Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax

The 16-minute Sex/Original mix of "Relax" is not exactly a fun dance track, nor is the 8-minute edited version. It's more just a collectors' item. The entire arrangement is essentially just a meandering, endless "dub version" where samples and elements of the song's instrumentation come and go along with generous amounts of reverb, but none of the familiar lyrics or essential parts of the song are to be found. It's like a bunch of rejected samples and spare parts thrown together, providing the listener with something that sounds kinda like the hit song, but only as a reminder, like getting the smell of delicious food without the taste and texture. The thrown-in "kissy noise" samples are also obnoxiously placed, even by 1983 standards.

The reason for this situation, as Trevor Horn likes to tell it, is that Horn had never been to a disco before. He didn't understand how DJs were mixing dance records, and what kinds of song structures did & didn't work on the dancefloor. After a visit to a New York club in late 1983, he finally "got it" and set out to make the New York Mix, which is the harder, more traditionally structured, 7-and-a-half minute extended version that's found on most of the other 12" releases.

I don't know whether to really believe this story. I mean, disco had long been established and had run its course by then. His band Buggles even scored huge disco-pop hit several years earlier with "Video Killed the Radio Star". So even if he was otherwise living under a rock, he surely knew what kinds of sounds would get people's booties shaking. It seems unlikely that he would have no clue that stripping the song of all of its interesting parts and then filling up an entire side of a 12" with leftovers wouldn't get people excited. Maybe he's just printing the legend because he's embarrassed. Or maybe he's trying to spin the decision to release numerous versions of the same song as fixing a mistake rather than crass commercialism.

Possible buyers, be very aware with this release if you're trying to buy it based upon it being the printed, over 16 minute (Sex Mix) of the track "Relax". This one (and the UK one, at least, and perhaps other 12"s under the Master Release here too (?), like the Italian one) are most likely not going to be the one you're after then. They are commonly (if not almost exclusively) incorrectly listed available for sale, and will actually only contain the just-over 7 minute Relax (US Mix) version instead, despite the wrong info on the printed labels and the sleeve. If it has a 45RPM also printed on the label, this will help give away the lie that this is a way shorter version, not the long version advertised.