7/15/2006

Happy Birthday Trevor Horn.


Waist High's favorite record producer Trevor Horn's songwriting credits date back to 1979 with "Baby Blue," a song for Dusty Springfield co-written with Geoff Downes, with whom he went on to form Buggles. The Buggles' hit, "Video Killed The Radio Star," reached number one in 16 countries and would achieve immortality as the first video ever played by MTV.

From Buggles, Horn moved to Yes, where he co-wrote all of their 1980 album, Drama. In 1984 he returned to the band to co-write their biggest ever hit, "Owner of a Lonely Heart."

Horn worked with Malcom McLaren on 1983's Duck Rock, which included the song "Buffalo Gals," the second record ever to feature "scratching." The only other record with scratching before "Buffalo Gals," according to Horn, was Grandmaster Flash's "On The Wheels Of Steel."

By 1984 The Art of Noise became Horn's main songwriting platform, and by 1985 he had written "Slave To The Rhythm," originally intended as Frankie Goes To Hollywood's second single, but given to Grace Jones instead.

Horn achieved great commercial success as a producer in 1984, firstly with the Liverpudlian band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and secondly with the charity group Band Aid and their enormous hit "Do They Know It's Christmas." In the UK, Frankie Goes to Hollywood was the best-selling band of 1984; the success of singles such as "Relax" and "Two Tribes" helped to bankroll ZTT Records, which Horn had co-founded in 1983. "Do They Know It's Christmas" became one of the best-selling singles of all time.

Trevor Horn the producer has also proven his genius with ABC's The Lexicon of Love, Marc Almond's Tenement Symphony, Cher's It's A Man's World, Bryan Ferry's "Dance With Life," Genesis' "The Carpet Crawlers," Pato Banton & Sting's "Spirits in the Material World," Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt, Pet Shop Boys' Introspective, Seal's Seal, Seal's Seal II, Seal's Human Being, Seal's Seal IV, Simple Minds' Street Fighting Years, Spandau Ballet's Instinction, Rod Stewart's Vagabond Heart, and Tina Turner's Wildest Dreams.

Material: perfectsongs.com & wikipedia.org