Frankie Say… a dissertation by Oli Mayne
This is an extract from Oli Mayne's 2008 masters dissertation in Contemporary Music Studies for Goldsmith's college.
His 20,000-word essay is entitled 'Frankie Say... The Role of the ‘Product’ in the Recordings of the Z.T.T. Record Label, 1984-1985: a Case Study, with a Particular Focus on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Two Tribes’ Release'. This extract covers just the Abstract, and Chapter One.
Abstract
This dissertation takes as its subject the activities and impact of the record label Z.T.T. (Zang Tuum Tumb), in Britain, during the years 1984 and 1985. The label was founded in 1983 by the renowned studio producer Trevor Horn, business woman Jill Sinclair, and New Musical Express popular music journalist Paul Morley; according to official Z.T.T. archivist, Ian Peel, Horn ‘wanted to create an intelligent pop music factory… Morley wanted to use words and imagery to challenge the very perception of what pop music can be’ (Peel: 2004). Z.T.T.’s combination of state-of-the-art recordings and aggressive marketing strategies culminated in one of its acts, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, holding both Number 1 and Number 2 positions in the U.K. singles sales chart in the summer of 1984; the label also achieved substantial commercial success in Europe with these releases. Yet the impact of Z.T.T. ‘Version 1.0’ (Peel: 2004) receded as quickly as it had risen, hastened by a series of legal complications and financial wrangling between the company and its artists. Nonetheless, this period of the label has come to represent in many ways British popular music in the 1980s, and as Simon Garfield concluded in 1989:
Why bother to paraphrase the last decade of British pop in terms of CBS, PolyGram and Virgin or George Michael, Dire Straits and Boy George, when you could do it in terms of just one small independent company (Garfield, 1989: 134)
This dissertation will not plan to discuss in depth the nature of popular music in terms of its structure, appeal, or aesthetic characteristics, space necessarily dictating that a number of concepts, issues and arguments will have to be taken for granted. Rather, taking into account the often intuitive (rather than intellectual) manner in which the popular music industry approaches its cultural environment, and utilising material taken from a number of interviews with Z.T.T. artists and associates carried out by the author, the main crux of the dissertation will be to analyse the label’s marketing and presentational characteristics (the ‘product’) during the years highlighted, in relation to its musical output. As a case study, the dissertation will focus in on the label’s biggest commercial success, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Two Tribes’ single release, combining an analysis of the music itself with an investigation into the marketing campaign and presentation of the track as a commercial release.
Considering the label’s impact in the context of the British society of its time, the dissertation will attempt to place the marketing and publicity methods associated with Z.T.T. in the context of music industry ‘hype’ through the years. And through this example, the dissertation will argue that the ‘product’ aspect of popular music has become increasingly integrated with the music itself; and that the ‘product’ has the potential to carry notable cultural weight, rather than just operating as a ‘shop window’ for the artist.
Chapter One: ‘Don’t believe the hype’
1.1 Introduction:
Be it a string quartet or a pop song, to have any cultural significance, impact, weight….for something to actually reach an audience, obviously its got to work as music… but what’s veiled, and what’s hidden, is all the things that went to promote, distribute, mythologise…all those things that actually communicate the work to the audience…are really importantThe whole idea of presentation and marketing is very important, and the world of the object, the record, has to have some sort of strength
(Z.T.T. artist Andrew Poppy, interview with the author, 11th May, 2008)
There is a vast volume of work in the musicological field that has concerned itself with the constructs and values of what is termed Western popular music in the twentieth century. From Theordore Adorno’s scathing analysis of the art-form in terms of its standardization, conventions, and underlying ‘entertainment’ (in contrast to ‘art’) characteristics, through to recent work by scholars such as Simon Frith, it is clear that this musical form, ‘designed . . . to sound familiar’ (Frith, Straw and Street 2001: 97), appropriates everyday life experiences, utilises structural and harmonic simplicity as well as repetition, and is reflective of the time and society in which it is created.
The remit of this dissertation is not to discuss the general nature of Western popular music, nor the arguments and debates as to its qualities. Instead, accepting the nature of popular music as is evidenced in everyday life, I wish to focus in on the role of ‘extra-musical’ aspects of Western popular music in the late twentieth-century. Marshall McLuhan’s proclamation that ‘the medium is the message’ (introduced in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man) is of no greater relevance than when considering these elements, and it is clear from Elvis Presley’s outrage-inducing gyrating hips to the latest ‘Pop Idol’ talent extravaganza, that popular music has been as much about the personalities as about the music, about the visual as much as the aural, the ‘presentation’ as much as the ‘music’.
1.2 External factors that interact with popular music: a brief overview
There are a number of basic interactions which are relevant to the nature and role of popular music within Western society. At the most basic level, as with all human creative activities, there are numerous socially-orientated discourses which help to define popular music. Social dialectics such as old versus young, male versus female, working-class versus middle-class, social inclusion versus social exclusion; factors which influence production and consumption, such as economics, tradition, attitudes; the more overtly political aspects of life and the general trends of development in Western society in the late twentieth century; all these factors play their role. Of particular relevance is the development of technology and mass manufacturing, through, for example, the availability and utilisation of machines in music-production, and the manufacturing processes by which the artefacts of this largely un-scored music are created, and become disseminated; indeed, Simon Frith has commented that ‘the history of the record industry is an aspect of the history of the electrical goods industry’ (Frith 1988: 13). Furthermore, an increasingly intrusive media presence continues to change the ways in which Western society is presented with information.
As Iain Chambers has pointed out:
The images of our world are increasingly transitory. The information they convey is rapidly consumed. Their circulation is correspondingly forced to accelerate (Chambers 1986: 119)
Underlying all this, it is clear that popular music has become in many ways a “mixed media” based cultural activity, involving itself with fashion and visual image, through a similar appreciation of ‘a frivolous luxury . . . an irrelevance which nevertheless appears to generate almost obsessive enthusiasm’ (Warner 2003: 14). As Brian Eno has commented:
Pop has always involved a melange of at least the following: melodies, sounds, language, clothes, fashions, lifestyle, attitudes to age, authority, relationships, the body and sex, dancing, visual imagery and the reassessments of value in all these things (Eno 1996: 393)
Of particular interest in the appeal of popular music, is the role of audiences. Adorno held pessimistic views of the masses as gullible consumers of popular music, considering that they ‘are a passive mass which is prepared to accept standardized musical forms precisely because it is the product of the same processes as the musical forms themselves’ (as summarized in Middleton 1990: 57). Other commentators have talked about audiences receiving a ‘hypodermic syringe’ of information, which they accept without question. However, a number of subsequently developed information models, such as the ‘two-step flow’ model developed by Katz and Lazarsfeld, have shown that there are a number of factors within any communication process which may influence consumer behaviour. Performers personalities, social backgrounds, aural, visual and social associations are all relevant; likewise, the physical and mental environments in which audiences receive information (i.e. hear music), and indeed, individuals mental capabilities, is also of importance. Furthermore, it has been well documented that the association audiences find with performers is of particular importance. Listeners reflect their own personalities and interpretations on the work presented by the artist, associating themselves with musicians (and inversely, artists attempt to associate themselves with potential audiences) in terms of dress and cultural ritual, as evident in musical ‘subcultures’ such as gothic music and punk music. The relationship between popular music fans and musicians, as such, is often at a far more profound level than in more formal, ‘art’-orientated musical activities, and as Frith has commented, ‘pop music takes its power from the meeting of consumer fantasies of difference and musicians’ fantasies of collectivity’ (Frith 1987: 21)
his is not to say that consumers act independently of any external ‘suggestion’; Middleton, for example, has commented that ‘we do not choose our musical tastes freely; nor do they reflect our ‘experience’ in any simple way’ (Middleton 1990: 249). It is perhaps not surprising that, bearing in mind popular music’s commercial aspirations and corporate industrial presence in a modern capitalist society, where ‘advertising is the official art’ (Williams 1980, quoted in Chambers 1986: 35), the commodity that is ‘popular music’ is increasingly one in which the ‘musical’ plays only one role amongst many. As Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records (whom, as we will see, was intimately linked with Z.T.T.) has reflected:
You used to be able to sell records purely on music and musicianship. Now it’s packaging, media, television and video (Garfield, 1986: 244)
The ‘music industry’, and the dissemination of popular music through marketing and media activities, is as much at the heart of popular music culture as the music itself. ‘Artist development’, ‘product management’, ‘market segmentation’ and other marketing terms are used to outline the activities of music organisations, as they attempt to present artists and musicians to an increasingly media-literate audience (playing on attitudes, values, beliefs, visual connotations, heritage, iconography), even if, as Adorno argued, the audience is aware of the deception taking place. Supporting the music industry’s work is the established media industry, with its network of television, radio, print media and other disseminating options. And, referring back to technological developments, as opportunities have increased, so have the possibilities for promotion; although it should be noted that, conversely, the key promotional avenues, which in the past arguably allowed record companies to dis-proportionately focus audience’s attention, wield less power. The constant which lies at the heart of all this activity is the attempt to create a ‘product’ that either plays on aspects of an artist’s personality, or seeks to create an ‘image’ that builds on the reality.
In conclusion then, there is a continual dialectic between artists and audiences, which involve both parties; as Frith concludes, ‘there obviously is manipulation, but consumers are quite used to spotting and resisting it; at issue here are not just ‘mindless’ fantasies or unconscious desires but also self-conscious decisions and choices’ (Frith 1987: 16).
1.3 Underlying sociological themes of ‘pop’ and ‘rock’
Taking a general overview of recent Western popular-music history, there are a number characteristics that are prevalent. Mary Harron has stated, for example, that:
Pop stands for mutability and glitter. Pop is about dreams and escapism and ecstatic moments. It is egalitarian by nature…and capitalist. Rock is about the search for permanence within the free floating values of the marketplace. It is about tradition (Harron in ed. Frith 1988: 210)
Tim Warner cites the following characteristics which he loosely associates with the terms ‘rock’ and ‘pop’ (during the period of 1967 to 1987) as follows:
Pop: Rock:
Singles Albums
Emphasis on recording Emphasis on performance
Emphasis on technology Emphasis on musicianship
Artificial Real (‘authentic’)
Trivial Serious
Emphemeral Lasting
Successive Progressive
(Warner 2003: 4)
Of particular interest regarding the subject of this dissertation are the elements of artifice versus authenticity, and ‘technology’ versus ‘musicianship’. Artifice is a common aspect of much popular music, dressing up the mundane and the everyday with an air-brushed and almost ‘superhuman’ aura. Its travelling partner is technology and recording, creating artificial aesthetic environments in which music is clothed. ‘Rock’, on the other hand, emphasises the culture of ‘real’ popular musical activity, with its roots often in social stances or traditional folk musical forms associated with particular societies. Here, musical ability (although often not defined in a traditional sense) is paramount, the ability to ‘communicate’ and ‘perform’ as an artist being key. Inevitably this dialectic is not set in stone, and many artists are able to jump between these positions; indeed, many ‘rock’ stances are underpinned with a ‘pop’ mentality, and vice-versa. And this year’s ‘authenticity’ may become next year’s ‘artifice’ - ‘yesterday’s markers of sincerity and authenticity are today’s signs of hype and artifice’ (Dyer, quoted in Negus 1992: 77). Each new musical genre re-defines what it terms ‘authentic’, exposing old authenticities as ‘artificial’, while inevitably paving the way for their eventual demise as well.
A particularly relevant characteristic of popular music is the concept of ‘rebellion’ against society or the ‘establishment’, and its interaction as such with greater society – as Middleton points out, popular music mediates within ‘deep, objective patterns in the socio-economic formation, and that the mediation takes place in struggle’ (Middleton 1990: 9). However, what is clear is that, while much popular music may appear to be in ‘conflict’ with society, this concept of ‘rebellion’ comes up against the unavoidable commercial considerations which underpin its production and success. As such, the history of popular music in the last half-century is littered with examples of rebellion followed by subsequent assimilation into the music industry status quo, playing off ‘the dilemma between the desire to rebel and the fear of what lies beyond the rebellion’ (Street 1986: 183). Recent technological advances in music production and dissemination (the comparative ease of recording; the role of the internet etc), and the subsequent fragmentation of popular music, have meant that it has become possible to produce music ‘outside the system’. However, to achieve mainstream success, popular music still needs to heed the dialectic between attitude and commerce.
1.4 An overview of the effects of these sociological themes on popular music
A brief reflection on the nature of various genres of popular music in Britain since the 1950s illustrates the issues discussed above. The 1950s and early 1960s era of Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard saw popular music focused on ‘hype’ and ‘dream-selling’. In contrast, the developing social awareness of the late 1960s culminated in the rock-orientated, anti-corporate ‘Woodstock’ era (this anti-establishment mentality actually becoming the basis of its commercial appeal – most bands involved eventually signed to corporate record companies). The collapse of the idealistic ‘counter-culture’ in the early 1970s heralded the artifice-orientated era of Marc Bolan and Slade-led ‘glam rock’ (but actually primarily ‘pop’-orientated), but this contrasted with an increasingly ego-driven emphasis on musicianship of progressive rock bands such as Yes and Genesis. Even in recent times, the 1990s technologically-liberating electronic dance music scene contrasted with the more traditionally-orientated aesthetics of Brit Pop, which re-emphasised traditional harmonic and sonic structures.
An interesting example of how an artist can mediate within these contradictions can be seen in the work of David Bowie. Beginning as a semi-psychedelic artist with the release of ‘Space oddity’ in 1969, his career has taken in many cultural twists and turns. Working with a strong visual image and character alter-egos, he has enveloped himself in ‘glam rock’ (as ‘Ziggy Stardust’), American mid 70s disco and funk (‘The White Duke’), late 70s experimentation (the ‘Low’ album and others), early 1980s New Romantic artifice, and ultimately corporate pop superstar following the ‘Let’s dance’ album of 1983. Along the way, he has consistently challenged gender codes and assumptions, and his interaction with his fans has reflected many of the themes of audience reception discussed earlier.
1.5 Particular musical and social developments leading up to Z.T.T.
By the end of the 1970s, the more ‘false’ the image, the more obvious the cultural pretensions. The whole of the 1980s new pop movement… rested on the display of conspicuous commercialism (Frith 1987: 151)
Friths’ observation perceptively summarises the aesthetic undertones underpinning the development of popular music in Britain which are relevant to the background of Z.T.T. Two particular strands are worthy of further investigation: firstly, the legacy of the punk-music scene of the late 1970s, juxtaposed within the on-going development of the concepts of post-modernism as applied to popular music; and secondly, the technological and political character of Britain at the beginning of the 1980s, and its interaction with the music industry at the time.
Much has been made of the musical imprint of punk music however, on reflection, it is the ideology of the time which has become more relevant, with authors such as Greil Marcus for example (in his 1993 book Lipstick Traces) retrospectively highlighting links between punk, and the Dadaist and Situationalist art movements of the early 20th century. In contrast to the ‘rock’ music of the time, with its increasingly alienating emphasis on musicianship, punk’s aesthetic founded itself on cynicism and rejection of established ideas, one of its main ambitions being to lay bare the business techniques and tactics within the music industry. The movements leading group, the Sex Pistols, married their spiky and technically limited sound with a visual image created primarily by their manager, Malcolm McLaren. A former art-school graduate, obsessed with cultural confrontation, McLaren took on board his observations of music industry assimilation, and attempted to find a way in which he could create an ‘anti-group’, utilising the concepts of mainstream pop to sell a ‘product’ that would both undermine and cause general disquiet, both within the music industry, and throughout greater society. This ambition was coupled with an unprecedented focus on elements external to the music. McLaren himself commented bluntly in an interview with I.D. magazine in 1987 that:
music was always important to those clothes…the only reason I got involved with the Sex Pistols was to sell more trousers (as quoted by Harron in Frith 1988: 198)
This attitude reflected an on-going advancement of the concepts of post-modernist juxtaposition of styles and re-invention in popular culture (post-modernism as in ‘a perpetual recycling of quotations, styles and fashions; an uninterrupted montage of the ‘now’’ [Chambers 1986: 190]). The burgeoning British art-school scene was having an increasing impact on British culture, and McLaren and the Sex Pistols work was a new way in which to ‘apply ‘high art’ skills and identities to a mass cultural form’ (Frith 1987: 2). And the music which was to follow (post-punk, and subsequently the ‘New Romantic’ and ‘New Pop’ genres) was seen as ‘the art school version of postmodernism’ (Frith 1987: 153). Punk made it clear that, in the light of the various aesthetic stances which had been before, only the concepts of ‘meaning’ and ‘form’, not content, remained to be subverted; as Harron points out, ‘once rock had ceased to believe in its own sales pitch, irony was the only honest stance’ (quoted in Frith 1988: 194).
Punk thus heralded an era of increased obsession with the artifice of pop, breaking down the previously held aesthetic certainties of popular music. These authenticities were further broken down by the opportunities offered by the technological advances of the time. In particular, televisual technology led to the development of ‘music video’ as a promotional tool, utilising drama and music performance and offering new approaches to visual imagery (often referencing already established media codes and hierarchies). The advent of M.T.V. (Music Television) during the early 1980s brought with it an increased realisation that performances were concerned as much with visual presentation as aural presentation.
On a creative level, access to emerging affordable musical technologies also began to undermine many traditional concepts of ‘musicality’ and ‘musicianship’. In particular, the development of affordable synthesisers and other electronic music instruments, as well as innovations in ‘digital’ recording technology, meant that traditional musical ‘ability’ became increasingly less relevant. ‘Textures’ (ironically often programmed in manufacturers factories, rather than by artists themselves) rather than harmony, became the focal point of popular music. As Frith has pointed out ‘post-modern pop (in the early 1980s) is less an expression of some zeitgeist, then a consequence of the technological shake-up of the entertainment business’ (Frith 1988: 5). Partly as a result of this, the role of live performance in popular music started to become less important, becoming increasingly tied in solely with promotional activities. In particular, whilst ‘miming’ had been commonplace during promotional appearances in previous times, the idea of ‘musicianship’ became eroded to the point where, with particular relevance to Z.T.T., commentators such as Andrew Goodwin, observed that ‘by the time Frankie Goes To Hollywood emerged in the United Kingdom, nobody any longer cared whether or not the musicians played on their own records’ (Goodwin 1993: 35).
Punk’s legacy was also relevant to the changes in attitudes of popular music artists. Malcolm McLaren’s manipulation of the Sex Pistols provided a template for artistic self-control that gave the capacity for artists to control their own destinies to a greater degree. However, whereas punk had utilised this principle to create spectacle, the following years saw popular music artists utilise the principle in relation to the art of consumption. The ‘New Romantics’ of the early 1980s saw ‘each individual consumer choice as a creative act’ (Frith 1987: 143), and the idea of music-making for such artists became increasingly obsessed with commercial as well as aesthetic success. As Dave Rimmer observed:
Punk had applied the anyone-can-do-it idea to the process of forming a band and becoming famous; the New Romantics ditched the trappings and applied it to fame, pure and simple (Rimmer 1985: 22)
In terms of the music industry, its inevitable capitalist aspects came to the fore, a drive towards new concepts of audience segmentation, tied in with an increased emphasis on design, marketing and image which became ‘central to the star-making machinery…they now became more overt, blatant and significant elements’ (Borthwick/ Moy, 2004: 122). The result was a situation which caused Frith to reflect that:
if the avant-garde rock gesture in the last 1960s had been to make music to which no one could easily listen, the avant-garde pop gesture in the early 1980s was to make a product so tightly packaged that its meaning was exhausted in the act of purchase (Frith 1987: 151)
The background to these developments is the political and social climate in Britain. In terms of politics, the late 1970s and early 1980s saw the rise of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative party, promising a ‘bright future’ in comparison with the economic grimness of the late 1970s, through ‘self-destiny’, and an aggressive consumer culture. However, pitched against the realities of a severe economic recession in Britain, this divisive drive resulted in an increased polarisation of society, the dichotomy of those who ‘had’ and those who ‘had not’ (‘yuppie culture’ and mass unemployment; the development of new manufacturing industries and inversely the collapse of established industries; the concepts of ‘personal success’ versus ‘community spirit’) causing increased tensions within society. Tied in with this, the emergence of affordable technology and recording mediums (computers, walkmans, TVs etc) meant that such luxuries were available and utilised widely by the consumers who could afford them. The emergence of a ‘leisure’ orientated society was already beginning to result in changes in consumption trends and interpretation as seen today: the increase of commercial alternatives, shorter attention spans, the concept of the ‘soundbite’, and so on. As such, an ever-wider variety of musical ‘market’ segments, possible aesthetic choices and musical sub-cultures began to develop in contrast to a single, ‘centralised’ youth market. Established approaches became confused, the distinctly ‘rock’ orientated New Musical Express newspaper for example re-valuating their previously held value attitudes towards ‘rock’ and ‘pop’, and quoting comparatively intellectual figures such as Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida to justify their new position. Overall, and perhaps most significantly, as Frith pointed out in the aftermath, ‘no single pop taste, no particular rock fragment, seems any weightier, any truer than any other’ (Frith 1988: 5).
1.6 Enter Z.T.T.…
We’re not in the music business anymore. We’re in the commodities business (Jon Moss of the band Culture Club, quoted in Rimmer 1985: 141)
This then, was the world of popular music in Britain in the early 1980s. British pop was concerned with artifice and pretension, reacting against ‘the perceived greyness of British culture’ (Borthwick/ Moy, 2004: 122); meaning was increasingly being undermined and re-defined by post-modernist principles and aspirations. The post-New Romantic ‘New Pop’ of bands such as ABC, Human League, Soft Cell and others utilised cutting-edge technology, and created narratives which were far removed from realism. Likewise, consumers and ‘tastemakers’ were increasingly placing value on more than just the ‘music’ in ‘pop music’, and the proliferation of music production meant that consumers had the means to investigate and appreciate multiple popular music forms. And ultimately, post-modern culture in the 1980s was ‘actually speaking the ‘truth’ of capitalist experience for the first time’ (Frith 1987: 176); in the cold, harsh world of Thatcherite capitalism, it was sales, profit, and ‘market penetration’ that were the watchwords for success. As Dave Rimmer concluded, New Pop:
embraces the star system. It conflates art, business and entertainment. It cares more about sales and royalties and the strength of the dollar than anything else and…it isn’t the least bit guilty about it (Rimmer 1985: 13)
It was this world in which Z.T.T. records, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood in particular, would make their mark.