by Rich Watson
Frankie Goes to Hollywood had a brief shelf life as a pop band during the eighties, but boy, did they make their mark. Their impact on fashion and sexuality was felt here in America, but it did not compare to that of their native England. They made their fellow Brits uncomfortable, to say the least.
Especially those within the BBC.
New Wave music in the eighties
You could say the eighties were defined by new wave music. I remember loving those bands and seeing them on Friday Night Videos—before I got my MTV. As long as they were British and electronic, I recorded them onto my mixtapes whenever they came on the radio. A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story about a new wave band that was a playful tribute to that time.
Those bands made awesome videos. Duran Duran’s were like short movies, stylish and imaginative. My mother heard “Hungry Like the Wolf” before seeing it and she thought the woman’s wails in the song were real.
And the cross-dressing, makeup and big hair was just part of their image. Boy George looked like a woman! Annie Lennox looked like a man! (Remember when she was on the cover of Time?) It was “a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world,” to quote the Kinks. But as a kid, I accepted it with a minimum of fuss because—the music.
FGTH did well in the States. I knew “Relax” was supposed to be a dirty song—according to my DJs, anyway—but I was much too young and naive to understand why, and I listened to the lyrics closely. “Relax, don’t do it, when you wanna come?” What did that even mean? And if it was dirty, why wasn’t it censored? I remember censored songs on the radio, and “Relax” didn’t have anything bleeped out as far as I could tell.
So what was the big deal?
Frankie comes from Liverpool
FGTH formed in Liverpool in 1980. The “Frankie” in their name refers to Frank Sinatra, from an ad in the forties announcing his film debut.
Lead singer Holly Johnson had come from a late seventies band called Big in Japan. The original FGTH only lasted until 1982. One of the members went on to become a prominent fashion designer, until he conspired to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia, but that’s another story.
Johnson reformed the band with the more familiar lineup of:
- Paul Rutherford, backup vocals,
- Jed O’Toole, guitar,
- Mark O’Toole, bass, and
- Peter Gill, drums.
Gill and the O’Toole brothers were referred to by Johnson and Rutherford as “the Lads.” Rutherford also danced.
Former Yes singer Trevor Horn had turned to producing. In the future he would become a Grammy-winner, whose acts helped define the new wave sound of the eighties. He’d seen FGTH on TV, in “overtly sexual” fetish wear. They were the first band to sign with his new record label, ZTT Records.
Johnson and Rutherford, being openly gay at a time when that was still a potential career-killer, flaunted their sexuality. As Rutherford told The Guardian in 2014:
We were discovering our sexuality at the same time the world was… We were at the forefront of that, making sense of gay rights…. We had that ‘fuck-it’ Liverpool attitude… We were a gang, and no one could touch us. People were scared.
On TV they performed an early version of their signature song, “Relax,” what Johnson called a combo of disco and punk. Horn took them into the studio to remake it in a style he preferred. It took six weeks. Horn brought in other musicians and made various mixes in his quest for the perfect sound. Only Johnson and Rutherford appear on the final version.
The song came out in October 1983. ZTT marketed it as the first of a series of songs dealing with sex, war and religion. Remember those T-shirts that said things like “Frankie say” such-and-such? ZTT’s Paul Morley called them “advertising-based slogans, playful propaganda and pseudo-philosophy.”
They courted controversy, both in print ads and in the video for “Relax.” Imagine a mashup of Caligula and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and you’ll have an idea. (NSFW, to say the very least)
FGTH performed “Relax” on the BBC TV show Top of the Pops, the British American Bandstand, in January 1984. After that, it took off.
It also lead to trouble.
The BBC and banned songs
The British Broadcasting Corporation is England’s public service broadcaster, begun in 1922. Many of your favorite British TV shows originated there, from Doctor Who and Monty Python to The Great British Bake Off and the documentaries of David Attenborough.
Unfortunately, they’ve also had a long history of banning or censoring popular music, on justifications ranging from the expected (explicit language, sexual content, etc.) to the peculiar (songs “which are slushy in sentiment”), based on the changing times. They’ve gone after superstars and one-hit wonders alike.
A few random examples:
- 1930: Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale.” It’s about prostitution.
- WW2: “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” They thought the troops would find it too depressing.
- 1953: Ten songs from satirist Tom Lehrer’s Songs by Tom Lehrer. No sense of
humorhumour. - 1977. The Sex Pistols’s “God Save the Queen.” Do I really need to explain why?
- 1992: Radiohead’s “Creep.” For saying “fudge”— only they didn’t say “fudge!”
The Beeb now claims they no longer ban records, for what it’s worth.
Two tribes went to war
In 1984, Mike Read was a DJ at the BBC’s Radio 1. While playing “Relax” on the air in January, he read the song lyrics. A sample:
But shoot in the right directionMake making it your intentionLive those dreamsScheme those schemesGotta hit meHit meHit me with those laser beams
Read stopped the record and refused to play it again. At the time, he regretted nothing:
I mean, from the outset, the band were very open about what they were about and the simulated sex scenes on their video made it clear that ‘Relax’ was about gay sex. Obviously gay sex is around and a thing which everyone is aware of, but I think Frankie were going out deliberately from the start to get banned.
Personally, I don’t think the lyrics alone read as being specifically about that. My suspicion is that’s what it became about because the band made such a big deal about who and what they were. Plus, the song was everywhere.
FGTH had just performed the new version of “Relax” on Pops. When the Beeb concluded blimey, it really must be about gay sex, they banned the song, probably hoping it would go away. Instead, it rose from number six to two on the UK charts.
On January 24, it hit number one.
It stayed there for four weeks.
During their time in the limelight, Frankie really did go to Hollywood: Brian DePalma put them in his movie Body Double.
More chart-toppers and a flare-out
In June FGTH released “Two Tribes,” the war song in their series. It also went to number one. How hot were they? In August “Relax” returned to the charts and got as high as number two.
That fall their double-disc LP, Welcome to the Pleasuredome (advance sales of a million copies), debuted. A third single, “The Power of Love,” the religion chapter of the series, topped the UK charts too. They almost made it four in a row with “Welcome to the Pleasuredome,” which just missed at number two.
Yet it didn’t last. In 1986, their second album, Liverpool, didn’t do nearly as good. Honestly, how could it? Internal disputes, creative changes and outside influences contributed to their breakup in 1987. They reunited, sans Johnson, for a charity concert in 2004 and subsequent European tours. Another reunion, with Johnson, occurred in 2023 for an appearance on Eurovision Song Contest.
FGTH may not have lasted long, but they and their music are remembered well today.
———
Also in 1984:
- Duran Duran goes to number one in the US with “The Reflex.”
- The UK super-group Band Aid records the charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
- The Smiths debut.
- The Police go on hiatus after their Synchronicity tour to pursue solo projects.
- Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen loses his arm in a car crash.
———
News: Micromance Magazine has published another of my short stories, “Honeymoon in the Highlands.” This was inspired by my friend Sandi and her love of the TV show Outlander. Initially I did it just for laughs, but I liked how it came out, so where better to submit it, especially since I got in once?
———
Do you remember when the BBC went after FGTH? Leave a comment and let me know!
Share if you liked this post
⬇️
No comments:
Post a Comment