A Secret Wish

A Secret Wish
A Secret Wish
Studio album by Propaganda
Released	1 July 1985
Studio	Sarm West (London)
Genre	Synth-pop; new wave; avant-pop;
Length	40:28 (LP); 52:01 (CD)
Label	ZTT
Producer	Trevor Horn; Stephen Lipson;
Propaganda chronology
Singles from A Secret Wish
	"The Nine Lives of Dr. Mabuse"; Released: 27 February 1984 (UK); "Duel"; Released: 22 April 1985; "p:Machinery"; Released: 29 July 1985 (UK);

A Secret Wish is the debut album by German synthpop band Propaganda. Released by ZTT Records in 1985, it was produced by Stephen Lipson under the supervision of label boss Trevor Horn. The singles "Duel" and "Dr. Mabuse" were both Top 30 UK chart hits. The track "p:Machinery" (a line from which gives the album its title) was also released as a single and was featured in an episode of the '80s TV show Miami Vice and also on the video "Drum" by Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon for his Whitbread Round the World Race in 1985.

The album was followed up quickly in November 1985 by the Wishful Thinking companion remix album.

A Secret Wish has been reissued a number of times – including as a deluxe 20th anniversary edition and as a multi-channel SACD.

In 2010 a double CD deluxe edition which marked the album's 25th anniversary.

In 2018 it was released as part of the Sony Music BMG 'The Art Of The Album' series on both vinyl & CD with an accompanying 'art print/6 page booklet' on the vinyl issue and 'hard cover/32 page booklet' with the CD. Both were advertised as 'Remastered from the original tapes ‘for the first time’, the vinyl and CD reissues will replicate the original ZTT vinyl LP / CD track listings'. However both contain the longer version of 'Dream Within A Dream' which omits the original guitar solo.

^ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 37.
^ McCready, John (September 2010). "Propaganda: A Secret Wish (ZTT/Salvo)". The Word. Retrieved 4 January 2024. ...Such is the tangled mess of drift and accident, chance and clanger, the confluence of business types and techno dweebs, theorists and contradictory panhandlers who contributed to A Secret Wish, it's a wonder they didn't end up sounding like some industrial Bucks Fizz. As the work of a committee of contributors, it should have been a mess with no significant identity to speak of. Twenty-five years on, it remains a very lonely highpoint of '80s avant pop — a cogent vision so durable it could easily have sustained serious further exploration, instead of collapsing in ruins after this one record, seemingly over money and because of personal conflict.

[1] "Music Week" (PDF). p. 37.

[McCready-2] McCready, John (September 2010). "Propaganda: A Secret Wish (ZTT/Salvo)". The Word. Retrieved 4 January 2024. ...Such is the tangled mess of drift and accident, chance and clanger, the confluence of business types and techno dweebs, theorists and contradictory panhandlers who contributed to A Secret Wish, it's a wonder they didn't end up sounding like some industrial Bucks Fizz. As the work of a committee of contributors, it should have been a mess with no significant identity to speak of. Twenty-five years on, it remains a very lonely highpoint of '80s avant pop — a cogent vision so durable it could easily have sustained serious further exploration, instead of collapsing in ruins after this one record, seemingly over money and because of personal conflict.

[1]

[2]