Career

Formation

On the B-side to the group's first single, Johnson explained that the group's name derived from a page from the New Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" and a picture of Frank Sinatra. An alternate story relates that a similar article about Frankie Vaughan was the source for the group's name. The original group named "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" allegedly dates from 1980.^[1]

"Relax"

"Relax" was released by ZTT in October 1983 and got a modicum of airplay, allowing it steady progress into the UK Top 40. Following a debut appearance on the BBC's Top Of The Pops on January 5 1984 while at number 35, the single shot to number six in the charts — and then would come the incident which would propel both song and band into pop notoriety forever.

"Two Tribes"

"Relax" remained in the charts when the follow-up, "Two Tribes", was released in May 1984. The anti-conflict song was given an aggressively topical nuclear war slant. Featuring sirens, the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen (who had voiced the British Government's actual nuclear warning ads, Protect and Survive, two years earlier) and another innovative electronic backing, it went straight into the UK charts at Number One and stayed there for a phenomenal nine weeks (the first single to do so since Wings' "Mull of Kintyre" during 1977–78).

"The Power Of Love"

FGTH released a third single, "The Power Of Love", at the end of 1984. A surprisingly thoughtful, well-arranged ballad, it went to Number One in December and gave the band the honour of being the first act for two decades (since Gerry and the Pacemakers (also a Liverpool band) 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 seem to give it airplay only during the festive period. The lyrics are not directly concerned with Christmas, however. The song's release was preceded by an advertising campaign that, cheekily, declared it to be the band's third number one single, as if this was a fait accompli.

The Return And The Decline

In August 1986, the long-awaited new Frankie Goes To Hollywood single, "Rage Hard", was released, reaching number 4 in the UK. Initially showcased promotionally with songs like "Warriors Of The Wasteland", the group's sound had developed a significantly harder edge with a less flamboyant, more nitty-gritty lyrical side. Whilst the single was inevitably promoted as a flagship ZTT product, the result seemed somewhat forced and verging almost on self-parody by 1986. The corresponding album, Liverpool, released in October and reaching UK No. 5 was generally panned by the music press, and chart returns declined rapidly with the follow-up singles "Warriors of the Wasteland" (#19) and "Watching The Wildlife" (#28). The group meanwhile threatened to implode of its own accord, in the course of an otherwise successful tour promoting the new album. Johnson kept himself markedly separate from the rest of the band when offstage at this period, tensions becoming exacerbated during a backstage altercation between Johnson and O'Toole at Wembley Arena in January 1987, reflecting the generally collapsing relationship between lead singer and the rest of the band. FGTH would complete the tour, but Johnson ultimately left the group thereafter, citing musical estrangement.

The Split

In the aftermath of the group split, Johnson was offered a recording agreement with MCA Records. However, ZTT, which maintained they had invested heavily in Liverpool (to the extent that the digital recording system used to record the album was very nearly treated as a sixth member of the band on the sleeve of the "Warriors Of The Wasteland" single), had other ideas, and promptly sued Johnson in an attempt to hold him to his original contract with the label. Among other things, ZTT believed that as a departing member of FGTH, Johnson was required to release all solo material through the label until the band's original multiple-album agreement was fulfilled. The suit was bitterly fought, exposing the inner workings of the ZTT/Frankie machine to a giddy UK music press.

Later years

Johnson's solo career at MCA commenced in 1989, with a succession of high-placed singles and the number one album Blast. The remix collection Hollelujah followed, trailed by a second studio album Dreams That Money Can't Buy. However, Johnson's relations with MCA cooled with this release, and he would ultimately become a reclusive but successful painter, after announcing in 1993 that he was living with the HIV virus. The following year, Johnson recounted his version of Frankie's history in his autobiography A Bone In My Flute. His self-issued 1999 album Soulstream included a re-recording of "The Power Of Love", which was also released as a single.

Reunion and comeback

In 2003, the VH-1 program Bands Reunited brought Johnson, Rutherford, Gill, Nash, and Mark O'Toole together from the far corners of the world, in the hope of their agreeing to perform impromptu on the show. By all appearances, the bandmates got on well enough and enjoyed seeing each other again, but reunion performance did not eventually transpire. Both Johnson and Nash had reservations about performing at short notice in the contrived manner dictated by the TV show format.

Legacy

Observers of FGTH's era state that despite the presence of openly gay members and suggestive lyrics and sleeves, the band's raw, aggressive sound avoided alienating a heterosexual male audience, leading some to change their attitudes towards homosexual people. Thus, even though ultimately many do not consider their music to be the best of the vibrant mid-1980s era, FGTH is considered by some to have been a very important band for reasons beyond music.

Band members

FGTH 1980's members

• Holly Johnson - Vocals
• Mark O'Toole - Bass
• Brian Nash - Guitar
• Peter Gill - Drums
• Paul Rutherford - Backing vocals, dancing and merchandise modelling ("just for the smell of it")

FGTH Today members

• Ryan Molloy - Vocals
• Paul Rutherford - Vocals, Dance
• Mark O'Toole - Bass
• Jed O'Toole - Guitar
• Peter Gill - Drums

Trivia

• The song "Two Tribes" is featured in the PlayStation 2 video-game Grand Theft Auto:Vice City as part of the radio station Wave 103.

• The Little Britain character Lou Todd was seen wearing a "Frankie say Relax" t-shirt in many of the sketches.

• The T-Shirt Frankie Say Relax was featured as a plot device on an episode of Friends. When Ross and Rachel were breaking up in Season 3, Rachel gives Ross back his things from her apartment. Ross then angrily asks for his "Frankie Says Relax" T-shirt, going as far as to put it on to 'prove' how much he loves the T-shirt (despite that it's a size or two too short and was given to Rachel). At the end of the episode, when Ross delivers a box with Rachel's things from his apartment, the only content is the T-shirt - showing that Ross doesn't really hold a grudge against Rachel.

• In Zoolander, Jacobim Mugatu (aka Jacob Moogberg) was a fictional member of FGTH who was ousted from the band before the release of "Relax." The song also features prominently in the central plot of the film.

• In "The Wedding Singer" featuring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymoore, one of the charaters, the cook in the kitchen, is wearing a "Relax" shirt. His line in the movie is: "Relax, go do it".

• The band "The Great One's" once did a performance of "Relax", "Two Tribes" and "Warriors of the wasteland", so successfully that people at the concert had believed it was the real "Frankie Goes To Hollywood".

• A slightly different version of the "Relax" video is featured in the film Body Double, in the context of a scene from a pornographic movie.

• In The Simpsons episode Bye Bye Nerdie, a nerd can be seen wearing a "Frankie Says Relax" T-shirt.

• The band Bloodhound Gang used a "Relax" sample as part of their single "Mope".

Computer game

In 1985, a Frankie Goes To Hollywood computer game was created, based on the music of the band. The objective of the admittedly-strange game was to explore Mundanesville and find the Pleasuredome.

External links

• Frankie Goes To Hollywood Official Site
• FGTHOnline - Home of the Frankie Wiki
• ZTT - Two Decades (fan page about ZTT - incl. FGTH)
• Zang Tuum Tumb and all that
• FGTH and Alternate ZTT Board