Were Frankie Goes To Hollywood more punk than the Sex Pistols?
Who needs snotty fashion punks when you’ve got feisty Liverpudlians in fetish gear?
In 1984, Frankie reigned supreme. The leather-clad quintet muscled their way to the top of the UK charts with the now-legendary Relax, despite the track being banned by the BBC.
Their lyrics were saucy, their marketing was confrontational and singers Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford were ferociously, joyfully homosexual. It was enough to make conservative middle England’s false teeth fall out.
While certain sections of the country reeled in horror and goggled at the salacious tabloid headlines, the rest were dancing to Frankie in nightclubs and buying records in their millions.
Literally, millions. The band’s success was unprecedented. In the same year, Two Tribes and The Power of Love topped the charts, making Frankie one of few bands to have their first three singles go straight to number one.
Tooting their own Horn
Like the Pistols with Malcolm McLaren, Frankie Goes To Hollywood had a svengali in record producer Trevor Horn, who had plucked the band from relative obscurity to fulfill his bold musical vision. There was also their publicist Paul Morley, a former NME journalist who insisted the band go big with themes for their songs and cover sex, war, and religion. The explosive energy and swagger of the band teamed with Horn’s zealous electro-futurist vision and Morley’s bold branding (“Frankie Says Relax”) were a heady, irresistible mix.
But were the band just cogs in a machine? Stories would suggest their creative control was limited, particularly on Relax. Holly Johnson later said they were totally intimidated by Horn and felt nervous to make any suggestions during the recording.
Consequently, the band looked on as Ian Dury and the Blockheads came in and recorded a version of their song. This was scrapped by Horn, who finally settled on a slicker, more electronic version performed by session musicians.
Johnson was the only member of the band to have performed on the released track, unless you count a sample that was created from the rest of the band jumping into a swimming pool.
Hit me with your laser beams
But surely nothing would have been achieved without the band’s spark, ideas and attitude.
Check out the original version of Relax here, performed on The Tube in all its unvarnished glory (great performances, as always):
Like the Pistols, Frankie shocked, they rocked, they worked as part of a creative team that courted controversy. They were loud, debauched and frequently out of control (Johnson once told an entire award ceremony he’d had phone sex with Prince — having been invited to the do by Prince who was in the audience — the purple one was not amused).
Just like God Save The Queen, Relax got banned by the BBC. And Frankie burnt out just as fast as the Pistols — they split up in ’87, acrimoniously, after a disappointing second album.
So far, so punk. But the best bit of all? They ended up being so enormously successful that the Beeb sheepishly retracted the ban on Relax by Christmas showing that the broadcaster should, indeed, Relax.
As sticking it to the man goes, that’s not bad work.
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Hi, I’m Penny. I’m a freelance copywriter and communications consultant. Track me down chatting drivel on Twitter and navel-gazing on Instagram. If you want to work with me, or just be nosy, here’s my website.
