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Rage Hard: The Sonic Collection

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Rage Hard: The Sonic Collection Audio CD

A fair review of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood "Rage Hard: The Sonic Collection" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Frankie Goes to Hollywood reviews here, or go back to the Frankie Goes to Hollywood tabs.

Band: Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Title: Rage Hard: The Sonic Collection
Rating:

Release Date: 2002-12-16
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Relax 2: Two Tribes 3: Ferry 'Cross the Mersey 4: World Is My Oyster 5: Welcome to the Pleasuredome 6: Maximum Joy 7: San Jose 8: Warriors of the Wasteland 9: Rage Hard 10: War 11: Watching the Wildlife 12: Born to Run 13: Power of Love

Frankie SACD Is Very Good!!
I guess I must have a pretty good set up, because I was quite impressed. Ok, I had read the other reviews about this SACD before I bought it, and was not sure what to expect. If you have a good system, say Sony ES amp or better, and high end speakers like Klipsch that are big, I mean real big. . . . than you will love this Frankie SACD remixed in 5. 1 by Trevor Horn. The center could be just a bit stronger on a few tracks. The long lp version of Welcome to the Pleasure Dome, well, it's just damn beautiful, period.

If you want a better sounding Trevor Horn, ZTT label SACD that's down right incredible, get Propaganda's - A Secret Wish. Definately in the top 3 that I have as far as sound quality. The guy is an amayzing producer. I have been following his work for 28 years, starting with his lead vocals for Yes's Drama LP, to most of the ZTT label stuff he produced.

I would recommend the purchase. .

This is a multichannel SACD
On this recording the mix is very strange. My rating is based on how I like the Music and the Multichannel mix. I had to reset my system to make it sound good. The "flat" setting on my equalizer makes this a bad trip. It needs serious trimming. I tried a trim from i-tunes recommended for "classical music". It's up (4 dB on 32 Hz), 5 dB on 64 Hz, 3 dB on 125 Hz and 2 dB on 250 Hz. I added the high frequencies also. For the centre speaker I did a "vocal" setting from i-tunes.

I did a hardware change. I connected the surround channels with the back-channels so I had music n 7 speakers, similar mix in SR and SBR and similar in SL and SBL. The mix in this recording is difficult for the S and the SB speakers. As I use two very different speakers for these positions, the mix now turned out stunningly.

The new setting gave a remarkable change. The music came to life and some of the tracks are now amazing to listen to.
.

Good Song Selection - OK Surround Sound - Questionable Versions
1 surround sound. Having practically everything by FGTH already in my collection, I was excited listening to the music in 5. Some negative reviews were, however, a warning that the sound may disappoint.

On that sound issue, I both agree and disagree. The mixes are in a way immaculate and the lack of bass is, from my point of view, not wholly justified. The problem lies much more in the sound style of that period; very crystal and "pure" at the expense of depth. This means that the mixing would really needed a re-mix of a sort or even some re-recordings to be up to par of today's accepted sound imaging. Hence, the 5. 1 mix is not as good as one maybe could have hoped for but compare the original sound to albums such as Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and it becomes obvious that the comparison is not justified.

The song selection is excellent: San Jose, Ferry Cross the Mersey and Born To Run being absolute delights. The choice of having the full length album version of Welcome . . . adds further value to the set. There are, however, two very dubious choices of versions, worse yet their biggest hits, Relax and Two Tribes. The versions one would expect are either the single versions or the 12 inch ones. Sorry, but the chosen versions are the inferior versions taken from the Welcome. . . . album. This applies especially to Two Tribes which of course has the classic well known 12 inch version. The album version differs also considerably from the single version, lacking the ferocity and innovativeness in production which had in a sense been cleaned up, and sterilized, for the album. This alone is worth ducking a star from this release.

Despite some shortcomings this set is well worth buying and surround sound wise excluded a great compilation of their biggest hits. Hopefully Welcome To The Pleasuredome will one day also be released in a 5. 1 version, including then hopefully the other mixes of Relax and Two Tribes.
.

Frankie Say Bang!
The surround mix on this collection was supervised by Trevor Horn,the producer extraordinaire whom originally twiddled Frankie's knobs. There's been a few words written about this SACD here so I think we need to clear the air. So it seems very strange to me that people keep saying it has no bass. Why would a producer make a surround mix of some of his classic work and not include a bass track?The simple answer to this is he did. An explanation for some listeners not getting a full bang from their system is they either don't have a sub-woofer,or they are listening to SACD through a small home theatre system,who knows. As is generally the case,if you have good equipment/speakers/amp you should have great sound. From my personal experience,SACD does not sound very good through the small satellite speakers that come with a lot of "in the box" home theatre systems. Mine sounds thumpin'.

There is some great music on this disc and whilst it is very heavy on the "Pleasuredome" album(if you can program your player you can play nearly all of the Pleasuredome album in 5. 1),I for one am grateful for the inclusion of tracks from "Liverpool". "Maximum Joy",the track that really should have been a single gets a new lease on life in 5. 1. There is also a different,shorter mix of "War" on the surround layer. I think this has been included so we get a different version to the mix we know from previous releases. A big plus is the full length version of "Ferry Cross The Mersey" the original b-side to the "Relax" 7" vinyl single. Very cool.

My only gripe with this compilation,and it's a very small one,we only get radio versions of the hits,it would have been nice to get one or two of the awesome extended mixes that were made of say,"Two Tribes" or "Warriors".

"Shooting stars never stop!!!"

Frankie Say,No More.

a SONIC delight
First of all the surround mix by Trevor Horn is remarkable. Previously I had only heard of the one song "Relax" so I am a neophyte to FGTH (Frankie goes to Hollywood). I was totally captivated the sounds swirling throughout the room--STEREO is DEAD. . . long live surround! The music is uplifting and full of energy. It has fast become my favorite SACD. My friends who don't have a universal player (SACD, DVD-audio) are jealousy cause they can't enjoy the RAGE HARD SACD because it doesn't come in DVD-audio. Buy it if
you have an SACD player, sit back and let the music engulf you and take you to another realm! Play it LOUD!!!.

You can see a complete list of all Frankie Goes to Hollywood discography, or go back to the Frankie Goes to Hollywood tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.