Trevor Horn
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"In 1984, Trevor Horn co-wrote several classic hits with the Art of Noise including "Close (To The Edit)", "Beat Box" and "Moments in Love". The next year he co-wrote "Slave to the Rhythm". This was originally intended as Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s second single, but was instead given to Grace Jones. Horn and his studio team reworked and reinterpreted it, jazz style, into six separate songs to form the Slave to the Rhythm album." --Sholem Stein |
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Trevor Charles Horn (born 15 July 1949 in Durham, England) is an English pop music record producer, songwriter and musician. Horn has produced commercially successful songs and albums for numerous British and international artists. He won a Grammy Award for co-writing "Kiss from a Rose" with Seal. As an artist himself, he has had chart success with his own bands The Buggles, Yes and Art of Noise. He also owns a significant stake in the recording company ZTT Records, Sarm Studios and a music publishing company, Perfect Songs. The three are combined under the corporate umbrella of SPZ. Horn was regarded for much of the 1980s as the best producer in Britain, evidenced by a note that the band China Crisis made on their 1985 album Flaunt the Imperfection (not produced by Horn). They addressed their producer as "Walter (Trevor Who?) Becker". (Walter Becker is one-half of Steely Dan). There are many such casual references to Horn in British culture.
Production
Horn's first production success came with the pop band Dollar in 1981 and 1982. He then went on to produce The Lexicon of Love (1982) by ABC, which reached no. 1 in the UK album charts, and has since been acclaimed as one of the 100 best albums of all time. It was during the Lexicon sessions that Horn first assembled the production "team" that would characterize and define the sound of a Trevor Horn production in the 1980s: Anne Dudley on keyboards and arrangements, Gary Langan (later Stephen Lipson) as chief engineer, J. J. Jeczalik on the lion's share of programming for the Fairlight CMI (which was still a novelty but would prove integral to Horn's production technique), background vocalist Tessa Webb, percussionist Luis Jardim and others. Originally brought in to flesh-out keyboard parts, Dudley was soon co-writing with the group and scoring the album's much-noted orchestrations. She (and the others) would soon be in great demand due to their contributions to Horn's successes.
He achieved his greatest commercial success in 1984, firstly with the Liverpudlian band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. He was approached by Bob Geldof to produce the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?", but he was unavailable. Instead, he gave use of his studio, SARM West in London, free of charge to the project for 24 hours, which Geldof accepted, assigning Midge Ure as the producer instead. So, on November 25, 1984, the song was recorded and mixed. Horn did however produce the B-side featuring messages from artists who had and had not made the recording (including David Bowie, Annie Lennox from Eurythmics, Paul McCartney, all members of Big Country and Holly Johnson from Frankie Goes to Hollywood) was also recorded over the same backing track as the A-side.
Other artists he has produced include Cher, Grace Jones, Seal, Propaganda, Tina Turner, Lisa Stansfield, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, Simple Minds, Eros Ramazzotti, Mike Oldfield, Marc Almond, Charlotte Church, t.A.T.u, LeAnn Rimes, and Belle & Sebastian. Horn received a Grammy Award in 1996 for Seal's second album.
On November 11, 2004, a Prince's Trust charity concert celebrating Horn's 25 years as a record producer took place at Wembley Arena. Performers at the show included the Buggles, Bruce Woolley, ABC, Art of Noise, Belle & Sebastian, Lisa Stansfield, Pet Shop Boys, Seal, Dollar, Propaganda, t.A.T.u., Yes, Grace Jones and Frankie Goes to Hollywood (with Ryan Molloy replacing original vocalist Holly Johnson). Simple Minds were scheduled to perform but did not. A double CD compilation titled Produced by Trevor Horn was released in conjunction with the concert. An edited version of the concert has been broadcast on television in several countries under the title 25 Years Of Pop: Produced by Trevor Horn, and a DVD release of the full concert is available at [1].
On 22 May 2006, the Pet Shop Boys released their album Fundamental which was produced by Horn. The album reached number five in the UK charts. In the same month, he featured in a Pet Shop Boys concert specially recorded for BBC Radio 2. Following the critical success of the event Horn has produced an album version, Concrete, released 23 October 2006. Horn also produced Captain's debut album, This is Hazelville, released late 2006.
