'Mark, this is shit!' Frankie's follow-up sucked and it is time to come clean. Photograph: Michael Putland / Retna Pictures
You've been so good at recommending tracks to us over the past few years that the RR baton has already been passed on. So today I'd like to declare an amnesty. This is your chance to hold your hands up and retract any musical tips you may once have given a little too recklessly.
I'll kick things off first shall I? My name is Mark and I'm a music addict. I can't help getting a little over-excited on first hearing new songs. Particularly since, being a journalist, I often get invited to playbacks or get sent advance press copies of albums. In retrospect, I suppose I should realise that a four-track sampler is often a strong hint that even the record company doesn't have much faith in the full work. But as I said, I get a little over-excited. I've been doing it since I was at school. On being the first in my class to get a copy of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's follow-up album Liverpool, I immediately declared it better than Welcome to the Pleasuredome. It took a week before a classmate cornered me in the corridor, brandished his own copy and screamed, "Mark, this is shit!"
I will also now readily admit that Ellis, Beggs and Howard weren't the supergroup I implied them to be. And the mixture of champagne, a convivial PR and some swish purple velvet curtains may have helped me decide that Prince's 3121 was the return to form I was hoping for, despite the evidence assaulting my ears. Similarly, much as I tried to convince myself otherwise at the time, it now seems obvious to me that Massive Attack's 100th Window was an album of clever sound effects looking for a tune.
I think I've said more than enough already. Over to you...
