Trevor Horn has now spent more than 40 years defining, shaping, and progressing the sound of British and American pop music.
Dubbed ‘the man who invented the 80s’, Horn rose to fame in 1979 with The Buggles’ prophetic UK number one Video Killed the Radio Star – even from the very beginning, Horn only had his eyes on the future.
Now aged 76, the super-producer and songwriter – responsible for several crucial entries in the big British songbook – has finally allowed himself time to look back on the past, and at his stellar career.
A talking tour of smaller venues across England commences in October, before a short run of three live musical performances in Newcastle, Manchester, and London gets underway in December.
Speaking from his home in north London, Horn tells Metro: ‘When you get to my age, you have to keep busy. There’s a lot of people out there who’ve retired now that grew up with my records. They’re interested, so why not?’
High on the agenda during Horn’s tour will no doubt be his role in the success of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 1984 number one smash hit Relax, which launched a new band to stardom and ushered in a fresh era of British pop, all despite censorship from the BBC.
Horn was watching Channel 4’s The Tube in 1983 when a group of Scousers donning fetish gear and wielding guns appeared on his TV. After consulting with his wife Jill, his bandmate Chris Squire, and ZTT Records co-founder Paul Morley, Horn signed Frankie up.
With a little help from the ‘very naughty’ Morley’s provocative publicity campaigns, Horn transformed Relax into a sexed-up synthpop behemoth that the British public eventually bought in their droves.
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As Relax climbed the charts, however, BBC DJ Mike Read took against its racy record sleeve and lewd lyrical content. The BBC banned the song across its two main radio stations and from Top of the Pops as 1983 ticked over into 1984.
Relax – while immediately adopted as a gay anthem – was released into a hostile environment. Homosexuality had only been legal for 16 years by the time of release, while the age of consent for gay men still stood at 21. Frankie’s Holly Johnson had only just turned 23 when Relax topped the charts.
The whole thing came as a surprise to Horn: ‘I actually thought Holly was singing “When you want to sock it, do it” – I didn’t think he was singing about orgasms.’
Horn continued: ‘But when I realised [the true lyrics], I conjured up the biggest orgasm on record, like lots of people had come across the countryside to have sex together.
‘We were so upset when it was banned, but only for about three hours. It quickly dawned on us that being banned was going to result in us selling more copies. We sold about 55,000 the following week.’
According to Horn, he was first introduced to Britain’s gay scene in the 1970s by his musician friend John Howard: ‘He’d invite me to parties. From those experiences, I started to understand the gay scene a little bit.
‘There were lots of violent people around [where I grew up in Durham]. So I loved gay guys because they weren’t violent. They were funny. Sometimes I was careful about who I invited to the parties. I’d say “This is an [orgy], so don’t look too hard,” but I was pretty familiar with the gay scene by 1984.’
He continued: ‘I’m not gay myself. I wasn’t trying to put any message across [on Relax]. But I’ve got lots of gay friends and lots of LGBT fans have thanked me for the song over the years.’
While British laws surrounding homosexuality progressed in the next two decades after Frankie’s Relax, it turned out attitudes had only shifted slightly by the time of Horn’s next big LGBT chart topper – Tatu’s All the Things She Said.
Section 28 – which prevented schools from ‘promoting homosexuality’ – was still in force in 2003 when duo Julia Volkova and Lena Katina became the first Russian act to land a UK number one.
‘[The song was about] two girls who had a crush on each other – but, as I saw it, their parents didn’t approve. That was the story in my head. I didn’t know if Julia and Lena were gay or not. They said to me that they were “not lesbians all the time – we have boyfriends”.’
Much like Relax, All the Things She Said reached number one in the UK despite campaigns in the media to have it censored and banned. Tatu’s manager Ivan Shapovalov took a provocative approach to push it to the top of the charts, but he made enemies of the British media – and Horn himself – along the way.
The music video for the song featured Julia and Lena (aged 18 and 19 at the time) caressing in the rain while wearing school uniforms as a silent crowd watches on in disgust. Shapovalov – whom Horn regards as ‘unpleasant’, accusing Shapovalov of reducing the two girls to tears during recording sessions – told anyone who’d listen that Tatu were ‘underage entertainment’ for people left ‘dissatisfied’ by online pornography.
However provocative and skeevy the video attempted to be, though, the calls for censorship went far beyond Shapovalov’s visuals. Daytime presenter Richard Madeley objected to the song itself on the grounds that it ‘promoted paedophilia’ and demanded boycotts from radio stations.
Lesbian pop fans were left questioning the true intentions behind the calls for a Tatu boycott, considering that, five years earlier, a 16-year-old Britney Spears had donned a school uniform and danced provocatively in a music video of her own. Calls for a Baby One More Time ban in the UK were much quieter, to say the least.
In the midst of the chaos, Horn sat at home, realising how familiar it all seemed: ‘I felt the backlash to the Tatu record a lot more because I was called a pornographer by the media. I had to explain in letters that I’d just helped on the record and had nothing to do with the video.’
Despite being released almost two decades apart, Relax and All the Things She Said were both introduced to a British public ruled over by a queerphobic and fearful establishment.
Even in 2025, years of progress for LGBT rights are under threat of being repealed, not just in America, where opposition has always seemed stronger, but here in Britain as well. If a song about a queer orgy, or forbidden same-sex teenage love, were released into the UK pop market today, you’re left wondering how the so-called ‘anti-woke’ brigade would react.
Horn, whose son Will came out as transgender in 2017, mused on the current situation: ‘I think it’s rather sad. Just as an example, I think a film like The Imitation Game – the Alan Turing film – shows you exactly how terribly gay people used to be treated. It was really shocking.’
He continued: ‘So yeah, I get sad. I look at America, where they’ve kicked all the transgender people out of the military. Are transgender people not brave? Won’t they be good soldiers? People don’t make a choice to be gay or LGBT, that’s how you’re born.
‘I didn’t choose to be straight after looking at both things – it’s an instinct. It’s important to be kind and tolerant and not get too carried away.’
Turning back to music, Horn says he’s collaborated with Bloc Party on their next album, and has plans to continue working well into his 80s: ‘As long as I can find things that interest me enough, why not keep going? If someone wants me there to produce, I’ll be there.’
So, here’s to more gigantic audio orgasms.
Tickets for Adventures in Modern Recording are available here.
Tickets for Trevor Horn and His Band are available here.
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