The AT40 Blog/March 16, 1985: Frankie says to "Relax"

By the winter of 1985, Frankie Goes To Hollywood wasn't just another band to come out of England.

They were a phenomenon everywhere. Well, everywhere except the United States, but that status was starting to clear up, too.

It took a year for the Liverpool-based band to catch fire on this side of the Atlantic, but once the boys did, they said goodbye to their "fascination" status.

In 1984, Frankie Goes To Hollywood didn't just have a great year, they owned the musical year in their native country. It started with their breakthrough hit, "Relax." But "Relax" was anything but a relaxed recording, according to its producer, Trevor Horn, who first discovered the guys while watching a British television show, The Tube. There, he heard a raw version of the song "Relax" and figured that if he could sign the band to his ZTT Record label, he could take them and mold the song to a place that would work for pop success.

And so he did. Persuading the band to sign with him, he went to work with them on this one song. But the vibe between he and the band wasn't quite working. So after one recording session, Horn went to work by calling in musicians he trusted to work around lead singer Holly Johnson's vocals. It was reported that the band was overwhelmed by Horn's perfectionism and that anything he asked them, they just agreed with instead of arguing a case to keep something in or maybe adding something different.

Horn called on bassist Norman Watt-Roy of the Ian Dury-led The Blockheads to provide the bass line that would be the backbone of the record, as well other members of the group. But when Horn was dissatisfied with that recording, he went another direction, saying what he heard was not "modern" enough. The man behind the success of The Buggles' smash hit "Video Killed The Radio Star" as the group's guitarist and singer and had just produced Yes' comeback album "90125," featuring their eventual first and only No. 1 hit, "Owner Of A Lonely Heart," needed to go another direction.

And once again, Horn turned for help, this time going more electric with session musician Andy Richards playing keyboards and J.J. Jeczalik lending help on rhythm programming, putting the track down in Horn's London-based studio. Guitarist Stephen Lipson joined Horn's newly formed "Theam" team for ZTT Records and took a listen to the third version that Richards and Jeczalik put down. Then Horn told him to just delete the track before he would come back to the studio due to "lack of progress."

One problem, though: Lipson saw hope in that particular musical track and began to play around with it, working his guitar in a variety of modal chords, wrapped around an E minor chord that dominated the track. By the time Horn returned, he was stunned to hear what Lipson had done and rode with it. By the time the recording of the track was over, it was only Johnson's vocals that were heard from the band on the track, prompting some frustration from the band and Horn to explain, "I was just . . . Look, 'Relax' had to be a hit. I could never have done these records in isolation. There was no actual playing by the band, but the whole feeling came from the band."

Well, there was one contribution to the song other than Johnson's vocals -- the sound of members of the band jumping into a swimming pool. That is distinctly heard near the end of the record when it slows down to near silence, then Johnson explodes, "Hwwaaaaah!" 

By the time the recording session was finished, Horn had accrued £70,000 in costs to perfect this one record. But he felt strongly as if he had a hit on his hands.

The next step was marketing the song and this new band. And the way ZTT and Horn did it left those in the UK with dropped jaws in absolute shock, especially the first of the two trade paper ads, which had member Paul Rutherford dressed in a sailor's had and leather vest alongside Johnson with shaved head and wearing leather gloves with the slogan saying underneath in capital letters, "ALL THE NICE BOYS LOVE SEA MEN," declaring that "Frankie Goes To Hollywood are coming," taking a pot shot at the hottest British act at the time, Duran Duran, exclaiming they were, "making Duran Duran lick the sh*t off their shoes," and declaring that "nineteen inches that must be taken always."

Released in the middle of November 1983, "Relax" hit the British chart, but in its seventh week, it was mired at No. 35. The breakthrough, though, came on January 5, 1984 when Frankie Goes To Hollywood performed the song on the wildly popular Top Of The Pops. The reaction to the performance was overwhelming.
However, one disc jockey was having issues with the sexual overtones of the record. He was Radio One's Mike Read, who not only didn't like the lyric, "Relax, don't do it, when you want to suck it, do it. Relax, don't do it, When you want to come," but wasn't all that jazzed by the single's record sleeve of a leather-clad man and woman back to back and "bare bum to bear bum." Read began a protest of not playing the song to his audience, considering the song inappropriate. But little did Read know that the BBC had already started a ban of the record and with that, shows like Top Of The Pops refused to play the song on future shows, as did other shows.

If "Relax" was to be a hit, it was going to do it on sales and little airplay that it got. Well, the record-buying public was fascinated by "Relax." Much to Read's an the BBC's chagrin, "Relax" caught fire on the chart, jumping from No. 35 to No. 6 for the week of January 14, 1984. After that, it took off four more spots on the chart to No. 2 before vaulting to No. 1 on January 28, 1984 and knocking off "Pipes Of Peace" by an iconic Liverpool-based act, Paul McCartney, from the top spot. "Relax" began a strong five-week run at the top of the British chart despite little airplay.

If the BBC and other disc jockeys had no plans of playing the record, the record-buying public was overwhelming them with a revolution that no one saw coming. Even as the song began a slow descent down the chart, it still gained enough points to be a part of the Top 40. "Relax" had gotten as low as No. 31 by May 5, 1984. But in anticipation of a new single, "Relax" gained a new group of fans who went out and bought the 45-rpm vinyl single. And "Relax" began climbing the chart in the UK again. It jumped to No. 26, then No. 24, then No. 21, No. 17, No. 16 and then No. 11 when that new single, the topical "Two Tribes," made a spectacular debut at No. 1 on June 16, 1984.

All that did was fuel a resurgence in the band and interest grew stronger with the first single. The next week, "Relax" leaped back into the Top 10 at No. 5. After a jump to No. 3, "Relax" moved up to No. 2 for the week of July 7, 1984, beginning a four-week run at the runners-up spot behind "Two Tribes," which would dominate the Summer of '84 in England with nine weeks at No. 1. And more fuel was added to the Frankie fire when a new white T-shirt/sweatshirt arrived with the "Frankie Says Relax" in black letters emblazoned on the front.

By the time the chart run was over, "Relax" was, by far, the No. 1 song of the year in the UK, amassing 52 total weeks in the Top 75. But for all its success in the UK and around the world where the song was No. 1 in 11 countries, "Relax" had a difficult time getting any traction in the U.S. It debuted on the Hot 100 on April 7, 1984, but by May 5, it had peaked at No. 67. So any more plans to promote the band in the U.S. were put on hold. But ZTT gave the band another shot in the U.S. with the release of "Two Tribes" in October 1984, figuring with all the hype of the two monster hits in the UK, the band couldn't continue to be ignored, even as the ban on playing "Relax" on the radio in the UK was starting to lighten up.

"Two Tribes" had a little more of an impact to American audiences who were enticed by the song's message of nuclear war between Ronald Reagan's America and Konstantin Chernenko's Soviet Union, especially the now-famous music video of the two actors dressed as the leaders engaged in a ballyhooed fist fight inside a powdered-filled ring while fans cheer them on and Johnson sings and "acts" as event commentator.

Though "Two Tribes" peaked at No. 43, it gave ZTT and Horn hope that "Relax" could make a comeback in the U.S. Giving the song one more shot, "Relax" re-debuted on the Hot 100 on January 19, 1985, at No. 70. This did the trick for "Relax" powered up to No. 45 the next week and debuted -- at long last -- at No. 38 in the Top 40 on February 2, 1985, one year to the day it was a No. 1 song in the UK.

A three-point climb the next week was followed by a pair of seven-point vaults to No. 21. Then came a pair of two-point jumps to No. 17. On March 16, 1985, "Relax" finally -- finally! -- attained success in the U.S. when it jumped up seven places from No. 17 to No. 10, giving the band a Top 10 hit with the worldwide smash. After holding at No. 10 the next week, it dropped to No. 20.

Aiding the song's success in the states were the three music videos done for the song -- the original that got the band's song banned from television in the U.S. which featured the group in a gay bar watching scenes of S&M take place in front of an emperor-like figure that a conservative audience found appalling, the second directed by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme featuring members of the band performing surrounded by laser beams with the band's name and song title emblazoned in neon at times during the song that got the most play on television, and the third version done by movie director Brian DePalma for his new film "Body Double," starring Craig Wasson and rising star Melanie Griffith. There would also be a fourth video version, one done in a live version that also got play on MTV and various video music outlets.

The Frankie Phenomenon was at long last real as "Frankie Says" T-shirts became all the outrage in the States throughout the spring and summer of '85. The messages could say anything after the word "Says," but it was clear that Johnson, Paul Rutherford, Mark O'Toole, Peter Gill, Jed O'Toole and Brian Nash had made it in the States. And back in the UK, "Relax" was named Best British Single winner at the Brit Awards in 1985, a thumbing of the nose at the British music hierarchy who deemed their music inappropriate and deplorable. Two follow-ups to their first two hits also did well -- "The Power Of Love" hit No. 1 in December 1984, the band's third straight No. 1 hit, followed by the No. 2 smash "Welcome To The Pleasuredome," the title track from their album.

The group would have seven Top 40 hits in the UK, including a Top 5 hit in 1986, "Rage Hard." In 1993, "Relax" would have a resurrection on the British charts, hitting No. 5. "The Power Of Love" would be a Top 10 hit two more times in the UK in 1993 and 2000.

However, the band had a short shelf life. Formed in 1980, the overnight success became overwhelming and Johnson kept having one eye on a solo career, further alienating himself from the band to the point that before a show in Wembley Stadium in January 1987, he and Mark O'Toole came to blows. That accelerated the decline of the band, which finished a less-than-inspirational tour, then watched Johnson move on. The band would break up soon after, but in 2003, VH-1 attempted to bring the band together for a show, but Johnson was hesitant to do so. A year later, though, the O'Tooles, Gill and Rutherford reunited to do a tour with new lead singer Ryan Molloy, embracing the gay audiences they gained during their heyday as well as straight audiences.

The quintet, avoiding a possible lawsuit with Johnson over the name of the band, called themselves Forbidden Frankie, but the name and the band were short-lived and soon after, the group broke up for good.

As for Johnson, he released a No. 1 album/CD in the UK in 1989 called "Blast," and his star was rising as a solo star thanks to a pair of Top 5 hits, "Love Train" and "Americanos." But just as his joy was overflowing came the sobering news in November 1991 that he was HIV-positive, finding out around the same time legendary Queen lead singer was dying from the dreaded disease. He wouldn't reveal his illness until a 1993 interview, withdrawing from the music scene for a couple of years. Taking a cocktail of drugs that have kept him going and very much alive, Johnson would come back and continue to work and tour. In 2015, Johnson and British boy band Take That leader Gary Barlow combined efforts on a song called "Ascension" for the movie, Eddie The Eagle. The song was to be released in March 2016.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood, which the band named itself after a famous New Yorker magazine story with the title that depicted Frank Sinatra leaving for a movie career, has long been gone. But for one year, they dominated music like very few acts ever did, especially on a record that only one member got to participate on that caused a furor in their native country.

Maybe the T-shirt should've read "Frankie Says Enjoy The Moment."

The AT40 Blog/March 12, 1977: Some "year" for Stewart

For most people paying attention, Al Stewart's classic first Top 40 hit, "Year Of The Cat," draws similarities to the famous Humphrey Bogart movie Casablanca. It's hard not to think that way when the opening lyrics start, "On a morning from a Bogart movie. In a country where they turn back time. You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime."

The movie came out three years before the Scottish singer-songwriter was born, but had a profound effect on Stewart as he composed this mysterious tune. However, there's an even bigger inspiration to "Year Of The Cat" that has a much darker story to it than the one woven in Casablanca.

Ten years before the recording of the song, Stewart, who was 21 at the time, saw a British comedian named Tony Hancock. Hancock's act would include threats of "ending it all here on stage" as he came off as a depressed individual who would call himself "a complete loser."

Hancock made a name for himself in Great Britain on the radio as host of the BBC show, Hancock's Half Hour, in 1954. Two years later, that show made its way from radio to television and Hancock hosted it until 1961, building a bond between the star, the audience and his co-star, comic actor Sid James. But starting in 1960, Hancock began his way down a self-destructive path, first granting an interview with former Labour MP John Freeman, who Hancock liked, and being frank with him, saying that he was a bit of a perfectionist and was always self-critical of his own work.

To many, including his own family, that was the start of his own end. He had snubbed James and others on the show in later years, including show writers. The mix of Hancock's own ego along with self-doubt began to rule his life. After the show ended, Hancock needed an outlet or an answer to his own troubles. He reportedly spent his spare time reading self-help books, classic novels or political pieces to find those seemingly lost answers.

In 1961, his show's main script writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, wrote Hancock three screenplays to potential movies, but eventually rejected all three, reportedly never reading the scripts. The relationship between Hancock and the two script writers all but ended and another writer, Phillip Oakes, was hired to write a script for the next Hancock project, a television pilot for the show Steptoe And Son and then created the script for The Punch And Judy Man, a 1963 movie Hancock would star alongside actress Sylvia Sims.

Alcohol began to overrun his life and a number of failed projects by the mid-1960s began to ruin Hancock. He did a series of advertisements for Britain's egg marketing board in 1966, and soon after did two TV series that didn't do well. Still, the comedian-actor had gotten a gig to do a 13-show series on Australia's Seven Network called Hancock Down Under and flew to Australia to start work in early 1968.

Of the 13 shows he was to do, Hancock completed only three of them, episodes that were kept secretive for years. The alcoholism grew worse and on June 25, 1968, Hancock took his own life, mixing amylo-barbitone tablets with vodka, leaving a note for those who found him that read, "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times." Hancock was 44 at the time of his passing.

In 2002, a poll was taken for favorite British comedian of all time for which Hancock was voted tops on the list. Actor Alfred Molina portrayed the troubled comedian in the 1991 movie Hancock, a BBC network television production.

Stewart, though, saw Hancock at the lowest of his lows in 1966, and began to write a composition with the title "Foot Of The Stage." In Neville Judd's book, Al Stewart: Lights... Camera... Folk Rock: A Life In Pictures, Stewart told the story of that show: "He came on stage and he said, 'I don't want to be here. I'm just totally pissed off with my life. I'm a complete loser, this is stupid. I don't know why I don't just end it all right here.' And they all laughed, because it was the character he played... this sort of down-and-out character. And I looked at him and I thought, 'Oh my god, He means it. This is for real.'"

By the time Stewart was to record his seventh studio album, Stewart had the old melody of that song he never finished. He finally put words to it, but turned it from that downtrodden comedian he saw in 1966 and made it into a mini-mystery movie thanks to Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and written about an American expatriate during World War II, played by Humphrey Bogart, who has to decide between helping a Czech Resistance leader, played by Paul Henreid, escape Vichy-run Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis, or the love of an old flame and that leader's wife, played by Ingrid Bergman. The film ended up winning three Academy Awards. The narrative of Stewart's song is done in the second person voice of a tourist who visits an exotic market and is approached by a mysterious silk-clad woman, who takes him away on a romantic adventure. By the end of the song, the tourist wakes up alongside the mysterious woman, but the other tourists are gone and both his tour bus and tickets are gone, too, leaving him to stay behind.

To set the tone of the tune, Stewart's piano player in his band, Peter Wood, developed the opening with his work on the instrument. It made the song recognizable for generations to come and gave Wood a co-writing nod alongside Stewart. From there, Stewart and his band worked with producer Alan Parsons on the track. Recognized as the engineer behind famous Beatles records "Abbey Road" and "Let It Be" and Pink Floyd's epic "Dark Side Of The Moon," Parsons had Stewart and the band put the tune together almost like a jigsaw puzzle. Each part of the song -- from Wood's piano opening to the percussion to the acoustic guitar work of Stewart and Peter White to Andrew Powell's string arrangement that included Bobby Bruce's memorable violin work -- came together. This was important for the 6-minute, 40-second album version of the song, four of the minutes spent on the instrumental track.

When Stewart began writing the song, it was the "Year Of The Cat" on the Vietnamese calendar for 1975 and corresponds to the rabbit on the Chinese calendar.

"Year Of The Cat" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at an auspicious No. 98 on December 11, 1976, and got to No. 84 by New Year's Eve. But as 1976 turned to 1977, the single took off, leaping from No. 84 to No. 64 to No. 50 and then No. 36, where it debuted in the Top 40 on January 22, 1977. From there, it vaulted to No. 24, then No. 20, No. 15, No. 13, No. 11 and on March 5, 1977, leaped from No. 11 to No. 8 to become Stewart's first Top 10 hit single.

"Year Of The Cat" would hold at No. 8 on March 12, 1977 before falling all the way back to No. 26 the next week. The smash single became an endearing part of the winter 1977 as the weather began to turn from being cold to brightening up as spring got closer.

A year later, Stewart would have his second and last Top 10 hit with his No. 7 late fall smash "Time Passages." Overall, Stewart would have four Top 40 hits in his career, one that continues to this day as he continues to play to sold out smaller venues with guitarists Dave Nachmanoff and former Wings guitarist Laurence Juber.

And the highlight of the show near the end is always "Year Of The Cat," the song that became the Scottish star's signature hit.

"Year Of The Cat" may have come from a dark place when it was first penned, but it has been a bright part of pop radio for three generations.

The AT40 Blog/March 6, 1982 ... A time for what we call "classic rock" now

If you are a fan of "classic rock" radio, then you know that you either heard the song for the first time either on FM radio when a lot of AM radio stations ignored the song for either being too long or too loud or on AM radio in an "edited" version because the hit power of this particular record was too strong to ignore.

That was pretty much the 1970s. Then came the 1980s and with AM radio not being as powerful as it once was, FM gained strength in both numbers and wattage. And that's where the powerful pop radio stations suddenly cropped up as the decades changed. Not only did FM have room for those album tracks on rock radio, but for the pop stations that weren't afraid to play the hit-potential album tracks.

Thus a new genre of music came about around 1979-80 -- "arena rock," tracks by rock acts who could sell out arenas and stadiums and can be on the radio everywhere.

And as the 1980s began, the chart was starting to reflect that change. This brings us to the Top 40 chart from March 6, 1982, when it was filled with a number of songs that today we consider "classic rock" staples.

Three songs alone debuted within the Top 40 countdown that can be heard regularly on classic rock radio.

The first of those songs was the third Top 40 hit to come from, "4," Foreigner's most successful album ever, "Juke Box Hero." The tale of a young man wanting to be a rock star and hearing the simple sound of a guitar that just "blew him away," highlighted by lead singer Lou Gramm's soaring vocals and Mick Jones' searing guitar work, proved to be appealing to both the album rock and Top 40 radio stations. Following up the Top 10 hits "Urgent," another rocker featuring Junior Walker's wailing saxophone solo, and "Waiting For A Girl Like You," a synthesizer-charged ballad, which spent 10 frustrating weeks at No. 2, "Juke Box Hero" debuted at No. 39 and would peak at No. 26, spending six weeks on the chart.

Speaking of third singles from albums, Stevie Nicks was doing quite well for herself thanks to her solo debut set, "Bella Donna." She had already scored Top 10 hits with the soulful "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and the ballad "Leather And Lace," songs that were duets with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Don Henley, respectively. This time around, the Fleetwood Mac member was back with a true rocker that has continued to rock out to this day, "Edge Of Seventeen," a free-spirited piece that was originally to be written about the marriage of good friends Tom and Jane Petty, but took a totally different direction after her uncle Jonathan and the great John Lennon died within the same week in December 1980. The song is most famously known for its guitar riff, a pulsating 16th note guitar riff played through three different chords -- C, D and E-minor -- by veteran Waddy Wachtel, who would admit later that he was inspired to play that particular riff after listening to Police guitarist Andy Summers perform a similar riff on the band's song "Bring On The Night." In 2001, that riff was used as the backdrop sample to Destiny Child's No. 1 hit "Bootylicious." But in 1982, it was the backbone for Nicks' third Top 40 hit, which debuted at No. 38. It pushed hard up the chart, but would barely miss out on being a Top 10 hit, stopping off at No. 11. Today, there isn't a classic rock station that doesn't play "Edge Of Seventeen."

The third of these Top 40 debuts on March 6, 1982 was the follow-up to the first No. 1 hit for the J. Geils Band, "Centerfold." The Boston-based blues, boogie and rock band had been hitting the chart for a decade with little success until "Centerfold" pushed them not only into the Top 10 for the first time, but to the top for six solid weeks, including a fifth straight week at the top this particular week. This time around, it was the title track to their first No. 1 album, "Freeze-Frame," a fun and frenzied musical journey co-written by lead singer Peter Wolf and keyboardist-producer Seth Justman that dipped back into the band's recent past of blues. The hit, which debuted at No. 34, the highest-debuting song of the week, features Wolf's fast-moving vocals, Justman's keyboard work, drummer Stephen Bladd's infectious backbeat, which was front and center on this hit, and the horns of session musicians Randy Brecker, Tom "Bones" Malone, Lou Marini, George Young, Ronnie Cuber and Alan Rubin, who seem to have as much of a frolicking good time as the band does on this one. "Freeze Frame" would peak at No. 4.

But the "classic rock" theme didn't just hold to those songs. There was also Huey Lewis & The News' debut hit, "Do You Believe In Love?" which moved up from No. 33 to No. 27,  Quarterflash's first hit, "Harden My Heart," dropping down from No. 7 to No. 18 this week after getting to No. 3, The Police's "Spirits In The Material World," up one notch from No. 13 to No. 12, and The Go-Go's smash, "We Got The Beat," exploding up eight notches from No. 19 to No. 11 and on its way to No. 2.

The Top 4 songs in the country were future classic rock classics as well: The Cars' "Shake It Up" was holding at No. 4, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts' rock anthem, "I Love Rock N' Roll," rolled up six places from No. 9 to No. 3, Journey's rock ballad, "Open Arms," held for the second of a frustrating six straight weeks at the peak position at No. 2 and "Centerfold" held at No. 1 for J. Geils and his band.

Ultimately, MTV's surging fortunes over the next couple of years would separate the star arena rock bands from the "older" acts who were more synonymous in the 1970s than the current decade, but from the late 1970s until the mid-1980s, classic rock was at its finest time.

The chart of March 6, 1982 was only a sample of what that time period was like when album-oriented rock could bring artists a hit or two ... or more.