Trevor Horn

	Chart positions ; Explanation of the data
	Albums
	Trevor Horn Reimagines the Eighties (ft.Sarm Orchestra)

Trevor Horn at a concert with The Producers (2007)

Trevor Charles Horn , CBE (born July 15, 1949 in Durham , England ) is a British record producer , musician and composer . He is described as "the man who invented the eighties" as he produced numerous famous and formative artists of that decade. As the singer of the Buggles , he had a world hit with Video Killed the Radio Star in 1979.

Life

With his band Buggles Horn had the hit Video Killed the Radio Star in the fall of 1979 . The song was a number 1 hit in England and was the first clip to launch MTV in August 1981. This music video also features young Hans Zimmer on the keyboard.

In 1980 Horn became the front man of the group Yes , but left the band after seven months to concentrate on his work as a producer. His first publications were The Lexicon of Love by ABC and The Dollar Album of dollars . In 1983, together with his wife Jill Sinclair and music journalist Paul Morley, he took over the "Basing Street Studio" from Iceland founder Chris Blackwell . At the same time he founded the music label ZTT , on which numerous of his productions appeared.

In the following years he shaped his own distinctive style with frequently changing assistants. In his first productions with Frankie Goes to Hollywood , The Art of Noise and Propaganda , he made consistent use of new technical possibilities, especially computer-based music production . In the extremely complex and sophisticated productions, in addition to conventional instruments, sampling was also used on a large scale for the first time. The Fairlight CMI versions II and III in particular were used intensively. Trevor Horn thus had a decisive influence on the pop music sound of the 1980s, at least in some areas, and made it unmistakable. In the 1980s and 1990s he was also one of the most successful music producers commercially . Music critic Bob Stanley wrote: "Back then, Trevor Horn could have turned a broken alarm clock into a global sex symbol - he just succeeded in everything."

Another novelty was the creative use of maxi singles in marketing with several differentiated remixes , which often clearly stood out from the usual singles and were produced experimentally. The first maxi single by Frankie Goes to Hollywoods Relax is considered to be the founding impetus of the genre in this respect.

producer

Trevor Horn produced a number of partly very different artists and bands:

On some of these projects Trevor Horn was not only active as a producer , but also as a composer (especially for The Art of Noise, Grace Jones and Yes). In 1992 he also composed and produced the soundtrack for the film Toys by Barry Levinson together with Hans Zimmer . The most successful artist worldwide in recent years was Seal . For work on Seal's second album, Horn won a Grammy in 1996 , having previously been "Record Producer of the Year" several times.

In autumn 2004, Horn celebrated its 25 years of music creation with a hit revue in London, in which almost all artists - from dollars to propaganda and tATu to Seal and Frankie Goes to Hollywood - their world hits produced by Horn on the stage of the Wembley Arena - and in front of the patron Prince Charles - performed. He also wrote the official song of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens with Pass the Flame and produced the Olympic album Unity , on which Tarkan and Yiannis Kotsiras can be heard among others .

Many successful producers and sound engineers emerged from the studio assistant at Trevor Horn . Hugh Padgham , for example, started out as a sound engineer on Yes recording sessions and later became a successful producer himself (with Phil Collins and Sting, among others ). Stephen Lipson , who played an important role in the early ZTT acts and later produced the Simple Minds and Annie Lennox , took a similar development . Gary Langan as a sound engineer, JJ Jeczalik as keyboardist / programmer and Anne Dudley as arranger , who also formed the first line-up of The Art of Noise , often worked on these productions . Another sound engineer was Julian Mendelsohn , who later worked as a co-producer and remixer with Kate Bush , Level 42 and the Pet Shop Boys . Also known was Guy Sigsworth , who partly co-produced Seal and later emerged as the producer of acts in the electronica sector such as Björk , Lamb and Mandalay .

Private

Horn married the former math teacher Jill Sinclair in 1980. They have four children, sons Aaron (born 1984) and William and daughters Gabriella and "Ally" (Alexandra). Jill Sinclair died of cancer on March 22, 2014 at the age of 61.

literature

Warner, Timothy: Pop Music - Technology and Creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution . Aldershot, 2003. ISBN 0-7546-3132-X

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Trevor Horn in the British charts
↑ ^a ^b Spiegel online: Pop producer Trevor Horn: The man who invented the eighties , March 7, 2014

personal data
SURNAME	Horn, Trevor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Horn, Trevor Charles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British record producer, musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH	July 15, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH	Durham , England

[UKcharts-1] Trevor Horn in the British charts

[spon20140307-2] Spiegel online: Pop producer Trevor Horn: The man who invented the eighties , March 7, 2014