THE SUNDAY CORRESPONDENTS

Welcome to the first in the new series which features guest postings from a small team of correspondents. Today's words of wisdom come from John Greer, currently residing in East Lothian in Scotland, but someone who was born and raised on the other side of the Forth Estuary in the Kingdom of Fife. And it focuses on someone never featured before on TVV......

“AN ARCHITECT OF SOUND...”

Paul Morley, writer, broadcaster, media icon and co-founder of ZTT Records has best described the contribution of Trevor Horn to the world of music:-

“If in the 60s, Phil Spector created a ‘wall of sound’, by the middle of the 80s Horn had already established his sound, a whole room of sound, the walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows, decorated with absolute flourish. As an architect of sound, Horn is unashamedly an exhibitionist, an utter show off... He has proved time and time again that pop is an art form, and that he is the supreme pop artist.”

Trevor Horn began his professional career as a backing musician in the 1970s for chart star Tina Charles. One of the other members of her backing band was keyboard player Geoffrey Downes. Horn and Downes formed The Buggles in 1978 and their first single Video Killed the Radio Star went to number one throughout the world in 1979.

The same year, Horn added his production skills to The Jags hit single Back Of My Hand.

After a brief period as singer with progressive rock band Yes, Horn then had his first sustained run of production success with the pop band Dollar in 1981.

There was a run of Top 20 singles, all written by Trevor Horn. The four songs formed a love story : Hand Held in Black and White (the meeting), Mirror Mirror (the loving), Give Me Back My Heart (the break-up) and Videotheque (the postscript).

For me, Give Me Back My Heart is the perfect pop song, which shows off Horn’s production skills. Horn had used the super-cute cabaret pop duo Dollar to experiment and the result was a pop sound that was alluring. At this time, I was interested in music by Dexy’s Midnight Runners - but I found myself buying those Dollar singles and not caring about my street credibility.

Thankfully for my street cred, there were no headlines in the Fife Free Press local newspaper that read- "Man in Donkey Jacket buys Dollar single"

mp3 : Dollar - Give Me Back My Heart

This single reached #4 in the UK charts.

Following this run of success, Trevor Horn’s next big project was at the helm of ABC’s debut album The Lexicon of Love.

It was during the recording of this album that Horn first put together his key production team: Anne Dudley who provided the keyboards, orchestral arrangements and co-wrote some of the tracks while Gary Langan became chief engineer. There was also the use of the Fairlight CMI, the first digital music sampler that had been pioneered by Kraftwerk.

The Lexicon Of Love reached #1 in the UK charts and #24 in America. Four singles crashed into the UK Top Ten. while The Look of Love was also #1 in the American dance charts. The album remains a critical favourite and was recently acclaimed to be one of the 100 best albums of all time in the Q music magazine.

The Lexicon of Love is an album which I still listen to now and love. It is one of the finest albums from the ‘80’s with its Motown-ish white soul boy sounds and pop hooks. Horn’s production, aided by Anne Dudley’s arrangements of strings, horns and choirs and ABC’s clever song writing make it a classic.

mp3 : ABC - The Look Of Love

In the same year that he worked with ABC, Horn also produced and co-wrote two hit singles with Malcolm McLaren - Double Dutch and Buffalo Gals. However, his greatest commercial success came with his next collaboration, Frankie Goes to Hollywood who he signed to his ZTT Record label after seeing a video of Relax on the Tube music programme.

Horn described the original version of Relax as more of a” jingle than a song”, but he worked his magic on it while Paul Morley implemented a marketing campaign that he described as a “strategic assault on pop” with an emphasis on the open homosexuality of band members Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford, including the sleeve of the single and promotional video.

Everything worked perfectly particularly after January 1984 when BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read publicly declared he would not play the single because of its record sleeve artwork and its lyrics.

Relax went to #1 in the UK and stayed there for 5 weeks.

Horn went on to win Brit Awards for Best Producer for 1983, 1985 and 1992, in America he won Rolling Stone’s Producer of the Year 1983.

Anne Dudley and Horn later started to produce their own musical output as Art of Noise, while he also wrote and produced the wonderful Slave to the Rhythm for Grace Jones. It is said that it took Horn six weeks to perfect the hi-hat sound on this epic.

mp3 : Grace Jones - Slave To The Rhythm

Over the years Trevor Horn has produced a wide variety of artists from all sorts of genres - Propaganda, Simple Minds, Pet Shop Boys, Tom Jones, Marc Almond, Seal, Belle & Sebastian and even Charlotte Church.

In 2002, he co-wrote and produced All the Things She Said for t.A.T.u. which became a worldwide hit.

In 2004, the Wembley Arena in London hosted an evening to celebrate Trevor Horn’s 25 years in music.

I started with a gushing quote from Paul Morley but it's probably not well-known that the writer wasn't always a fan. The first interview in 1979 at the time of The Buggles described Trevor Horn as:-

“A dustbin man of pop, picking up rubbish and redistributing it”

...and Morley concluded by recommending that Horn should listen to Public Image’s album Metal Box.

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But 30 plus years on there can be no arguement that Trevor Horn is someone whose involvment with pop music has been influential, inventive and innovative. I'm proud to be a fan.

John Greer, Sunday 10 January 2009