I'm Too Sexy

Right Said Fred is comprised of the buff brothers Richard and Fred Fairbrass, and at the time, guitarist Rob Manzoli. The Fairbrass Brothers were managers at a London dance studio called the Dance Attic, where they came across lots of narcissism and posing. As Rich Fairbrass tells it, they had a loop playing on the computer, and inspired by his dance studio experience he spontaneously took his shirt off and started singing, "I'm too sexy for my shirt." The guys thought it was hilarious and worked up the song around the phrase. A demo found its way to the ears of a music promoter named Guy Holmes, who contacted the band, had them remix the song into a dance track (it was originally a rocker), and shopped it to record labels. Holmes had no takers so he set up his own label, Tug Records, and released the song, which became a huge hit once the BBC started playing it. Holmes went on to a very successful career as a record mogul, promoting Salt-n-Pepa and bringing Crazy Frog to the masses. Speaking to The Independent about the first time he heard "I'm Too Sexy," Holmes said: "I heard that coming back from a night out with this very cute girl I fancied - who didn't fancy me unfortunately. She was sitting drunk on the back seat and said she managed a band. She put the cassette in and there was 'I'm Too Sexy,' an awful rock demo version. It was clear it would make a great dance record though. Radio 1 loved it but no major would touch it. I thought bollocks to them and put it out myself - it sold six million singles and five million albums."

The guitar riff was interpolated from a 1967 Jimi Hendrix song called "Third Stone From The Sun." This was the work of the group's guitarist, Rob Manzoli; since the Fairbrass brothers weren't familiar with Hendrix deep cuts, they had no idea the riff came from another song until the Hendrix estate threatened legal action.

The group members wrote this song, which was produced by the British beatmaker TommyD. In a Songfacts interview with the Fairbrass brothers, Fred cited "a bass line" and "a little bit of marijuana" as creative inspiration. Said Fred: "It was a very, very hot day in a very, very non-air conditioned basement studio. It was those things, that perfect storm. And lyrically, the whole 'supermodel' thing was huge at the time. So lyrically, it's making fun of that whole sort of narcissism that came with that." The "Supermodel" thing got even bigger in 1992 when RuPaul released the hit single "Supermodel (You Better Work)."