![\"Frankie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Frankie-Goes-To-Hollywood-1980s-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Sat 11 October 2025 6:00, UK <\/p>\n
For a brief but dizzying moment in the 1980s pop sphere, new wave cohort Frankie Goes to Hollywood<\/a> smashed to the top of the charts like a thunderous maelstrom of pop ingenuity and gleeful subversion.<\/p>\n Eager to turn heads, frontman Holly Johnson knew from their Liverpool founding in 1980 that he wanted a band that would combine punk\u2019s political urgency with disco\u2019s decadent dancefloor sexuality. Corralling the city\u2019s Peter Gill in drums, brothers Mark and Jed O\u2019Toole on respective bass and guitar, and recruiting Paul Rutherford as the crucial backing dancer, a reputation quickly surrounded the revamped Frankie Goes to Hollywood two years later, often playing their early sets in S&M bondage gear and heavy leather popular in the day\u2019s gay clubs.<\/p>\n Such overtly homoerotic flair needed a fittingly queer and hedonistic anthem. Late to rehearsals in the winter of 1982, Johnson\u2019s rush to go through Toxteth\u2019s Princes Avenue sparked the lines \u201crelax\u201d, don\u2019t do it\u201d, triggering such mirth he was laughing to himself while singing out loud lyrical reverie to meet the band. Turns out, Frankie Goes to Hollywood had their first number one.<\/p>\n First seen by a mass audience via their performance on Channel 4\u2019s The Tube, \u2018Relax\u2019s early incarnation possessed little of the sonic bluster that would see the Scousers to pop conquer. A more sleazy funk affair, the unsigned band caught the attention of up-and-coming hotshot producer and former \u2018Video Killed the Radio Star\u2019 Buggle Trevor Horn<\/a>, who caught Frankie Goes to Hollywood\u2019s low-key TV spot and decided to sign them up as the first artist to join his newly launched ZTT Records.<\/p>\n It was here that \u2018Relax\u2019s essential sonic bombast was forged. With all the latest synthesisers and sampling technology at their disposal, including the revolutionary Fairlight CMI, Frankie Goes to Hollywood headed to Oxfordshire\u2019s Manor Studio and injected their camp disco cut into a beefy, electro NRG banger that both heralded an electric new sound in the pop world while also elevating the song\u2019s paean to unabashed gay sex.<\/p>\n Complete with Bernard Rose\u2019s Caligulan music video and ZTT co-founder Paul Morely\u2019s visionary marketing campaign, responsible for the iconic \u201cFrankie says\u2026\u201d T-shirts, Frankie Goes to Hollywood launched into the mainstream, announcing the decade\u2019s true arrival amid its arresting pop whirlwind and smart, media machine. Sales were sluggish initially, but a raucous appearance on the BBC\u2019s Top of the Pops swiftly found the band spiralling upwards, as well as courting some juicy controversy with Radio 1 DJ Mike Read\u2019s public displeasure at the single\u2019s artwork, resulting in Auntie Beeb\u2019s soft internal ban.<\/p>\n