Frankie say: Beat
With the record industry now flexing its muscles in anticipation of a seasonal albums bonanza, a strange cat and mouse game is already in full swing with major acts switching various release dates to avoid clashing with one another.
The double Frankie extravaganza ‘Welcome To The Pleasure Dome’, with advance orders approaching a million, is out on 29 October and would seem to be the LP that all others have to beat.
So just who is afraid of ZTT?
Both Wham and Duran Duran have moved their album release dates back, with Epic and EMI denying that this has anything to do with the expected Frankie Effect. But ZTT’s modest Paul Morley is not so sure.
“You can sense these things happening. I think they probably could be shifting their release dates around ours. I know that Bronski Beat were panicking over the release date of our single. One of the reasons they are all so worried is that we’ve boosted the quality of records and they are finding it hard to keep up.”
The Wham LP ‘Make It Big’ has been moved back two weeks from 22 October to 5 November, Epic claiming that advance sales were too large to be met by the original date, although at “only” 500,000 such sales hardly approach the bulk of Frankie albums currently In the pressing plants.
The delay on the Duran Duran LP —
The other prime contender in the Christmas rush —