Best Trevor Horn Productions: 10 Pioneering Songs That Shaped Pop Music

9: Pet Shops Boys: Left To My Own Devices (1988)

The opening song and second single from Pet Shop Boys’ 1988 album, Introspective, Left To My Own Devices was the first track the synth-pop duo recorded with orchestral backing. Significantly, it was also their first time collaborating with Trevor Horn, who brought in co-producer Steve Lipson and conductor/arranger Richard Niles to direct a 50-piece string section at Abbey Road Studios. What resulted was a soaring disco symphony in which frontman Neil Tennant’s deadpan vocal delivery was framed by a pulsating sequenced rhythm track and Niles’ opulent orchestration. There was also a cameo from classical singer Sally Bradshaw, whose soprano voice added to the song’s grandiosity. An edited version of Left To My Own Devices peaked at No.4 in the UK. Horn reunited with Pet Shop Boys in 2008, producing their Fundamental album.

8: Art Of Noise: Close (To The Edit) (1983)

Although his work with The Buggles, Dollar and ABC established Horn as a mainstream pop producer, he was never conservative in his approach to making records. Straight after helming ABC’s The Lexicon Of Love, he demonstrated that he was willing to venture into new and unknown territory by working with Malcolm McLaren. A year later, he sharpened pop’s cutting edge by forming a futuristic studio “band”, dubbed Art Of Noise, with his backroom team: keyboardist Anne Dudley, engineer Gary Langan, Fairlight operator JJ Jeczalik and the ZTT label’s co-founder journalist Paul Morley.

The group debuted in 1983 with an EP, Into Battle With The Art Of Noise, which was fundamentally a playful guided tour through the Fairlight CMI sampler/workstation’s capabilities. The quintet’s debut album, Who’s Afraid Of The Art Of Noise (1984), included Close (To The Edit), a reworking of the track Beat Box from their earlier EP. Driven by a sequenced bassline glued to a booming drum beat, and garnished with an array of sampled sound effects (car noises, vocal snippets and the famous Fairlight “orchestral hit” preset), Close (To The Edit) was an 80s version of musique concrète. And yet, despite its avant-garde nature, the track was a resounding commercial success in the UK. Easily one of the best Trevor Horn productions of the era, it spent an astonishing 19 weeks in the singles chart, peaking at No.8.

7: Malcolm McLaren: Buffalo Gals (1983)

After crafting the perfect mainstream pop record for ABC, Horn, in what many deemed a surprising move, signed on to produce a more avant-garde project with Malcolm McLaren, the flamboyant fashion designer and controversial former manager of punk rock pioneers Sex Pistols. Horn accompanied McLaren around the world in a quixotic quest to record authentic world music, but grew frustrated because McLaren, who had plenty of wild ideas, lacked a solid plan about what kind of record he wanted. The only thing the impresario was certain about was taking Buffalo Gals, a traditional 19th-century American minstrel song, and sexing it up for a single release.

Wondering how to transform what he dubbed “a corny old square dance” into a hit single, Horn created a hip-hop beat on a drum machine and got New York City DJs The World Famous Supreme Team to rap over it. At the same time, he recorded the duo scratching records and spun in samples from a Fairlight. What resulted was a landmark experiment in sound that tapped into New York’s nascent hip-hop scene while putting digital sampling into the mainstream public’s consciousness. Released in December 1982, Buffalo Gals, the first of three hit singles taken from the album Duck Rock, peaked at No.9 in the UK.

6: Yes: Owner Of A Lonely Heart (1983)

After picking up the Producer Of The Year BRIT Award in February 1983 for his work with ABC, Horn hooked up with Cinema, a band that consisted of four former members of the British prog-rock group Yes. After keyboardist Tony Kaye quit mid-session, Horn persuaded the band to entice singer Jon Anderson on board, and one of the most memorable Yes line-ups was in place.

Owner Of A Lonely Heart evolved from a rough demo that the band’s then guitarist, Trevor Rabin, had recorded in a bathroom. Rabin dismissed the track, but Horn could hear its hit potential and agreed to produce the band on the condition that they record the song. Transforming it into an 80s pop-rock classic, Horn peppered ear-catching Fairlight samples throughout the track to create dramatic moments, giving the song a distinctly contemporary sound among the best Trevor Horn productions. Issued as the lead single from the album 90125 (named after the record’s catalogue number), Owner Of A Lonely Heart reached No.28 in the UK and stormed to No.1 in the US.

5: Seal: Crazy (1990)

In his 2022 memoir, Adventures In Modern Recordings: From ABC To ZTT, Trevor Horn confessed he found Seal’s debut single, Crazy, challenging to produce. Initially, Seal preferred to work on the track with Guy Sigsworth, who had produced the initial demo, but the pair struggled to record a satisfying version of the song. Sinclair then brought in another producer, Bomb The Bass’ Tim Simenon, but despite many hours in the studio, his efforts came to nothing.

Finally, Horn – who, at the urging of his wife, Jill Sinclair, had signed the 6’ 3” singer to ZTT – was brought on board and, taking a different sonic approach, began recording a new backing track in Los Angeles. Dissatisfied with the results, he reworked the track in the UK, bringing in Living Color bassist Doug Wimbush to add groove and multi-instrumentalist Richard Cottle (who had worked alongside Horn on The Dollar Album) to finesse the results. It took 50 rough mixes and two months of recording to arrive at the finished version of Crazy, which rose to No.2 on the UK singles chart and instantly transformed Seal into a pop idol.

4: Grace Jones: Slave To The Rhythm (1985)

Frankie Goes To Hollywood were the first act to record Slave To The Rhythm, cutting a turbo-charged rock version of the song in 1984 as a potential follow-up to their big hit Relax, but an unimpressed Trevor Horn shelved the recording. The producer’s interest in the song was reignited when Island boss Chris Blackwell suggested Grace Jones should record it as a bonus track for a forthcoming greatest-hits album. Horn enjoyed working with the imperious, diva-like Jones but was again disappointed by the finished track, which rattled along at 137 bpm and prompted the producer to describe it as “a bit like one of those aerobic workout tapes that were popular at the time”.

After refashioning it as a slower funk number that drew inspiration from the hypnotic go-go style created in Washington, DC, by the likes of Chuck Brown and Trouble Funk, Horn ditched everything except a few bars of a drum track which he chopped up and looped to make a tight, syncopated groove. He then re-harmonised the track with new chords and expanded the arrangement with horns and strings. The pièce de résistance was persuading his friend the actor Ian McShane to utter the words “Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Grace Jones” at the beginning of the song. Working on the money-eating project for about a year (it purportedly cost $385,000 to make), Horn ended up with so many different versions of Slave To The Rhythm that Island released several of them on an album of the same name. The track went on to become a signature song for Jones and continues to stand tall among the best Trevor Horn productions.

3: ABC: Poison Arrow (1982)

Led by debonair frontman Martin Fry, Sheffield’s ABC emerged from the ashes of the late-70s avant-garde electronic group Vice Versa. By the early 80s, they harboured a lofty ambition: to conquer the pop mainstream with a subversive marriage of literate, meaningful lyrics and funky, Chic-inspired dance grooves. Horn, who was drawn to the group after seeing them perform their debut single, Tears Are Not Enough, on Top Of The Pops, met with them and discovered they were fans of his production work on Dollar’s Hand Held In Black And White.

Agreeing to produce ABC’s second single, Poison Arrow, in early 1982, Horn brought in classically trained pianist Anne Dudley – who would become a crucial member of his production team – to overdub keyboards onto a sleek rhythm track punctuated by loud electronic drum sounds used for dramatic emphasis. The transformation was astonishing: ABC were suddenly slick, but also hip, cutting-edge and dynamic. After Poison Arrow reached No.6 in the UK, Horn was asked by the band’s record label to produce the group’s debut album. Released in 1982, The Lexicon Of Love yielded two more Horn-helmed hit singles (The Look Of Love and All Of My Heart), but it’s the trailblazing Poison Arrow that marks a watershed among the best Trevor Horn productions.

2: Propaganda: The Nine Lives Of Dr Mabuse (1984)

Propaganda were a two-girl, two-boy avant-garde group from Germany, brought to ZTT by the label’s ideas man and chief conceptualiser Paul Morley, who famously dubbed the electronic four-piece “ABBA from Hell”. Horn produced their arresting debut single, a Faustian tale about a sinister arch-criminal called Dr Mabuse – described in the song’s lyrics as “a satanic gambler” and “man without shadow” – who trades in the currency of human souls.

Framing singer Claudia Brücken’s voice with magisterial synth sounds, bubbling sequencers and martial drum patterns, The Nine Lives Of Dr Mabuse was an epic adventure in sound that was bolstered with industrial percussion (including Portuguese drummer Luís Jardim smashing crockery in a bath) and a 30-piece symphony orchestra. As musical statements went, it was as bold as they come: a world away from Horn’s Video Killed The Radio Star days, Dr Mabuse was more of a sonic manifesto than a record, and arguably Horn’s most impressive work to date. Released as a single in March 1984, the song peaked at No.27 in the UK during a nine-week chart run. It featured on Propaganda’s debut album, A Secret Wish, for which Horn handed over production duties to his associate Steve “Lippo” Lipson, because, Horn later acknowledged, “he had a better handle on Propaganda than I did”.

1: Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Relax (1983)

Topping our list of the best Trevor Horn productions is this iconic track, which spent five weeks at No.1 in the UK. Horn first encountered Frankie Goes To Hollywood as an unsigned band performing Relax on British TV’s The Tube. After hearing them again on a session for BBC Radio 1 DJ Kid Jensen, he made the Liverpool quintet the first signing to ZTT.

Horn recorded three versions of Relax – one using Ian Dury’s band The Blockheads – but wasn’t satisfied with the results. “I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do with Relax, I just knew it wasn’t going to be straightforward because it was more like a jingle than a proper song,” he wrote in Adventures In Modern Recording. Horn finally cracked it with a fourth version, which used session players and layered keyboards over a thumping four-on-the-floor dance pulse. Released in October 1983, Relax was a slow burn that eventually became one of the biggest-selling singles of all time, aided by the BBC’s banning of the record due to its sexual references. Though Horn would create more impressive soundscapes for Frankie in the shape of the grandiose Two Tribes and the exotically cinematic Welcome To The Pleasure Dome, Relax affirmed his place among the best music producers in history – a talent whose unique sonic vision took pop to exciting new destinations.

Find out where Crazy ranks among the best Seal songs.