Wanted dead or alive: Propaganda
Calculating, grandiose, humourless —
Teutonic Ice Maidens alter. The 80s and everything clean, digital, cool and calculated was de rigueur. This was the shiny new age where everyone was modern and we were yuppies. Oh yes, we were. And we wanted Alles in ordnung. Enter ZTT, the record company run by ex-NME hack and be-suited post-modern ironicist Paul Morley and ex-Buggle Trevor Hoen, a man so adept at polishing the charcoal of rude talent into the shiny diamonds of pop hits that his studio wizardry ushered in a whole new era in sound.
Propaganda provided a perfect canvas for ZTT’s arch manipulations. The German four piece (Claudia Brücken —
However, it was the beginning of the end. For touring, the band employed any number of out-of-work ex-Simple Minds players (Derek Forbes and Brian McGee) and Japan’s Steve Jansen while internal friction led to the departure of not one, not two, but three of the original members, leaving only Mertens on board.
Next up, completing a rather natty little ZTT ritual, band and label slugged it out in the courts until the band managed to extricate themselves from ZTT’s grasp. Claudia Brücken decided to stay with ZTT —
Dorper, meanwhile, concentrated his efforts on the German synth/metal pioneers Die Krupps, finding new friends among the like of Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Faith No More.
The latest news is that Propaganda are back, not that there’s any more information beyond that bald fact. Check out development at their website.
URL: http://www.propaganda.de/