Frankie Goes to Hollywood Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Frankie Goes To Hollywood (FGTH) were one of the biggest, most controversial and most marketed UK pop acts of the 1980s whose impact was only equalled by their remarkably short shelf-life.
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2 Band members 3 Discography 4 External links |
Emerging from the late 1970s Liverpool punk movement (key member Paul Rutherford had previously been in bands including The Spitfire Boys), FGTH took their name from a poster showcasing Frank Sinatra's fledgling movie career.
Lead singer Holly Johnson, a fellow Liverpool punk veteran from the band Big In Japan (which also featured future Lightning Seeds frontman Ian Broudie), recruited Rutherford as co-singer.
Local musicians Peter Gill (drums); Ged O'Toole (bass) and his cousin Brian Nash (guitar) then joined. The band set out playing shows around the locality. O'Toole quit shortly afterwards but supplied the band with a replacement - his younger brother Mark O'Toole, whom Ged had taught how to play. (Ged also taught Nash the guitar).
FGTH were signed up to Trevor Horn's new ZTT record label after a raw video for the song Relax was shown on music programme The Tube. With a brief from the band to make them sound like "a cross between Donna Summer and KISS", Horn set to work on their debut single.
The final cut of Relax was released at the end of 1983 and got a modicom of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. After an appearance on Top Of The Pops, the song shot into the Top 10 - and then would come the incident which would propel both song and band into pop notoriety forever.
BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was playing the record on his show when he noticed the mild sexual imagery used as a design on the front cover, including one of the more salacious quotes from the lyrics. This prompted him to listen more intently to the words, and his reaction was such that he removed the disc from the turntable live on air, snapped it in two and branded it "disgusting".
The BBC, without Read's knowledge or input, decided to ban the record from all its TV and radio outlets as a result, and a surge to buy the single and find out what the controversy was about followed. Music journalist and ZTT associate Paul Morley immediately started a PR campaign which led to a massive demand for the band and song.
Relax immediately shot to Number 1 in the charts and stayed there for five weeks, leading to the ludicrous and embarrassing situation for the BBC whereby they couldn't feature the nation's best-selling single on their flagship chart shows on TV and radio.
Also getting in on the act was fashion designer Katherine Hamnett, who designed a range of minimalist, sloganeering T-shirts based around her famous slogan Ban Nuclear Weapons NOW : "Frankie Say Relax Don't Do It", "Frankie Say War Hide Yourself", "Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed". (T-shirts with "Frankie Says" were fakes.) Prior to these, Hamnett had also designed the familiar "Choose Life" T-shirts worn by Wham on their video for Wake Me Up before You Go Go.
The content of Relax has always sparked debate. The overreaction to the words was certainly huge, but ultimately the expression ...when you want to suck it to it... which appeared on the sleeve and caused Read's outrage was, in fact, a deliberate inaccuracy placed on the sleeve to cause extra interest and intrigue. The real words were, in fact, ...when you want to SOCK it to it.... As for the expression ...when you want to come... - only the most innocent or naive would not give this its sexual interpretation, but nevertheless the ambiguity remained. The design meanwhile, depicted two people (a man and woman) attached to each other back to back, with clothed upper bodies but bared buttocks. In a relatively liberalised mid-1980s period this was saucy at best, not shocking. The video, however, was unsurprisingly banned as it depicted an S&M; den (filmed in the upstairs room of a Liverpool pub).
Relax was followed into the charts by Two Tribes, a topical song about nuclear war. Featuring sirens, the unmistakeable voice of Patrick Allen (who voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads two years earlier) and another hard-faced, electronic backing, it went into the UK charts straight in at Number 1 and stayed there for a phenomenal nine weeks (the first to do so for seven years).
There were no problems with the song this time, but again the video was not shown on British television, this time due to its overtly violent nature. It featured lookalikes of Cold War leaders Reagan and Chernenko wrestling in a marquee while band members and others laid bets on the outcome. Ultimately, the globe was seen to explode.
What made the reign of Two Tribes at the top even more notable was the continuing success of its predecessor. Relax had made a natural decline down the charts but on the release of Two Tribes, sales of it began to rise again to the extent that FGTH held the top two spots in the UK charts, the first act to do so since the posthumous clamour for singles by John Lennon at the beginning of 1981.
FGTH released a third single, The Power Of Love, at the end of 1984. A surprisingly thoughtful, well-arranged ballad, it went to to Number 1 in December and gave the band the honour of being the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers 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 only seem to give it airplay during the festive period. The lyrics do not have any seasonal connection whatsoever.
The Band Aid project, for which Johnson recorded a message for the B-side, meant that FGTH only managed a week at the top this time. 1984 also saw the release of their debut album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, but this was poorly received by the critics and didn't sell as well as expected. Along with the singles and title track, it featured a mixture of thrown-together covers (including Born To Run, San Jose, Ferry Cross The Mersey) and humour-free 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 was, aside from Band Aid, the biggest-selling single of the year).
The album's title track, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, was released as a single at the beginning of 1985 and peaked at Number 2, leading to absurd claims that the band was on the decline. It turned out the snipers were correct, however, but not for the alleged 'failure' of a Number 2 hit. In fact, the demise of the band was more down to lack of material and skill. Contrary to popular belief, Frankie could play their instruments, as two world tours testified, but their attitude was in question after such immediate success.
In 1986, a new single, Rage Hard, was issued, and reached the Top 10, but the two follow-ups were less successful, barely scraping the Top 40. The corresponding album, Liverpool, was panned by the music press and FGTH gave up by the end of the year.
Johnson enjoyed a solo career in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and a reasonably placed album. He would later become a reclusive but successful painter after announcing in 1993 that he was living with the HIV virus.
Rutherford, the other openly gay member of the band, flirted with a solo career before disappearing out of the limelight. The 'other three', as pop magazine Smash Hits labelled them, never saw the limelight again, preferring to work behind the scenes in the studio on other people's projects. 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 lite-jazz ballad format) and Two Tribes were Top 20 hits in 1997, while Welcome To The Pleasuredome also got successful remix treatment to the extent of a Top 20 placing four years earlier.
The group's first two singles appeared sixth and 22nd respectively in the official all-time UK best-selling singles list issued in 2002. FGTH releases are still coming out, with re-released singles and 12" mix CDs appearing every few months somewhere in the world.
A band called "The New Frankie Goes To Hollywood" recently 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 Frankie Goes To Hollywood conventions related to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
In 2003, music TV station VH-1 successfully got Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, O'Toole and Nash back together for a one-off performance on the programme Bands Reunited. Although the quintet got on well and enjoyed the experience, the chances of a more permanent comeback remain slim.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Trevor Horn's involvement in the music industry, in 2004 he announced that a special concert will take place at Wembley Arena in November which will feature four of the FGTH personnel. The exception is Johnson, who announced via the Internet that he would not be appearing and this remains his decision, despite much worldwide protestation from fans yearning to see the five play together again.
Many observers of FGTH's era state that the band, with openly gay members and suggestive lyrics and sleeves, changed lamenting attitudes towards homosexual people as their sound remained raw and masculine, thereby not remotely alienating a heterosexual male audience. Even though ultimately their music was not the best of the vibrant mid-80s era, FGTH emerged as a very important band indeed for reasons beyond music.
This is an Article on Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Frankie Goes to Hollywood Background
Band members
Discography
Albums
Singles
The original singles released during the time the band was together:
External links