Relax (song)

The hit version, produced by Trevor Horn and featuring the band along with other musicians, entered the UK top 75 singles chart in November 1983 but did not crack the top 40 until early January 1984. Three weeks later it reached number one, on the chart dated 28 January 1984, replacing Paul McCartney's "Pipes of Peace".^[8] One of the decade's most controversial and most commercially successful records, "Relax" eventually sold a reported two million copies in the UK alone, easily ranking among the ten biggest-selling singles in the UK.^[9] It remained in the UK top 40 for 37 consecutive weeks, 35 of which overlapped with a radio airplay ban by the BBC (owing to lyrics perceived as overtly sexual).


In June 1984, bolstered by the instant massive success of the band's follow-up single "Two Tribes", the single re-entered the top ten for a further nine weeks, including two spent at No. 2 (behind "Two Tribes"). At that time, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were the only act apart from the Beatles and John Lennon to concurrently occupy the top two positions on the chart. Several 12-inch single versions (and the "Frankie Say Relax" T-shirt craze) further fed the "Relax" phenomenon. The single re-entered the UK top 75 in February 1985 and, more successfully, in October 1993, when it spent three weeks in the top ten.


In the United States, "Relax" was also comparatively slow in reaching its chart peak. Released in March 1984, albeit with a different mix and nearly a minute shorter in length, the single stalled at No. 67 on Billboard's Hot 100 in May during a seven-week run,^[10] but it ranked number one for the year on the Los Angeles "alternative rock" station KROQ, as voted for by listeners. In January 1985, a release of "Relax" that was far more similar to the UK hit version entered the Hot 100 at No. 70, and in March it reached No. 10 during its 16-week run.^[11] In January 1989, the single was certified gold by the RIAA.


In February 1985, the record was awarded Best British Single of 1984 at the Brit Awards, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood won Best British Newcomer. A version of the song features on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's debut album Welcome to the Pleasuredome, released in October 1984.

Background and recording[edit]

Singer Holly Johnson said the lyrics came to him as he was walking down Princess Avenue in Liverpool: "I mean they were just, you know, words that floated into my head one day when I was walking down Princess Avenue with no bus fare, trying to get to rehearsals – I mean there was no great sort of calculated, 'Oh I'll sing these words and this record'll be banned'."^[12]


ZTT Records signed Frankie Goes to Hollywood after producer-turned-ZTT cofounder Trevor Horn saw the band play on the television show The Tube, on which the group played an early version of "Relax". Horn described the original version of "Relax" as "more a jingle than a song", but he preferred to work with songs that were not professionally finished because he could then "fix them up" in his own style.^[13] Once the band was signed, ZTT co-founder Paul Morley mapped out the marketing campaign fashioned as a "strategic assault on pop". Morley opted to tackle the biggest possible themes in the band's singles ("sex, war, religion"), of which "Relax" would be the first, and emphasized the shock impact of Frankie members Holly Johnson's and Paul Rutherford's open homosexuality in the packaging and music videos.^[14]


Horn dominated the recording of "Relax" in his effort for perfectionism. Initial sessions were held at the Manor Studio.^[15] The band were overawed and intimidated by Horn's reputation, and thus were too nervous to make suggestions. Johnson said in his autobiography, "Whatever he said we went along with".^[14] When attempts to record with the full band proved unsatisfactory, Horn hired former Ian Dury backing band the Blockheads for the sessions, with Norman Watt-Roy providing the original bass line. Those sessions were later deemed to be not modern-sounding enough.^[16] Instead, Watt-Roy's playing was replaced by a sampled E note on a bass guitar, which was layered over a Linn 2 bass drum.^[17]


Horn then constructed a more electronic-based version of the song with keyboards by session musician Andy Richards and with rhythm programming assistance from J. J. Jeczalik of Art of Noise. Horn developed this version of the recording in his west London studio while the band remained in their hometown of Liverpool. Horn had made three versions of "Relax" prior to Richards and guitarist Stephen Lipson joining his ZTT Production 'Theam' in late 1983. Horn left the studio late one night asking for Lipson to erase the multitrack (of version 3) due to lack of progress, but came back into the studio some time later to hear Richards playing a variety of modal chords based around the key of E minor with Lipson playing guitar along to the unerased multitrack.^[16][18]


Ultimately lead vocalist Johnson was the only band member to perform on the record. The only contribution by the other members was a sample crafted from the sound of the rest of the band jumping into a swimming pool. Johnson later said that "Trevor didn't like the band's standard of playing as he couldn't sync it to his machinery".^[15] Horn later recalled of the song's intro, "Hit singles are not just good songs. They need to be moments. Holly had been blowing his saxophone on the studio roof in Notting Hill at 2am, and a bunch of guys appeared on the street, calling up to him. He came down to do the vocal, and I suggested he play it at the start of Relax."^[15]


In a 2021 interview, Horn said that "the band we signed weren't quite the band who had appeared on the original demo, though we didn't know that at the time". The demo had featured Jed O'Toole, brother of bassist Mark O'Toole, on guitar, who subsequently left to pursue a 9-to-5 career. He was replaced by Brian Nash, who was a guitar novice at the time the single was recorded, though Horn acknowledged that he developed into a good guitarist by the time Welcome to the Pleasuredome was finished.^[15] Horn completed the recording having spent £70,000 in studio time.^[19]

Credits sourced from Sound on Sound^[16]


Frankie Goes to Hollywood


Other musicians