After the unanimously hailed Johnny D. Is Back! from 1988 it took
Fatal Flowers awhile to record a follow-up. First of all, the Dutch division of their record company closed down. Secondly, upon completing Johnny D. Is Back! they were faced with the departure of distressed guitar player Dirk Heuff. The latter was solved at the end of 1988 when 19-year-old Robin Berlijn joined the band. Without a contract, the new lineup started working on a new album in Switzerland. Again,
Mick Ronson was asked to oversee production, since Richard Janssen wanted to improve the sound of Johnny D. Is Back! Eventually, a new recording contract was secured with Mercury. The release of
Pleasure Ground was eagerly awaited by the music press. The album showed a more direct and aggressive approach and was regarded as a definitive
Fatal Flowers statement. Among others, it featured a cover version of soul legend
Arthur Conley's "Funky Street" on which René van Barneveld appeared on slide guitar. In 1989 he was already a member of equally promising
Urban Dance Squad. Earlier, Barneveld had helped
Fatal Flowers by replacing Heuff during the 1988 tour. The first single to be drawn from
Pleasure Ground was a breathtaking version of
Roxy Music's "Both Ends Burning" which rendered the original superfluous. On
Pleasure Ground Janssen's vocal performance was at its peak, carefully balancing on the verge of sheer madness and rock & roll cliché. The critics loved it and nobody doubted the band's chances of making it big internationally. It therefore came as a complete surprise when in the summer of 1990 the singer announced he would leave
Fatal Flowers. The many changes in the lineup had finally taken their toll on the unity of the band. Janssen thought it best to quit at the top of their career. A closer inspection of the lyrics to "Speed of Life,"
Pleasure Ground's (near) closing piece could have provided an omen: "I'm no fool/I know where I'm going/I'm just bad company sometimes/But if you think you got me all figured out/Well, I guess you're in for a surprise/Time takes a toll on me sometimes/And I know all the reasons/But I just can't make it rhyme/My time runs out/And I could scream and shout/I'm getting strangled by the speed of life." ~ Quint Kik