ZTT's most subversive pop indulgensia assembled with rare expanded mixes and unreleased sessions
8/10
As the years go by in pop music, the seemingly desperate practice of trying to shock is apparent from all sides. Azaelia Banks' troubled past is currently being acted out for all to see with liberal uses of the 'c' word (that's 'cunt', if you're struggling), suggestive magazine poses, featuring a well-aimed middle-finger directed at its gawping 'tut-tutting' audience with her 'smoking' an inflated condom and an expose of her formative years that might make Caligula convulse in his grave and our own liberals reach for their parental guide-books in frightened haste.
Thirty years ago, such behaviour was pretty much unheard of and anything remotely sexually subversive was scowled at, frowned upon and duly swept under the carpet by onlookers who felt threatened (or at best, confused). Looking back, Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford (along with transgender lovebomb Divine and crossdresser Boy George) were little more than pantomime dames, rather than a challenge to our very existence but can arguably and quite rightly, finally be hailed as something of a revolution. They scared the broadcasting hierarchy with a song and that is now finally reason enough to covet their very existence. Azaelia Banks and Pussy Riot are merely continuing that tradition, albeit more vociferously. Relax, keep doing it.
"Sexmix" is a 2 CD compilation that draws material from the deep wells of ZTT and lays it out on a slab like a musical autopsy, the skin and bones of every worthy Frankie single, b-side cassingle and, ahem, cassette celebration laid bare for all to pick over. It's a veritable feast in which some of it tastes great and some of it repeats itself. How many versions of "Relax" can you stomach? For this album aimed at completists, it doesn't matter that much, especially when one of those versions is the 16-minute "Sexmix", the part-inspiration of this compilation (the other being a desire to sandwich 'volumes' of Frankie into one easy to play library). It's also one of many extended mixes committed to CD with a sprightly remaster.
Other Lengthy beasts include "Rage Hard" (17-minutes), "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" (11-minutes, 21 if you add in the other contents of the corresponding cassingle) and, deep breath, a 23-minute reading of "Warriors of the Wasteland" (this release covers singles from both FGTH album-periods, by the way). Very little annoys, even with frequent snippets of Johnson proclaiming that "...the world is my oyster...", but you imagine Trevor Horn and co must still be humming these tunes in his dreams and his nightmares. If I'm to be a picky sod, the cover-versions of "Get It On", "Ferry Across The Mersey", "War" and, gulp, "Do You Think I'm Sexy" are aural bumfluffery, nothing more, nothing less. What are they good for? I'll let you decide.....
As well as the overtly sexual camaraderie at play here, FGTH, Trevor Horn and fellow engineer, mixer, producer and tea-maker JJ Jeczalik were probably outdone here by the Fairlight CMI, a box of tricks so prevalent throughout these mixes that you wonder if, without whom or without which, these exercises in remix culture would have ever existed or sounded so good. These weren't all done in one take, suffice to say that the word 'painstaking' could be applied to the working practice employed by Horn and cahorts. As the sleevenotes point out, tracks weren't erased with Ctrl-Z, they were committed to tape forever, given a rating out of 10 by Horn who then changed his mind and reordered the various fragments to make another mix. Obsessive? Oh you betcha.
Best of the bunch is the timeless Carnage 12" take on "Two Tribes", one of the most iconic records of the '80s with one of the most viewed videos and THAT voice exclaiming that "mine is the last voice that you will ever hear", over and over and over again. Don't be alarmed - "Sexmix" is an essential document of the age, then and now.
8/10
Thirty years ago, such behaviour was pretty much unheard of and anything remotely sexually subversive was scowled at, frowned upon and duly swept under the carpet by onlookers who felt threatened (or at best, confused). Looking back, Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford (along with transgender lovebomb Divine and crossdresser Boy George) were little more than pantomime dames, rather than a challenge to our very existence but can arguably and quite rightly, finally be hailed as something of a revolution. They scared the broadcasting hierarchy with a song and that is now finally reason enough to covet their very existence. Azaelia Banks and Pussy Riot are merely continuing that tradition, albeit more vociferously. Relax, keep doing it.
"Sexmix" is a 2 CD compilation that draws material from the deep wells of ZTT and lays it out on a slab like a musical autopsy, the skin and bones of every worthy Frankie single, b-side cassingle and, ahem, cassette celebration laid bare for all to pick over. It's a veritable feast in which some of it tastes great and some of it repeats itself. How many versions of "Relax" can you stomach? For this album aimed at completists, it doesn't matter that much, especially when one of those versions is the 16-minute "Sexmix", the part-inspiration of this compilation (the other being a desire to sandwich 'volumes' of Frankie into one easy to play library). It's also one of many extended mixes committed to CD with a sprightly remaster.
Other Lengthy beasts include "Rage Hard" (17-minutes), "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" (11-minutes, 21 if you add in the other contents of the corresponding cassingle) and, deep breath, a 23-minute reading of "Warriors of the Wasteland" (this release covers singles from both FGTH album-periods, by the way). Very little annoys, even with frequent snippets of Johnson proclaiming that "...the world is my oyster...", but you imagine Trevor Horn and co must still be humming these tunes in his dreams and his nightmares. If I'm to be a picky sod, the cover-versions of "Get It On", "Ferry Across The Mersey", "War" and, gulp, "Do You Think I'm Sexy" are aural bumfluffery, nothing more, nothing less. What are they good for? I'll let you decide.....
As well as the overtly sexual camaraderie at play here, FGTH, Trevor Horn and fellow engineer, mixer, producer and tea-maker JJ Jeczalik were probably outdone here by the Fairlight CMI, a box of tricks so prevalent throughout these mixes that you wonder if, without whom or without which, these exercises in remix culture would have ever existed or sounded so good. These weren't all done in one take, suffice to say that the word 'painstaking' could be applied to the working practice employed by Horn and cahorts. As the sleevenotes point out, tracks weren't erased with Ctrl-Z, they were committed to tape forever, given a rating out of 10 by Horn who then changed his mind and reordered the various fragments to make another mix. Obsessive? Oh you betcha.
Best of the bunch is the timeless Carnage 12" take on "Two Tribes", one of the most iconic records of the '80s with one of the most viewed videos and THAT voice exclaiming that "mine is the last voice that you will ever hear", over and over and over again. Don't be alarmed - "Sexmix" is an essential document of the age, then and now.