FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD - "Relax"

Fixed; thanks!

(By the way, I apologize about the formatting of my
posts, but it seems to be something amiss with the
forum software. For some reason, the "soft" line
breaks in the editing box are turned into hard line
breaks in my posts. For example, in this edit, I'm
using the default 56-character-wide box, and so now
this paragraph is getting posted with that relatively
narrow width.

It seems other people have been able to post without
this problem, at least in the past. I posted about it
in the Forum Problems section.


Edited by mjb50

Hallelulah! That's awesome!!

How did this not turn up before, I wonder.

When did you get it?

Indeed, I'm using a Chromium-based browser (Edge, Chrome, Brave ... doesn't matter which). I normally resize the box to as wide as I can go on my screen with the browser window maximized, but I still get stuck with line breaks at whatever size I set it to. Your workaround to make the box so wide that each paragraph is on one line probably does work. Trying it on this one now.

I feel your pain with records getting lost in a move. In fact, my copy of "Relax" with the 7" checkerboard sleeve is one of the casualties of my last move. No one else had access to it, all my records are in one place now, and yet... poof, it's gone, along with several others I know I didn't intentionally get rid of.

Anyway, the Cash Box mention doesn't actually say promo or retail, just the catalog number and 3:02. So on reconsideration, I think you're right that this was available as the initial retail release. This would be what came out in March '84, and then I believe it was replaced with the 3:54 version very soon after.

When the song debuted on new wave radio in '83, I bought
the above pictured 45 with the 3:01 version.

This version was also on the 12" but as part of the "long
version" ... as I recall the whole first part of the 12"
was a dub instrumental, then at about 4:20 the 3:01 mix
was tacked on to the end and that's how it finished.

The following year I bought the newer "hit" 45.

MM

A few points to add to the discussion:

--The 12” single appeared in Billboard’s single review
column in the January 7, 1984 issue, and the 45 appeared
in the February 4, 1984 issue (showing the running time
as 3:02). This suggests that the 12” had been released
by late December 1983, and the 45 by late January 1984,
at least in promotional form.

--I have always assumed that the “dancing couple” picture
sleeve was used with the single’s first release in 1984,
and the “checkerboard” sleeve was used with the single’s
second release in 1985. The checkerboard sleeve
certainly didn’t exist until the time of the single’s
second release (as ‘mjb50’ noted, the back of the sleeve
makes reference to events which took place in the fall of
1984), and it made sense to me that the dancing couple
sleeve would have come earlier, since it has the same
artwork used in the U.K. I don’t know that for a fact,
though, and comments earlier in this thread by ‘mjb50’
suggest that the first release didn’t come with a picture
sleeve, and both picture sleeves were then used with the
second release. FWIW, two books that I have, a 1990s
Joel Whitburn Hot 100 book and an early 2000s Goldmine
price guide edited by Tim Neely, both show the first
release as not having with a picture sleeve, and the
second release as having one. Neither gives any
indication that there were two different sleeves,
however, so it's not clear if Whitburn and Neely were
aware of the existence of both sleeves at the time (if
they only knew about the checkerboard sleeve, they may
have assumed that the first release didn’t come with a
sleeve, based on the checkerboard sleeve clearly not yet
existing at the time of the first release).

--I have always thought that the 3:02 version
corresponded to the first release in 1984, and the 3:56
version to the second release in 1985. I may have gotten
that idea from the previously referenced Whitburn book,
which indicates that the second release is a different
mix from the first one. I had recently come to the
conclusion that the 3:56 version has to have appeared
much earlier than the time of the second release,
however, after realizing that the catalog number of the
PR 600 promo (which contains the 3:56 version) suggests a
March or April 1984 release. The earlier discussion in
this thread has clinched that for me. The 3:56 version
came out partway through the first release, early enough
in relation to when the song charted that the 3:56
version was arguably the hit version both times.

--I have always struggled to figure out where the purple
label copies with the 3:56 version fit into the
chronology. I had noticed that Island used the purple
labels for the 1985 follow-up “Welcome To the
Pleasuredome”. Were the purple label 3:56 versions
pressed in 1985 during the second release as part of the
same purple label revival as “Welcome To the
Pleasuredome”? Or are they late first release pressings
from early 1984? Earlier in the thread, ‘mjb50’
indicated that he thinks they’re from 1985. Now that
we’ve confirmed that the 3:56 version replaced the 3:02
version so early on, though, I think they’re from 1984 –
it just makes too much sense to me that this is where
they come from.

So, this is the chronology of the 45, as I see it:

1)     The 45 was first released around January 1984.
Stock copies had purple labels with the 3:02 version.
They may have possibly come with the “dancing couple”
picture sleeve, or they may not have come with any
picture sleeve at all; exactly when Island used the
dancing couple sleeve is not entirely clear to me (they
definitely did not come with the checkerboard sleeve).
Promo 45s had the same catalog number as stock copies (7-
99805) and used the same 3:02 version as stock copies.

2)     Around March or April 1984, Island decided to
substitute the 3:56 version on the B-side of the 12”
single as the 45 version. Promo 45s with the catalog
number PR 600 were issued to make this version available
for promotional purposes. Stock copies switched to the
3:56 version at this point, presumably still using the
purple label.

3)     Around December 1984 or January 1985, the single
was re-released, this time on the blue label, still using
the 3:56 version. Second release copies were definitely
available with the “checkerboard” picture sleeve, and may
have possibly also been available with the “dancing
couple” picture sleeve (exactly when Island used the
dancing couple sleeve is not entirely clear to me).
About the same time, Island issued a new promo 45, PR
695, containing the 3:55 LP version (a promo 12” with the
same version also appeared as PR 696), which is overall
fairly similar to the 3:56 version. (Why did Island
issue the LP version on promotional singles if they
weren’t going to use it on stock singles? Was the PR 600
promo with the 3:56 version also re-serviced to radio at
this time as well?)

4)     Copies of the 3:56 stock 45 also exist on the
black label that Island introduced in 1985. These are
very late pressings of the second release.      

Edited by MCT1