Category: Intro to Music Production

1984 is considered the pinnacle of pop music (Light, 2014), and while gender fluidity was somewhat common in the music industry (Clews, 2017) – and even briefly accepted by the public ­– in general, being out of the closet in mainstream society – or as a public figure – was not accepted. I am going to look at ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (FGTH), the story of how it became a hit, and how it helped to usher in a willingness by public figures and musicians to come out of the closet. The willingness of these public performers has had a significant positive impact on the general public’s attitude to homosexuality even at the time the AIDS epidemic was just beginning. While society at large was processing the horror of AIDS, Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford were openly gay in contrast to many others (except Bronski Beat and their track Smalltown Boy) within the music industry at the time.

You cannot talk about ‘Relax’ without also talking about it being banned by the BBC. Here I will look at the positive impact of the ban and how, as Oscar Wilde once said, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” This certainly held true for FGTH as the BBC ban “is doubly ironic that having been partially responsible for the huge success of ‘Relax’ through the imposition of the band the BBC subsequently had to relent and play the record because its very success confirmed a kind of ‘classic’ status to it.” (Warner, 2003).

Also central to this is the story is Trevor Horn, the producer on Relax, and the co-owner of ZTT records. It was his vision and production that created a track that was reported to have sold over two million copies in the UK alone. Paul Morley, co-owner of ZTT, who handled the marketing and promotion of the single, was also key to its success. He was one of the first in the industry to combine marketing with merchandising in a way that ‘Frankie Say Relax’ t-shirts are still used as a shortcut in film and TV to elicit the 80s.

Finally, I will also go into the production the track. This part will be focused on 1984 as a time that included digital technologies, including the Fairlight CMI, but was still a largely analogue process. 

How it was produced

After signing the band Horn set them up at “Manor Studios at Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire. The Manor, as it’s most commonly known, was a residential studio, the third of its kind in the UK.” (Horn, 2022, p.171). It was here that Horn realised that the guitarist Brian Nash (a.k.a. Nasher) was not the guitarist on the original demo and had only been playing for a few months, “the problem was that at that particular moment in time, he couldn’t play.” (ibid., p. 171). The only part of this original recording session at the Manor that made it on to the final track was the sound of the band jumping into the pool which was put into the Fairlight CMI. 

The backbone of ‘Relax’ is handled by the bass/drum on every quarter note that does not deviate from the same pitch for the entire track. The drums were taken care of by the Linn drum machine, “I had five drum patterns in the Linn and my favourite was pattern number 41. I soon found that by switching between pattern 40 (that was a straight four on the floor) to 41 in the verse started to give us a terrific gear shift.” (Horn, 2022, p.175). 

The creative process for writing this track is best summed up by JJ Jeczalik:

“We were kind of getting nowhere really. It just didn’t feel right. I remember saying: ‘Let’s just put an eight-bar loop together’… We just started goofing around, literally goofing around, and cranked the volume up. We were really enjoying ourselves and started to realise that we actually had something… Trevor came back and said, ‘What’s on earth’s going on?’ or something. We went ‘It’s just a loop’. ‘No. No. No. It’s brilliant’.”

(Lacedelli, 2022)

The main instrument that you can hear on the track is the Fairlight CMI and the Linn drum machine. Programming of the Fairlight was done by JJ Jeczalik, keyboards were Andy Richards, and guitars were by Steve Lipson.

The Fairlight was an expensive machine that retailed at around $25,000 USD at the time. But was limited, “The original Fairlight could sample in 8-bit, 16 kHz, 8 voice polyphony and had a basic sequencer functionality.” (Nord, 2014). 

The take that was used in the final version was after four hours practicing with JJ Jeczalik on the Fairlight, Andy Richards on keyboards, and Horn singing as a vocal guide directly to a 24-track analogue (Black, 1999). The mix was completed at Sarm West, “This would be at Sarm West, where an SSL E-Series console was supplemented by a couple of Studer A80 tape machines.” (Buskin, 2008).

Final thoughts 

For me this track still stands up as an example of incredible production (while maybe not from a song writing point of view) that while timeless, sits larger than life in my memory of growing up in the 80s. However, without the team of people behind them including Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson, JJ Jeczalik, and Dave Robinson, ‘Relax’ may not have been the hit that it became.

FGTH were one of the first bands to have a large marketing and merchandising campaign attached to them. ‘Frankie Say Relax’ shirts are now considered a shortcut in film to show that something is set in the 80s. 

Music has the power to change attitudes and I am thankful for the decisions that have empowered these early LGBT artists to come out at the time. This helped to normalise homosexuality and change both society and popular music.  

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Bibliography

Black, J. (1999) The making of Relax | Articles | Zang Tuum Tumb and all that. Q Magazine. Available at: https://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=110 (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Buskin, R. (2008), Frankie Goes to Hollywood ‘Relax’ | Classic Tracks. Sound on Sound. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/frankie-goes-hollywood-relax-classic-tracks (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Clews, C. (2017). Gay in the 80s: From Fighting for Our Rights to Fighting for Our Lives. United Kingdom: Matador.

Cunningham, M. (1996) Good Vibrations – a History of Record Production, Chessington: Castle Communications.

Gilbert, B. (2021) How we made: Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/02/how-we-made-relax-by-frankie-goes-to-hollywood-sex-mix-gay-clubs (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Horn, T. (2022) “’Relax’/’Two Tribes’, Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1983/1984),” in Adventures in modern recording. London, UK: BONNIER BOOKS LTD, pp. 166–205. 

Johnson, H. (1995) A bone in my flute. London: Arrow. 

Lacedelli, S. (2021) The Fairlight CMI: The secret composer of the music you love, National Science and Media Museum blog. Available at: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/fairlight-cmi-playlist/ (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Light, A. (2014) Why 1984 was Pop Music’s Best Year ever, Billboard. Available at: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/1984-best-year-of-pop-music-ever-essay-6296392/ (Accessed: November 21, 2022). 

London Recordings (2018) Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy (official video), YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/88sARuFu-tc (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Nord (2014) Fairlight history, Nord Keyboards. Nord. Available at: https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libraries/nord-sample-library-archive/fairlight-history (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Storm, R. (2021) The story of ‘relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, YouTube. Hits of the 80s, Channel 5. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgksUyHeqlU (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

Warner, T. (2003) “’Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood,” in Pop music – Technology and Creativity. London, UK: Ashgate, pp. 75–90. zttrecords (2007) Frankie goes to hollywood – relax (ZTAS 1), YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN2tHv8gPm8 (Accessed: October 23, 2022). 

William Emmanuel Bevan – also known as Burial – is a South London music producer who was born in 1979. A reclusive producer who received critical praise for ‘Untrue’ in 2007 after its release in November of the same year. 

It was best said by Dan Hancox in The Guardian as to how reclusive Burial was, “Burial doesn’t do DJ gigs, live performances, or radio shows, and only a few photos exist of him, taken by the photographer Georgina Cook, and obscured to conceal his identity. ‘Only about five people outside of my family know I make tunes, I think. I hope,’ he says.” (Hancox, 2007). Burial himself has also said that he has a belief that the less you know about an artist the more you connect with their music. 

Without live performances and interviews, Bevan hid behind his producer persona until he was ‘outed’ by the Independent in an article in February 2008. He confirmed that this was true via his MySpace page (MacNeill, 2018) as remembered by Kyle MacNeill in Vice on the 10^th anniversary of Bevan’s identity reveal. 

Notwithstanding his dislike for the spotlight, his music speaks volumes. Bevan claims that he uses SoundForge, the digital audio editor, for his tracks. As a digital editor, not a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), it would make the production process more difficult. This leads to a swing to the drum groove. It also introduces timing variance in that it is not set to a metronome and cannot be quantized. It was essentially eyeballed but with his ears. As he describes the process in an interview, “Once I change something, I can never un-change it. I can only see the waves. So, I know when I’m happy with my drums because they look like a nice fishbone. When they look just skeletal as fuck in front of me, and so I know they’ll sound good.” (Kottle, 2007).

“Burial decided at the outset to avoid at all costs the rigid, mechanistic path that eventually brought drum ‘n’ bass to a standstill. To this end, his percussion patterns are intuitively arranged on the screen rather than rigidly quantized, creating minute hesitations and slippages in the rhythm. His snares and hi-hats are covered in fuzz and phaser, like cobwebs on forgotten instruments, and the mix is rough and ready rather than endlessly polished. Perhaps most importantly, his basslines sound like nothing else on Earth. Distorted and heavy, yet also warm and earthy, they resemble the balmy gust of air that precedes an underground train.” (Warmsley, 2009)

Off kilter rhythms abound because of the use of an audio editor rather than a DAW. As stated by Romney in his paper a digital audio editor “does not provide the non-destructive editing that makes a digital audio workstation so liberating. As a sound editor, it relies on destructive editing that alters and degrades the original sound file from the moment it is opened in the program.” (Romney 2017). This kind of destructive editing has added to the groove and feel of the work on Untrue. To listen to the difference between the tracks on Untrue and the one track that Burial completed with a DAW, Unite. The difference in the drums is stark, the tracks on Untrue feel more human and have a groove. Unite on the other hand feels clinical. Still musical but does not feel as authentic as his other tracks.

Bevan’s frequent use of samples from video games (Metal Gear Solid, was used extensively) – most of the percussion being sampled from Metal Gear Solid. With most of the samples treated beyond recognition, however some are still raw and unprocessed. When using vocal samples, he tended to pitch shift until they were almost unrecognisable. “I like pitching down female vocals, so they sound male, and pitching up male vocals so they sound like a girl singing. It can sound sexy as fuck.” (Fisher, 2012). He has sampled Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Sarah McLachlan and others. For Beyonce, he pitched her down as to be unrecognisable, except though her lyrics (Hawthorn, 2017).

Overall though I had listened to this album before I can say that I did not see the complexity of the album previously and the amount of effort taken to create these great tracks.

References:

Fisher, M. (2012) Burial: Unedited transcript – the Wire, The Wire Magazine – Adventures In Modern Music. Available at: https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/burial_unedited-transcript (Accessed: November 21, 2022). 

Hawthorn, C. (2017) Burial’s untrue: The making of a masterpiece ⟋ RA films, Resident Advisor. Edited by S. Misrahi. Available at: https://ra.co/films/3102 (Accessed: November 21, 2022). 

Kottle, J. (2017) The making of burial’s untrue, kottke.org. Available at: https://kottke.org/17/12/the-making-of-burials-untrue (Accessed: November 21, 2022). 

Romney, A. (2017) Beyond audacity: Supporting Sonic Futures through the Digital Audio Workstation, Communication Center Journal. Available at: http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ccj/article/view/1590/pdf (Accessed: November 21, 2022). 

Walmsley, D. “Dubstep”, The Wire Primers: A Guide to Modern Music, ed. Rob Young, London: Verso, 2009, p. 92.

“Tariq Aziz” (2012)

It is quite noisy and distorted, almost unsettling. It is very primitive in both instrumentation and production. There is a lot of noise on the individual instruments. There are also points where the sound just stops, again adding to a feeling of being unsettled. Use of middle eastern beats and the strings also help with the aesthetic. While there is repartition in the track, it sounds like the loops are of varying length. This keeps the track from being as repetitive as it initially presents. This type of metrical dissonance has been written about by Butler (2001), where he states, “A displacement dissonance occurs when an interpretive layer sounds like it is displaced from a metrical layer; the conflicting layer is called the antimetrical layer. Since electronic sound production facilitates this sort of nonalignment, it is not surprising that it is a frequent source of metrical dissonance in EDM.” This dissonance creates variety for the listener and keeps the track from sounding too repetitive. There is also a lot of filtering and glitching over the main drum loop, most likely to also provide variety to the loop. 

It is a sparce track in terms of instrumentation. Just the distorted drums along with the strings with a lot of noise. There is not much structure to the track. It starts with the main drum loop, and continues with small variations, mainly with glitches and filtering via EQ with some beats distorted. At the end of the track, it sounds like there is some type of erosion effect to change the bitrate to a lower bit depth before the track stops. 

From Discogs we read that Muslimgauze was “influenced by the conflicts and history in the Muslim world” (Discogs, no date). And from Bidoun: “His project began in 1983 as a personal response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. ‘Muslimgauze,’ Jones tirelessly explained, ‘are pro-Arab/Palestinian and detest the vile stench of Israel.’” (Clayton, 2009).

However, Muslimgauze, real name Bryn Jones, was not Muslim and had never visited a Muslim country. Jones was a producer from Manchester. Jones reportedly died 37 years of age in 1999 from a rare fungal infection in his blood. Since his death there have been over 50 new releases. This could lead one to believe that some of the later releases are not from the artist. However Jones was known to flood potential collaborators with lots of content in an effort to get collaborations. Maybe these are just coming to light.

Due to the volume of releases and variety of productions released, it is difficult to put his music into a specific genre, however his works are generally described as ethnic electronica. Jones tended to use found recordings, as he never visited a Muslim country, and layered them in rhythmic sections. While most of his works utilise a beat to create the rhythm, repetition of a loop of speech can alter a listeners’ perception of a track making it more musical (Rowland et. al., 2018). 

Regardless of the provenance of the work after his death, this track, for me at least, is reminiscent of war and conflict in the middle east. It is the raw and primitive production work that evokes the feel of a country in conflict.

References

Butler, M. (2014) Hearing kaleidoscopes: Embedded grouping dissonance in electronic dance music, twentieth-century music. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/1790394/Hearing_Kaleidoscopes_Embedded_Grouping_Dissonance_in_Electronic_Dance_Music (Accessed: November 13, 2022). 

Clayton, J. (2009) Muslin gaze, Bidoun. Available at: https://www.bidoun.org/articles/muslin-gaze (Accessed: November 13, 2022). 

Discogs (no date) Muslimgauze, Discogs. Available at: https://www.discogs.com/artist/484-Muslimgauze (Accessed: November 13, 2022). 

Rowland, J., Kasdan, A. and Poeppel, D. (2018) There is music in repetition: Looped segments of speech and nonspeech induce the perception of music in a time-dependent manner – psychonomic bulletin & review, SpringerLink. Springer US. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-018-1527-5 (Accessed: November 13, 2022). 

1995 Version:

This track (make sure to notice the ‘.NUXX’ which is the indicator that it is the track we are talking about) was first released as a B-side to ‘Born Slippy’ an unrelated instrumental track, in 1995. After it was used in 1996 movie ‘Trainspotting’ it quickly rose to #2 in the UK Singles Chart in July 1996. In this post I’ll be speaking about the original 1995 (.NUXX) version and the differences to the remastered version in 2012. 

Before talking about the difference in production between the original and the remix I’m going to do a short breakdown of the sounds, instrumentation, and the vocals, to compare the use of production techniques between the two versions. 

The first thing you hear in the original 1995 track is the opening pad chords together with the heavily delayed synth that plays B flat major followed by an E flat major chord. There are a few sources that point to a Juno-106 for the synth (Roland, 2022), but some sources also point to the Waldorf Microwave (Music, 2021). 

The vocals come in at 0:13 seconds, these are distorted and have been put through a Roland VP-330 Vocal Synthesizer which they purchased from Midge Ure (Roland, 2022).

As an interesting aside the vocals were done in a single take (Lynskey, 2006). The lyrics themselves are almost a stream of consciousness. Karl Hyde spoke about the Born Slippy lyrics in an interview with the Australian Financial Review, “Musique concrete is the equivalent of what goes on in my head and Born Slippy‘s lyrics are the proof.” (Bailey, 2019). By using short phrases and repetition it sits well with how pop music is constructed to make the track memorable, “the short phrases, regular phrase lengths, simple time signatures and mostly stepwise diatonic melodies that characterize pop music result in simple musical ideas that are easily memorised by the listener” (Warner, 2017). 

The TR-909 hi-hats come in at 1:08 followed by the kick drums at 1:17 and the impetus and drive of this track come to the fore. The 909 kicks are distorted and to get this sound, “It’s heavily driven through a console and processed but it’s a 909.” (Roland, 2022). When the kick starts it turns into a sparce break with only drums (with lots of delay) and vocals from 1:17 till 3:44. The chords and pads come back, which then goes back to drums to fade out.

2012 Remastered Version:

For the new remixed version released in 2012 the main differences that you can see on the track in Apple Music is that it has been released as both Hi-Res Lossless and as an Apple Digital Master. This means that the track has been either re-recorded or digitised from the original tape. From what I can hear across the different versions in general is the 1995 version sounds like there is less dynamic range. The 2012 version is ‘clearer’ and seems to have more dynamic range, mainly on high and low frequencies. These additional frequencies could be due to better mixing, EQ, or other techniques after re-recording the stems from tape, or using a larger bit depth (24-bit vs 16 bit). From research on the impact of digital technology on recording in the 1990s brought up an interesting idea that I did not occur to me. From Christopher DeArcangelis, “Mastering was the site of one of the most significant revolutions brought by digital audio. With vinyl records, there was an upper limit on a recording’s loudness. If mastered too loud, the record would shake the needle and disrupt playback. Loudness would not affect CD playback, and the medium also had a clear maximum amplitude. Therefore, CDs could be mastered a whole lot louder. Mastering engineers utilized brickwall limiters to anticipate differences in the dynamic range in the recordings by pushing its levels to the ceiling.” (DeArcangelis, 2017). The use of digital technology in this way not only changed the instrumentation of what we listened to but also how we consumed it. 

Special Bonus: Underworld playing Born Slippy live in Berlin

References:

Bailey, M. (2019) How underworld’s born slippy was born, Australian Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/how-underworld-s-born-slippy-was-born-20190528-p51rz1 (Accessed: November 6, 2022). 

DeArcangelis, C. (2017) How the 1990s changed recording and Music Production Forever, reverb.com. Available at: https://reverb.com/uk/news/how-the-1990s-changed-recording-and-music-production-forever (Accessed: November 6, 2022). 

Lynskey, D. and Simpson, D. (2006) Twelve artists talk about making one of their classic tracks, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/feb/24/popandrock2 (Accessed: November 6, 2022). 

Music, C. (2021) The 40 greatest synth sounds of all time, no 32: Underworld – born slippy, MusicRadar. MusicRadar. Available at: https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-40-greatest-synth-sounds-of-all-time-no-32-underworld-born-slippy (Accessed: November 6, 2022). 

Roland (2022) Roland artist interview – Underworld, Roland Resource Centre. Available at: https://rolandcorp.com.au/blog/roland-artist-interview-underworld (Accessed: November 6, 2022). 

Warner, T. (2017) “Simplicity and repetition,” in Pop music: Technology and creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution. London, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 9–10. 

Seal was already in the charts with a song called “Killer” which featured his vocals in a song by Adamski, so it was unusual that he chose to do his first self-titled album with Trevor Horn and not one of the major record labels that was talking to him at the time. From Trevor Horn’s “Adventures in Modern Recording” we see that it was his wife Jill Horn that was Seal’s advocate in the partnership, “I’m sending Seal in to meet you. You’re gonna love him.” (Horn, 2022). Trevor Horn on the other hand was non-committal, when speaking about the demo of ‘Crazy’, “Although I liked the lyrics, especially the chorus, I couldn’t really tell whether Seal was a good singer, not least because somebody had seen fit to put his voice through a phaser.” Seal’s manager was also against the idea of Seal signing on to ZTT, “Seal’s then-manager had reservations about me [Horn] producing ‘Crazy’ and told Seal that if I got my mitts on his music I’d bland it out.”  However, part of the deal with ZTT was that ‘Crazy’ would be produced by Guy Sigsworth at Beethoven Street Studios in west London. This in the end did not happen and the track that achieved top 10 in 16 countries was eventually produced by Horn.

The album starts with the track “The Beginning”, a funky and lively track with elements of disco, clean guitars, programmed drums, sampled muted horns, and a driving syncopated bass. The chorus, while repetitive, is delivered so skilfully by Seal, “(“Music takes you round and round and round and round and rou-ound/Hold on to the love”) doesn’t look like much on paper, but the way he delivers it is thrilling: working away at each repeated syllable like a carpenter lovingly sanding down a bevelled edge.” (Sherburne, 2021) The drum and bass guitar break feature percussive elements that makes way for a key change (to the relative minor) creating interest before moving to a sparsely instrumented outro with just acoustic guitar and Seal.

“Deep Water” follows with an intro with simple percussion and acoustic guitar before slide guitar starts. This track has a more plaintive feel in keeping with the lyrics. Horn has treated this track with a light touch that does not feel all that pop at the start and then morphs towards the middle of the track into something much funkier like, “Moments like the interstitial passage at the midway point of “Deep Water” hint at paths the record could have taken, the ambient remix album that exists in an alternate universe,” (Sherburne, 2021).

The next track “Crazy” as mentioned earlier was meant to be produced by Guy Sigsworth as part of the deal with ZTT. The final version was produced by Horn and took two months to produce, “When we made the first Seal album, we spent two months doing Crazy – and then about two months on the whole album. Crazy wasn’t an easy record to make, because we were aiming high,” (Lindvall, 2014). The start of the song with ethereal synths opens to a swelling organ sound after an orchestral hit which could only be from a Fairlight CMI. The drums and bass cut in before the first verse. It is a very dense production with guitars, multi-tracked vocals, what sounds like cut up and retracked drums. The use of wah on the guitar also creates a lot of interest in the main break.

Moving past “Killer” as this was produced by Adamski, to “Whirlpool” which I think really shows Seal’s skill as a vocalist. Bluesy, yet restrained accompaniment really lets Seal’s voice shine. He is accompanied by two vocalists (Wendy & Lisa from Prince & the Revolution) towards the end of the track that Horn loved “They said they had an idea for a vocal at the end, and the three of them went out and it was fucking great.” (Pop, 2020).

“Future Love Paradise” was “was originally recorded with two tracks of MIDI, one track of audio straight into Studio Vision — the drums were MIDI drums, and a keyboard and Seal’s vocals. That’s how we started and we built it all on top of that.” (Peel, 2005). This marks a change in recording technology from 24 track analogue tape to fully digital. Horn remarks in his book that this makes arrangement easier, “I’d got some new software, SoundTools, that allowed me to load a digital mix into my computer that I could edit myself. Up to that point, the only way that you could ever edit audio was on tape. You marked it with chalk, cut it with a razor blade. This stuff was a revolution and meant I could really attend to the main thing that I had decided was wrong with ‘Crazy’, which was the arrangement.” (Horn 2022). 

This change in working practices from tape to fully digital is also referenced in ‘Pop Music – Technology and Creativity’, “This transition to digital technology has not only brought about a revolution in working practices but has also played an important role in determining how pop music as an art form has evolved in the past 25 years. This is because digital technology has not merely improved sound quality but has fundamentally altered the ways in which musical gestures are created, manipulated and interact with one another.” (Warner, 2017). These changes in workflow can have a dramatic affect on the ability for artists to explore musical ideas and arrangements with relative ease, “Once as sound has been digitally recorded it can be manipulated in a wide variety of ways within a digital editing programme, and these manipulations are non-destructive. As a result, pop musicians can extensively explore the musical potential of recorded sounds without ever losing the original recording… it is the creative imagination of the pop musician that becomes the determining factor in pop music production, rather than any physical limitations.” (Werner, 2017).

Track listing:

All lyrics and music written by Seal, except where noted:

1. “The Beginning” (Seal, Guy Sigsworth) – 5:40
2. “Deep Water” – 5:56
3. “Crazy” (Seal, Sigsworth) – 4:47 or 5:57
4. “Killer” (Adam Tinley, Seal) – 6:22
5. “Whirlpool” – 3:56 or 3:51
6. “Future Love Paradise” – 4:20
7. “Wild” (Seal, Sigsworth) – 5:19 or 5:28
8. “Show Me” – 5:59
9. “Violet” (Seal, Sigsworth) – 8:06 or 8:31

Production:

• Seal – vocals
• Richard Cottle, Mars Lasar, Mark Mancina, Jamie Muhoberac, Guy Sigsworth – keyboards/sampling
• Gus Isidore, Randall Jacobs, Chester Kamen, Trevor Rabin, Kenji Suzuki, Bruce Woolley – guitars
• Chrissy Shefts – all guitars (“Crazy”)
• Trevor Horn, Steve Pearce, Doug Wimbish – bass guitar
• Curt Bisquera, Denny Fongheiser, John Robinson, Keith LeBlanc – drums
• Paulinho da Costa, Andy Duncan, Luís Jardim – percussion
• Gary Maughan – Fairlight CMI
• Gota Yashiki – drums, percussion, bass guitar
• Ian Morrow – keyboard and drum programming
• Maria Vidal – backing vocals
• Robin Hancock – programming
• Anne Dudley – string arrangements

References

Horn, T. (2022) “’Crazy’, Seal (1990)” in Adventures in Modern Recording. London, UK: BONNIER BOOKS LTD, pp. 272–283. 

Lindvall, H. (2014) Trevor Horn: ‘I had delusions the label would be a hub of creativity’, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2014/feb/13/trevor-horn-video-killed-the-radio-star-ztt (Accessed: October 31, 2022). 

Peel, I. (2005) Trevor Horn – 25 Years Of Hits. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/trevor-horn (Accessed: October 31, 2022). 

Pop, C. (2020) My life in vinyl: Trevor Horn, Classic Pop Magazine. Available at: https://www.classicpopmag.com/2019/10/my-life-in-vinyl-trevor-horn/ (Accessed: October 31, 2022). 

Sherburne, P. (2021) Seal: Seal, Pitchfork. Available at: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/seal-seal/ (Accessed: October 31, 2022). 

Warner, T. (2017) in Pop music: Technology and creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution. London, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 20–22. 

The 1980s have been said to be the pinnacle of pop music. But for one part of society 1984 was the beginning of a cultural revolution that would change society. I am going to look at ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (FGTH), the story of how it became a hit, and how it helped to usher in a willingness by public figures in the music industry to come out of the closet. The willingness of these performers has had a significant positive impact on the general public’s attitude to homosexuality even at the time the AIDS epidemic was just beginning. And while this was happening Holly Johnson (lead singer) and Paul Rutherford (backing singer) were openly gay in contrast to many others (except Bronski Beat) within the music industry at the time. 

You cannot bring up Relax without also talking about it being banned by the BBC. Here I will look at the positive impact of the ban and how, as Oscar Wilde once said, ‘There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’ 

Also central to this is the story is Trevor Horn, the producer on Relax, and the co-owner of ZTT records. It was his vision and production that created a track that was reported to have sold over two million copies in the UK alone. Paul Morley, co-owner of ZTT, who handled the marketing and promotion of the single, was also key to its success. He was one of the first in the industry to combine marketing with merchandising in a way that filtered into the visual vernacular in such a way that ‘Frankie Say Relax’ t-shirts are still used as a shortcut in film and TV to elicit the 80s. 

I will also go into the technologies used on the track. This part will be focused on 1984 as a time that included digital technologies, including the Fairlight CMI, but was still a largely analogue process.  

For me this track still stands up as an example of incredible production (while maybe not from a song writing point of view) that while timeless, that sits larger than life in my memory of growing up in the 80s. 

Bibliography to use for the proposal

Black, J. (1999) The Making of Relax, The making of Relax | Articles | Zang Tuum Tumb and all that. Q Magazine. Available at: https://www.zttaat.com/article.php?title=110 (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Buskin, R. (2021) Frankie goes to hollywood ‘relax’: Classic Tracks, Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Relax’ | Classic Tracks. Sound on Sound. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/frankie-goes-hollywood-relax-classic-tracks (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Clews, C. (2017). Gay in the 80s: From Fighting for Our Rights to Fighting for Our Lives. United Kingdom: Matador. 

Electronic Cafe (2022) JJ Jeczalik: Interview 2022 (part 1) – ZTT fairlight pioneer, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NY2dm6Xags (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Gilbert, B. (2021) How we made: Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/02/how-we-made-relax-by-frankie-goes-to-hollywood-sex-mix-gay-clubs (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Horn, T. (2022) “’Relax’/’Two Tribes’, Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1983/1984),” in Adventures in modern recording. London, UK: BONNIER BOOKS LTD, pp. 166–205.  

Lacedelli, S. (2021) The Fairlight CMI: The secret composer of the music you love, National Science and Media Museum blog. Available at: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/fairlight-cmi-playlist/ (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

London Recordings (2018) Bronski beat – smalltown boy (official video), YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/88sARuFu-tc (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Nord (2014) Fairlight history, Nord Keyboards. Nord. Available at: https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libraries/nord-sample-library-archive/fairlight-history (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Park, A. and Rhead, R. (2018) British Social Attitudes: Homosexuality, NatCen. Available at: https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-30/personal-relationships/homosexuality.aspx (Accessed: October 25, 2022).  

Rooks, S. and Bourne, S. (2019) LGBTQ+ timeline, BBC 100. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/lgbtq/lgbtq-timeline#the1980sthatkiss (Accessed: October 25, 2022).  

Storm, R. (2021) The story of ‘relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, YouTube. Hits of the 80s, Channel 5. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgksUyHeqlU (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

Warner, T. (2003) “’Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood,” in Pop music- technology and creativity. London, UK: Ashgate, pp. 75–90.  

Wexelbaum, R. (no date) Music of the AIDS epidemic 1977, Rachel Wexelbaum’s files. Available at: https://stcloud.lib.minnstate.edu/assets/users/_rswexelbaum/MusicoftheAIDSEpidemic.pdf (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

zttrecords (2007) Frankie goes to hollywood – relax (ZTAS 1), YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN2tHv8gPm8 (Accessed: October 23, 2022).  

After the end of World War 2 (2 September 1945) the technological advances that were invented to help the allies win the war were being re-developed for more general use. For instance, the microwave was first patented 8 October 1945. The first electronic computer, ENIAC, was completed in 1945 (10 December 1945), quickly followed by EDSAC in 1949. It was the invention of the transistor in 1947 at Bell Laboratories that heralded the dawn of the electronic age. These advances would not have happened so quickly without the spending on research because of the war.

Socially it was also a time of incredible change as there was a widescale challenge and subsequent breakdown on accepted beliefs and values, including the birth of rock and roll. There was also a boom in the economy that started in the 1950s called the ‘golden age’¹ that helped changed the lives of many in western society.

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‘It is necessary to destroy music’

Pierre Henry

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Pierre Henry was “was classically trained, studying at the famous Conservatoire in Paris under Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger”¹ until 1949 when he started working with Pierre Schaeffer at the Club d’Essai². Together their work, along with their collaborators, created ‘Musique Concrete’ which has influenced music in a fundamental way ever since. It’s use of recording, editing, and manipulation of sound is the basis for much of music production today.

It is interesting to hear how Henry and Schaeffer worked. For instance: “Two tendencies were developing: non-contradictory and complementary in a certain way. The first tendency is to build a complex machine that will simplify the operations and permit a more regular and controlled result…The second tendency consists of developing through practice a specific skill in a technique … the arrival of Pierre Henry to the studio in 1949 brought a person who would develop extensive and new skills in the manipulation of accidents, and be very inventive in the compositional process”³.  Also, from this quote from Henry in 1997 to the question “Do you find it necessary to be open to chance in your work?”, his response was: “It’s as important as fate. Without fate, without any deviation… drifting is necessary once in a while. I often play everything together and then listen. Sometimes a strange phenomenon occurs.”⁴ This chaotic way of exploration lead to works that reinforce his believe that “it is necessary to destroy music.”⁵

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“I believe that the tape recorder is the best instrument for the composer who really wants to create by ear for the ear.”

Pierre Henry

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I can see that Henry was driven to produce works with the machines as given, regardless of the complexity of the instrumentation, or quirks involved with their use, in fact the quirks would help with composition of the work, while Schaeffer seemed more likely to want to iterate on the machines to make them more controllable. This can be seen in the development of the Phonogene.

There were three versions of the Phonogene created. The first one was chromatic and controlled by a one-octave keyboard and utilised 12 reading heads that played tape loops. The second Phonogene allowed the musician to move a control rod that changed the speed on the motor of the tape allowing for tonal variation. An example of this version of the Phonogene can be heard in Voile d’Orphee by Pierre Henry (1953), “where a very long glissando appears that symbolises the tearing of the veil by Orpheus when entering hell”⁶. This led to the final version of the Phonogene, called the universal Phonogene⁷, which allowed for pitch transposition without altering the duration of the sound and vice-versa.

I couldn’t find a good place for this, but I had to include it, thanks Pierre Henry for giving Christopher Tyng the inspiration for the Futurama theme:

https://youtu.be/bcbrVLuWHRo

1. Toniolo, G., (1998) The Economic History Review New Series, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 252-267 (16 pages)
2. Williamson, M., (2017) ‘Pierre Henry: Composer of musique concrete’, Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/pierre-henry-composer-of-musique-concrete-a7838681.html (Accessed: 17 October 2022). 
3. Teruggi, D., (2007) ‘Technology and musique concrete: the technical developments of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and their implication in musical composition’, Organised Sound. 12(3), pp. 216
4. Lee, I (1997) ‘Pierre Henry’, Available at: http://www.furious.com/perfect/pierrehenry.html (Accessed: 17 October 2022)
5. ‘It is necessary to destroy music’. The avant-garde works of Pierre Henry, (2017), Available at: https://www.voert.digital/it-is-necessary-to-destroy-music-pierre-henry-avante-garde-genius (Accessed: 17 October 2022)
6. Teruggi, D., (2007) ‘Technology and musique concrete: the technical developments of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and their implication in musical composition’, Organised Sound. 12(3), pp. 217
7. ‘The ‘Groupe de Recherches Musicales’ Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry & Jacques Poullin, France 1951’,(2014) Available at: https://120years.net/wordpress/the-grm-group-and-rtf-electronic-music-studio-pierre-schaeffer-jacques-poullin-france-1951/ (Accessed: 17 October 2022).