• Jonathan Jeczalik: programming
• Andrew Richards: keyboards
• Louis Jardim: percussion
• Ann Dudley: keyboards
• Steven Lipson: guitar
• Steve Howe: acoustic guitar (on the track 'Welcome to the Pleasure Dome')

Produced by Trevor Horn.

Track listing:

1. The World is My Oyster (including Well, snatch of Fury) (1:58)
2. Welcome to the Pleasure Dome (13:39)
3. Relax (4:57)
4. War (6:12)
5. Two Tribes (3:23)
6. (Tag) (0:33)
7. Fury (1:49)
8. Born to Run (3:56)
9. San José (3:08)
10. Wish the Lads Were Here (2:58)
11. The Ballad of 32 (4:47)
12. Krisco Kisses (2:57)
13. Black Night White Light (4:07)
14. The Only Star in Heaven (4:14)
15. The Power of Love (5:28)
16. Bang (1:08)

Note that there have been multiple releases of this album, not all with quite the same track listing. On some releases there are bonus tracks:

17. One September Monday
18. One February Friday

All songs were written by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, except (4) by Strong/Whitfield, (8) by Springsteen, (9) by Bacharach/David, (7) by Marsden. String arrangement for (15) by Dudley.

The authorship of the songs is disputed. Some say that Johnson wrote all the lyrics and the music is mainly by Johnson/O'Toole/Gill. There are said to have been significant re-arrangements and additions from producer Trevor Horn and his assistants, and that actually none of the creditited instrumentalists play on the album at all; Horn and his assistants played everything. There is speculation that Horn himself plays on the album. Trevor Rabin is said to have done some uncredited guitar session work.