Marian Gold has revealed plans to unearth an alternate version of his debut solo album from the vault.
The Alphaville frontman scored hits such as Big In Japan and Forever Young in the early 1980s, before going solo in 1992 with ‘So Long Celeste’.
Speaking about the record in the October 2022 issue of Retro Pop, the vocalist admits he was dissatisfied with how the project turned out and revealed it originally sounded much different.
“One thing I definitely would change relates to my first solo album ‘So Long Celeste’,” he said while looking back on his career. That album was more of a rock album than what I would normally have done with Alphaville and I did that because, at the time, I wanted to free myself from pop music.
“So I had presented the album to the record company and they said, ’Oh this doesn’t sound like Alphaville’. And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s because it’s a solo album!’. But they asked me to do something about it and to go back and make it more sounding like Alphaville.
“So, I agreed to it and went back to the studio and started all over again.
He adds: “If that same situation happened today, this time I would accept it. I still have this unreleased album in the archives and who knows, I may do something with it in the future.”
In the meantime, Marian is preparing to release Alphaville’s new orchestral album ‘Eternally Yours’, featuring new recordings of the group’s best-loved tracks.
Of the project, he says: “Alphaville was always a band that loved to invent melodies with a kind of old-fashioned approach, and also our songs are very melodic, and maybe that is why it wasn’t a big task to do – especially when you look at songs like Apollo or Forever Young. It was all quite easy to do.
“What we wanted to achieve was not just using the orchestra as a kind of cheap excuse for a novelty album” Marian adds, “but to really see what that kind of arrangement would do with our songs.
“The interesting thing was that, though symphonic music is a thing from the past, what it did to our songs was make them kind of timeless.”
And he’s already planning it’s followup. “I’m actually already working on a new album which will come out after ‘Eternally Yours’,” he reveals. “Then next year we are going to do a tour with an orchestra which will take us to the second half of 2023.
“So, I’m already occupied in my mind with the album that will follow ‘Eternally Yours’ which, at the moment, has the working title of ‘Thunder Baby’, and a lot of material has already been written for the album.”
‘Eternally Yours’ is out September 23 and available to pre-order now.
Read the full interview in the October 2022 edition of Retro Pop, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
