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Frankie Goes to Hollywood

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File:FGTH TOTP.jpg
Frankie Goes To Hollywood (L-R: Paul Rutherford, Peter Gill, Holly Johnson, Mark O'Toole, Brian Nash)

Frankie Goes to Hollywood (FGTH) was one of the most controversial and commercially successful UK pop acts of the early 1980s. The Liverpool group was fronted by vocalist Holly Johnson, supported by Paul Rutherford (backing vocals), Peter Gill (drums), Mark O'Toole (bass) and Brian Nash (guitar).

The group's debut single "Relax" was famously banned by the BBC while at number six in the charts, and subsequently topped the UK singles chart for five consecutive weeks, going on to enjoy prolonged chart success throughout 1984 and ultimately becoming the seventh best-selling UK single of all time (as of May 2006). Following the phenomenal follow-up success of "Two Tribes" and the seasonal "The Power Of Love", FGTH became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles (the first being Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1964).

Career

Frankie Goes to Hollywood's biggest selling single, "Relax".

Formation

On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from the New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra. An alternate story relates that a similar article about Frankie Vaughan was the source for the group's name. The original group named "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" allegedly dates from 1980.[1]

The nucleus of the group emerged from the late 1970s Liverpool punk scene. Lead singer Holly Johnson had played bass with Big In Japan, and had also released two solo singles. Paul Rutherford — who did not join until later — had sung in The Spitfire Boys. Local musicians Peter Gill (drums), Jed O'Toole (bass) and Jed's cousin Brian Nash (guitar) initially joined Johnson, calling themselves "Sons of Egypt" the band secured a number of small local gigs. The group disbanded shortly after only to be partially reprised when Johnson joined Mark O'Toole (bass) and Ped to form FGTH, during a particularly fluid period of personnel changes brother Jed joined on guitar. A female vocalist, Sonya Mazunda, subsequently joined the group, and this line-up performed the first Frankie gig at the Leeds pub "The Warehouse", supporting "Hambi & The Dance".

Rutherford, who had been temporarily filling in as backing vocalist for the headlining act, apparently got so caught up in Frankie's performance that he effectively replaced Mazunda that very night. The new all-male musical line-up subsequently toured locally with a leather-clad duo known as "The Leatherpets", and managed to fund promotional videos and demos, despite being eventually turned down by both Arista Records and Phonogram. In October 1982, the group recorded a John Peel session for BBC Radio One, comprising the originals "Krisco Kisses", "Two Tribes", "Disneyland" and "The World Is My Oyster". Around this time Jed O'Toole left the group, to be replaced by the returning Nash.

In February 1983, the group were invited to record a video for "Relax" by the Channel Four show The Tube at the Liverpool State Ballroom. After the broadcast, the Peel session was repeated on radio, and a new session recorded for the BBC, comprising "Welcome To The Pleasuredome", "The Only Star In Heaven" and "Relax". These performances, along with a repeat of the Tube video, apparently convinced Trevor Horn to sign the group for his new label, ZTT Records, in May 1983.

"Relax"

"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983 and got a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut appearance on the BBC's Top Of The Pops on January 5 1984 while at number 35, the single shot to number six in the charts — and then would come the incident which would propel both song and band into pop notoriety forever.

On January 11 1984, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the front cover design (by Yvonne Gilbert), depicting a man and woman pressed against each other, back to back, with clothed upper bodies but bared buttocks, and including a somewhat salacious quote from the song's lyrics. This prompted him to listen more intently to the words, and his reaction was such that he apparently removed the disc from the turntable live on air, branding it "disgusting". [1]

Two days later — almost three months after the single's initial release, and just eight days after the group's Top Of The Pops appearance — the BBC unilaterally decided to ban the record from all its TV and radio outlets.

As a consequence of both the ban and the single's Top Ten success in its own right, "Relax" immediately shot to Number One in the UK charts and stayed there for five weeks, leading to the ludicrous and embarrassing situation whereby the BBC could not feature the nation's best-selling single on any of their flagship radio and TV chart shows for over a month (hence the traditional closing 'number one spot' on Top Of The Pops was filled by different, distinctly non-number-one acts for five consecutive weeks).

With the benefit of hindsight, the offensive nature of "Relax" may appear difficult to appreciate, but the perceived outrage was clearly expressed at the time. Comparisons were drawn between "Relax" and the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" in terms of media controversy. It should be noted that the BBC had not intended to enhance record sales by banning "Relax", and yet the record had defied these intentions emphatically, meaning that — perhaps for the first time — the BBC and the media were faced with a fast-selling record that could beat and even be seen to exploit a widely-publicised institutional ban. Moreover, the BBC and the UK media were completely unprepared for the unprecedented "Relax" phenomenon that followed. The experience of "Relax" would ultimately prove something of a cultural watershed, causing a marked change in the BBC's policy on publicly banning provocative records, and the popular media's approach to "controversial" records in general.

Read had apparently been outraged by the "overtly sexual" nature of both the record sleeve and the printed lyrics. However, the sleeve's "Relax, don't do it, when you want to suck it to it" had been a deliberately provocative misprint. The real words were, in fact, "...when you want to sock it to it...". On the other hand, the imagery of the concluding expression "Relax, don't do it, when you want to come" seemed rather more inescapable, if no less cryptic in some quarters (when Johnson was once asked "'Relax, don't do it' — Don't do what?", he had replied "don't relax, of course").

The original video depicted an S&M den (filmed in an unused South London theatre), and was apparently promptly banned by both the BBC and MTV, resulting in a substitute video directed by filmmaker Brian De Palma to coincide with the release of his film Body Double. A slightly different version of the video appears in Body Double as a scene from a pornographic movie.

File:Frankie says relax t-shirt.jpg
T-shirt slogan design similar to original "Frankie Say Relax" design by Katharine Hamnett.

The provocative notes on the back of the "Relax" sleeve were attributed to music journalist and ZTT associate Paul Morley, who was also responsible for the PR campaign that followed the BBC ban, and which led to a massive demand for both the band and the banned song. Part of this promotion (although it actually came later in the year, with the release of "Two Tribes") included the iconic "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It" T-shirts, which were accredited to Morley but were in fact based on designs by Katharine Hamnett, who had produced similarly minimalistic black-on-white shirts depicting positive slogans such as "Choose Life" and "Go Go", as worn by Wham! in promoting "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go". "Frankie Say..." T-shirts would become ubiquitous in the UK during the summer of 1984 (anything lacking the FGTH logo in the corner or — worse still — stating "Frankie Says" in bold ungrammatical letters was an obvious knock-off).

Adding to the controversy surrounding "Relax", rumours began to circulate after its chart success that the single had actually been recorded by session musicians. This rumour eventually gelled into the general accusation that "Frankie cannot play", since the group were unavailable for touring duties during the whole of 1984. Some time later, producer Trevor Horn admitted that in fact he had recorded a 'demo' version of "Relax" with FGTH and The Blockheads, the renowned backing group for New Wave icon Ian Dury. He had then cut a second version with FGTH alone, but was unhappy with the result of both sessions, and had finally taken the tape away to work on. Horn allegedly spent five more weeks augmenting the track with extensive overdubs by session musicians, incorporating previously recorded bass hooks by the Blockheads' Norman Watt-Roy and a bass pulse sampled on a Fairlight CMI two years earlier at Battery Studios by session bassist Mark 'Thumbs' Cunningham. Despite apparently unilaterally spending such extensive time and money on one single, Horn would later assert that "Relax" represented a massive gamble for himself and his new record label, ZTT, and that its failure could well have bankrupted him. By the time it was completed, it had cost a reported £70,000 in studio time alone, with the video clip costing an additional £15,000. The question of studio time, costs and who should ultimately pay for them would become a key question for FGTH (and other signed ZTT groups such as Propaganda) beyond 1984.

"Two Tribes"

"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for a phenomenal nine weeks (the first single to do so since Wings' "Mull of Kintyre" during 1977–78).

There were no problems with the song's lyrics this time, but again the video was not shown on British television, this time due to its overtly violent nature. Directed by the renowned duo of Kevin Godley and Lol Crème (half of '70s rock band 10cc) it featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the audience — consisting of other world leaders — were brought into the fight, and eventually Earth was seen to explode.

Morley launched his Hamnett-inspired T-shirt campaign in earnest with the release of "Two Tribes", augmenting "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It" with new designs such as "Frankie Say War Hide Yourself" and "Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed" (a design that itself courted controversy, prompting Johnson to explain in a radio interview that the slogan was meant to incite the government to arm the unemployed with jobs).

"Two Tribes" was a spectacular single in its own right, but its reign at the top of the charts was made even more notable by the continuing success of its predecessor. "Relax" had made a natural decline down the charts by May 1984, but on the release of "Two Tribes" its sales began to increase again, to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts during July 1984, the first active group to do so since the early 1960s.

"The Power Of Love"

FGTH released a third single, "The Power Of Love", at the end of 1984. A surprisingly thoughtful, well-arranged ballad, it went to Number One in December and gave the band the honour of being the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers (also a Liverpool band) in 1964) to achieve chart-toppers with its first three releases. The video was not banned on this occasion but still caused strife for the group — it depicted a nativity scene, lumping it (wrongly) in the category of Christmas-only records. As a result, to this day radio stations seem to give it airplay only during the festive period. The lyrics are not directly concerned with Christmas, however. The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli.

The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH managed only one week at the top this time before it was replaced by "Do They Know It's Christmas?". "The Power Of Love" was taken from their debut album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, which sold relatively well but was generally poorly received by critics. Along with the three ubiquitous singles and the breathtaking title track, it featured a mixture of covers (including "Born To Run" from Bruce Springsteen, "San Jose", "Ferry 'Cross The Mersey") that appeared somewhat thrown-together, alongside some relatively humourless Liverpudlian asides and skits.

The BBC lifted its ban on "Relax" at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform it on the Christmas edition of Top Of The Pops (it had been, aside from Band Aid, the biggest-selling single of the year).

The album's title track, "Welcome To The Pleasuredome", was released as a fourth single at the beginning of 1985 and (despite early promotional posters proclaiming "their fourth number one") peaked at Number 2, leading to preemptive claims that the band was on the decline. The snipers would eventually prove correct, but not for the alleged 'failure' of a Number 2 hit. The band's demise was, in the final analysis, attributable to increasing internal tensions and general disillusionment, suspected by some during 1985, but only becoming truly apparent during the group's 1986 public and much-heralded "return".

The Return And The Decline

In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes To Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors Of The Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. Whilst the single was inevitably promoted as a flagship ZTT product, the result seemed somewhat forced and verging almost on self-parody by 1986. The corresponding album, Liverpool, released in October and reaching UK No. 5 was generally panned by the music press, and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (#19) and "Watching The Wildlife" (#28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of an otherwise successful tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage at this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. FGTH would complete the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.

The Split

In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors Of The Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.

After two weeks, the High Court found in Johnson's favor, holding that the highly restrictive terms of the contract constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade. The result of the court case, which also effectively freed the remaining members of FGTH from their ZTT contract, became famous as an unprecedented victory for the artist over their corporate paymasters.

Later years

Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was living with the HIV virus. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone In My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power Of Love", which was also released as a single.

Paul Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, released the partially ABC-produced album Oh World and a handful of singles before retiring with his partner to a farm in New Zealand to raise a family. The 'other three', as pop magazine Smash Hits labelled them, continued to work behind the scenes in the studio on other people's projects. As "Nasher", Nash released a 2002 solo album entitled Ripe.

The band's name lived on to the extent that re-issues of "Relax" and "The Power Of Love" both returned to the UK Top 10 in 1993. Remixes of "The Power Of Love" (which became a dance anthem from its original ballad format) and "Two Tribes" were Top 20 hits again in 1997, while "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" also got commercially successful remix treatment, to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier. ZTT continues in its endeavours to keep the FGTH back-catalog alive into the new century, with periodic reconfigurations, remasters, and further remixes by an ever-growing pool of dance producers, in an attempt to maintain a perceived tradition that began with the multiple variations of the "Relax" 12-inch issued in 1983. ZTT has tended to date (May 2006) to keep all images of the band absent from their remix artwork, and this absence has tended on the whole to extend to the content and spirit of their reissued product.

The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd respectively in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002.

A band called "The New Frankie Goes To Hollywood" appeared, fronted by Davey Johnson, who claimed to be Holly Johnson's brother. The band plays a few Frankie tracks, but actually has nothing to do with FGTH. Likewise, "Davey Johnson" is no relative of Holly's. The band is also not to be confused with the FGTH conventions related to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Reunion and comeback

In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together from the far corners of the world, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. By all appearances, the bandmates got on well enough and enjoyed seeing each other again, but reunion performance did not eventually transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.

Nevertheless, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry, in 2004 a special concert took place at Wembley Arena in November, featuring three of the original FGTH line-up. Vocalist Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing, and guitarist Nash, who declined to appear for his own reasons, did not take part. Jed O'Toole took over guitar duties for the event, whilst an open audition was held for a new singer for the concert. Ryan Molloy was recruited as a result.

The same lineup (with Molloy and Jed O'Toole, but without Johnson or Nash) reunited for a tour in 2005. They headlined at Faceparty's Big Gay Out festival.

After some confusing with ensuing tour dates, the band posted a warning on their website that many of the tour dates listed by ticket promoters were innacurate. There are plans mooted for more dates. However, the band has become increasingly focused on the possible release of new recordings during 2006, as opposed to a tour.[citation needed]

Legacy

Observers of FGTH's era state that despite the presence of openly gay members and suggestive lyrics and sleeves, the band's raw, aggressive sound avoided alienating a heterosexual male audience, leading some to change their attitudes towards homosexual people. Thus, even though ultimately many do not consider their music to be the best of the vibrant mid-1980s era, FGTH is considered by some to have been a very important band for reasons beyond music.

Band members

FGTH 1980's members

FGTH Today members

Discography

Albums

Original material

Compilations

Singles

The original singles released during the time the band was together:

Trivia

  • The Little Britain character Lou Todd was seen wearing a "Frankie says Relax" t-shirt in many of the sketches.
  • The T-Shirt Frankie Says Relax was featured as a plot device on an episode of Friends. When Ross and Rachel were breaking up in Season 3, Rachel gives Ross back his things from her apartment. Ross then angrily asks for his "Frankie Says Relax" T-shirt, going as far as to put it on to 'prove' how much he loves the T-shirt (despite that it's a size or two too short and was given to Rachel). At the end of the episode, when Ross delivers a box with Rachel's things from his apartment, the only content is the T-shirt - showing that Ross doesn't really hold a grudge against Rachel.
  • In Zoolander, Jacobim Mugatu (aka Jacob Moogberg) was a fictional member of FGTH who was ousted from the band before the release of "Relax." The song also features prominently in the central plot of the film.
  • In "The Wedding Singer" featuring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymoore, one of the charaters, the cook in the kitchen, is wearing a "Relax" shirt. His line in the movie is: "Relax, go do it".
  • The band "The Great One's" once did a performance of "Relax", "Two Tribes" and "Warriors of the wasteland", so successfully that people at the concert had believed it was the real "Frankie Goes To Hollywood".
  • A slightly different version of the "Relax" video is featured in the film Body Double, in the context of a scene from a pornographic movie.

Computer game

In 1985, a Frankie Goes To Hollywood computer game was created, based on the music of the band. The objective of the admittedly-strange game was to explore Mundanesville and find the Pleasuredome.

Notes

  1. ^ "FGTH Biography". ZTT.
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