MORE The Top 20 best-selling debut singles on the Official Chart The ‘ban’ was eventually lifted at the end of the year when a triumphant Frankie, who’d scored three chart-toppers (the third being The Power of Love in December) with their first three singles – the first act to do so since Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1963, appeared on the Christmas Day Top Of The Pops and performed it. Relax would then spend the rest of the year knocking around the chart, even rising back up to Number 2 when Frankie’s follow-up Two Tribes spent nine weeks at the top. Despite having been played fairly regularly on the station up to this point, the song was effectively ‘banned’ from daytime Radio 1 and Top Of The Pops, although it was still spun in the evening shows and also on local radio stations.Įven as the group had made a second, less challenging, video, they were denied the chance of performing the song when it climbed to Number 1 a fortnight later, and stayed there for five weeks. Brrrr.īack to the eventual rise up the Top 40, and as the song rose from 35 to 6, when playing the chart rundown on Radio 1, DJ Mike Read expressed his displeasure at the song after looking at the racy sleeve and then refused to play it. Coupled together with an iconic yet fruity video made by Bernard Rose, where a gay nightclub was recreated in a warehouse around London’s Docklands area, and which featured several of the group’s mates as well as patrons of Earls Court bar The Coleherne having a perv-up and which made gay clubs look like they involved shaving semi-naked emperors and being attacked by tigers.
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD FRANKIE SAYS RELAX SERIES
A more palatable 7 minute New York was issued which became the key floorfiller, as well as a more impactful 4 minute version for general public consumption.Īround this time, Morley had set about promoting the group with a series of slightly saucy adverts with Holly and Paul dressed in rubber in various style magazines, which cheekily pitched them up against the likes of Wham! and Duran Duran.
There were a variety of mixes issued, with a 16 minute Sex Mix peppered with sound effects of splashing water and zips, and a section where Holly recited the names of various nightclubs. After several endless sessions of tweaking and finessing the song, Horn put together three mixes alongside some studio trickery and Relax was born, even if the band’s actual contribution to the finished article was negligible (aside from Holly’s vocal, the sound of them jumping in a swimming pool was sampled for the erm ’splashy’ effects). The first version he recorded with the band wasn’t up to standard, so he got Ian Dury’s backing band the Blockheads in to help sessions out. The band then embarked on a somewhat arduous task of recording Relax, a song whose key line had come to Holly while he was walking around Liverpool. He tracked the group down and snapped them up in May 1983, after convincing his business partner, and former journalist, Paul Morley that they were the future.
Fortunately watching The Tube that evening was producer Trevor Horn – who was having quite a successful run having recently produced ABC’s landmark The Lexicon of Love album the previous year, and who was looking for turns to sign to his new label Zang Tuum Tumb (ZTT).
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD FRANKIE SAYS RELAX TV
MORE: Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Official Chart historyįrankie recorded a series of radio sessions for the likes of John Peel and were championed by Janice Long, however it was their performance on the TV show The Tube, recorded at the Liverpool State Ballroom.
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