Sting and the Police by Aaron J. West

Author:Aaron J. West
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

Godley and Creme

Kevin Godley and Lol Creme met in the late 1950s while attending a Manchester art school. The two were in a variety of bands throughout the 1960s, culminating with the band Hotlegs, with Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart, in 1970. In 1972, they changed their band name to 10cc and produced their first minor hit, “Donna.” In 1975, 10cc had their biggest hit to date, “I’m Not in Love”; nonetheless, both Godley and Creme decided to leave the band in order to explore their art rock tendencies with the album Consequences in 1976. Although Consequences was a commercial and critical failure, in 1979 Godley and Creme had two minor hits from their third album, Freeze Frame. Coincidently, this album was recorded at Nigel Gray’s Surrey Sound Studios, the same studio where The Police recorded Outlandos d’Amour and Reggatta de Blanc. One of the hits from Freeze Frame was “An Englishman in New York” (no relation to the Sting song of the same name), for which Godley and Creme created an innovative video featuring a bizarre mix of live action and puppetry. Following the success garnered by the video for “An Englishman in New York,” directing music videos became a viable creative and commercial outlet for the duo.

In July 1981, Godley and Creme began production on a video for Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film.” Although the video was created nearly simultaneously with the launching of MTV, Godley and Creme had not anticipated that it would ever be broadcast on mainstream media outlets. As a result, the video for “Girls on Film” features nudity and highly provocative sexual situations. Kevin Godley explains, “Movie videos were being played in a different kind of environment. They were being played away from broadcast mediums, so what was possible didn’t have censorship written on it. You could actually show stuff that you didn’t have to worry about too much” (“Video Killed: Duran Duran”). Godley and Creme expected the video to be played in nightclubs or on cable channels like Playboy, not on a music channel available to millions of middle-class homes. Ultimately, the video was edited for MTV and banned by the BBC, but the controversy fueled interest in Duran Duran and, of course, in Godley and Creme.

By 1983, MTV was growing at a record pace, and music videos were becoming more sophisticated. Artists like Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, and David Bowie were creating compelling videos featuring sophisticated graphic designs, large sets, and expensive makeup and costumes. By this time, The Police was one of the biggest bands in the world and inexorably tied to MTV, so they needed to produce quality videos that were equal to those of their peers. Sadly, The Police had outgrown the puckish videos of the Burbidges, so they hired Godley and Creme to direct their last four videos. Godley and Creme’s reputation as innovative video producers and as competent musicians made them attractive to The Police. “Why did we choose Kevin and Lol? First and foremost, they were musicians.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.