As of October 2019, the video has over 5.1 million views. The second version was uploaded to ZTT Records’ YouTube channel in January 2014. The second version was directed by Godley and Crème, and features the group performing the track surrounded by lazers. This video has allegedly been banned by the BBC and MTV. The first official music video for the track was directed by Bernard Rose and was set in a S&M themed gay nightclub, featuring the bandmembers, leathermen, a drag queen and an admirer dressed as a Roman emperor. The single was also banned from BBC Radio, and the controversial adverts for the track only fuelled the controversy: it featured Paul Rutherford in a sailor cap and a leather vest, as well as Holly Johnson with a shaved head and rubber gloves, accompanied by the phrase: “ALL THE NICE BOYS LOVE SEA MEN”. By the time Holly sang the vocal at 4 am, he was so totally hyped up, he was crazy, like a Doberman with a rabbit in its teeth”. Horn has recalled the memory of finally perfecting the track: “They heard it, (Holly) and Paul immediately started to dance, and so did the rest of us, just dancing around the control room. However, it was the fourth version featuring a beat Horn had previously made on a LM-2 drum machine, with funny noises from Jeczalik on the synthesizer. However, Horn was still not happy with the track, so the third version was recorded by Horn, producer/engineer Steve Lipson, keyboard player Andy Richards, and Fairlight synthesizer programmer JJ Jeczalik.
Not satisfied with the original version, Horn decided to record a second version with Ian Dury’s backing band “The Blockheads”. Horn described the original version of “Relax” as “More a jingle than a song”, but he preferred to work with songs that were not professionally finished because he could then “fix them up” in his own style. Holly Johnson had expressed in various interviews that he came up with the idea for “Relax” while walking down Princess Avenue in Liverpool: “…I mean they were just, you know, words that floated into my head one day when I was walking down Princess Avenue (in Liverpool) with no bus fare, trying to get to rehearsals – I mean there was no great sort of calculated, ‘Oh I’ll sing these words and this record’ll be banned’.” ZTT Records signed Frankie Goes to Hollywood after producer-turned-ZTT cofounder Trevor Horn saw the band play on the television show The Tube, on which the group played an early version of “Relax”. Frankie Goes to Hollywood was formed in 1980’s in Liverpool and consisted of Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul Rutherford (vocals), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark O’Toole (bass guitar) and Brian Nash (guitar). The track has featured in many different forms of media throughout the years from appearing on a fictional radio station in the video game Grand Theft Auto, as well as the iconic film T2: “Trainspotting”, and not forgetting it becoming the theme tune to Netflix’s one-of-kind interactive film, “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”. Considered to be one of the most controversial and most commercially successful records of the 1980’s, “Relax” from British new wave male band: Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
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