| Godley
& Creme |
Kevin
Godley (top) and Lol Creme.
|
| Background information |
| Origin |
Stockport, England |
| Genre(s) |
Pop, Rock |
| Years active |
1977–1988 |
Associated
acts |
10cc
Hotlegs
Doctor Father
|
Godley & Creme was a duo of English
pop
musicians and music video directors, namely Kevin
Godley and Lol Creme. They met aged 8 and
10 when Kevin Godley auditioned to be
in a short film being made by Lol Creme about the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
|
Contents
- 1 Musical
career
- 2 Music
videos
- 3 Today
- 4 Discography
- 5 References
- 6 External
links
|
Musical career
Godley and Creme met in the late 1950s and for a brief time were in a band
together. Through the 1960s
they played in different bands, with Kevin
Godley briefly in The Mockingbirds with future 10cc
cohort Graham Gouldman.
The pair began their music career together proper in 1969, performing bubblegum
music in Strawberry Studios at Stockport
near Manchester
with Eric Stewart and Graham
Gouldman. Their first chart success was as members of the
short-lived Hotlegs,
which evolved into 10cc
in 1972.
10cc enjoyed strong chart success, most notably with their 1975 single "I'm
Not in Love", a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
After the recording of 10cc's fourth LP, How
Dare You!, Godley & Creme left the band
to work on a device they called "The Gizmo", which attached to the bridge
of a guitar to create a wide variety of sonic textures. The Gizmo was
featured heavily on their poorly received concept
album Consequences,
released in 1977.
The album was savaged by critics, but has since accrued a cult
following; it features a guest vocal by Sarah
Vaughan and an extended comedy performance by Peter Cook.
In a 1997 interview
Godley expressed regret that he and Creme had left 10cc, saying:
| “ |
We'd
reached a certain crossroads with 10cc and already spent three weeks on
the genesis of what turned out to be Consequences
... The stuff that we were coming up with didn't have any home, we
couldn't import it into 10cc. And we were kind of constrained by 10cc
live ... We felt like creative people who should give ourselves the
opportunity to be as creative as possible and leaving seemed to be the
right thing to do at that moment.
Unfortunately, the band wasn't democratic or smart
enough at that time to allow us the freedom to go ahead and do this
project and we were placed in the unfortunate position of having to
leave to do it. Looking back, it was a very northern work ethic being
applied to the group, all for one and one for all. If we'd been a
little more free in our thinking with regard to our work practices, the
band as a corporate and creative entity could have realised that it
could have been useful rather than detrimental for two members to spend
some time developing and then bring whatever they'd learned back to the
corporate party. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be.
|
” |
The duo gradually regained critical favour with a trio of
innovative albums in the late 1970s and early '80s – L,
Freeze Frame
and Ismism
(released as Snack Attack in the United States). Freeze
Frame included several songs that gained airplay on
alternative radio in many countries, notably "I Pity Inanimate Objects"
and "An Englishman in New York"
(not to be confused with the Sting song of similar name), which
was accompanied by an innovative music video. The single "Snack Attack"
was also a minor hit. They made the UK Top Ten with the singles "Under
Your Thumb" (No. 3) and "Wedding Bells" (No. 7) in 1981, both from Ismism.
Their 1970s single "The boys in blue" was played at most Manchester
City football club matches in the 1990s and is still occasionally
played there in the 21st century.
In 1983
they released Birds of Prey
which took their music in a more electronic direction, using electronic
drum machines for the entire album.
Their 1984
single "Golden Boy" was included on 1985's The History Mix Volume 1
album which celebrated 25 years of recording together. The album,
co-produced by J.J. Jeczalik of Art
of Noise, remixed samples of their previous recordings to a
disco beat. This album also contained the single "Cry" which, helped in part
by the video, became their biggest US hit, reaching No.16. The song
reached No. 19 in Britain. A video cassette was also released with
visual imagery to complement the music.
Godley & Creme released their final album, Goodbye Blue Sky,
in 1988.
This album abandoned electronic instruments and used harmonicas,
organs, and guitars to tell the story of the earth on the brink of
nuclear war.
The pair ended their working relationship soon after the
release of Goodbye Blue Sky. In a 1997 interview
Creme explained:
| “ |
In
'89, certainly in '88, maybe before, Kevin changed, I think his
priorities in life changed. He'd had enough, he'd simply had enough of
me and the way we worked, the things we did, the priorities we had. And
the fact that we were a priority, for example. Our working relationship
dominated our lives, you know. It was time for a shift in all that and
he was obviously right. |
” |
Music videos
Godley and Creme achieved their greatest success as the
innovative directors of more than fifty music videos in the early 1980s. They created
memorable videos for The Police ("Every
Breath You Take", "Synchronicity II", "Wrapped Around Your Finger"), Duran
Duran ("Girls on Film", "A View to a Kill"), Herbie
Hancock ("Rockit"),
Frankie Goes to Hollywood
("Two
Tribes", "The
Power of Love"), Sting
("If You Love Somebody Set Them Free"), among many others, up to
Godley's video for the 1996
single from The Beatles ("Real Love"), featured in
the Beatles Anthology.
Of their "Wrapped Around Your Finger" video, which featured
singer Sting
performing amid hundreds of burning candles, film maker Daniel Pearl
recalled: "Directors Godley and Creme communicated from their homes in
London that we would require 1000 candles for the shoot. Trying to stay
on top of things and get information for the art department, producer
Fiona Fitzherbert requested a diagram of what they wanted. Several days
passed without any fax. She finally insisted she be given some advance
information, and received a drawing of a candle.
"... A big part of the mission was to make "Wrapped" for as
little as possible... As we neared the end of our 12 hour day, the
producers declared us wrapped. Sting protested, saying that he felt we
were doing something very innovative, and that he would pay personally
for us to continue shooting. The producers, mindful of the stigma of
the price of "Every Breath" refused to allow him to throw more money at
it, and in the end it was agreed that we would do one more take and
then wrap.
"Godley and Creme took Sting off for a brief chat, which I was
purposely excluded from, while I was instructed to build the camera
hand held. The stage was cleared of everyone except Sting, myself, and
my focus puller. Their parting words to me were to follow Sting where
ever he went on the stage, and to keep rolling no matter what happened.
About halfway through the track Sting started knocking the candles over
and molten wax was flying everywhere. I definitely was shocked as I
started to get hit, but fortunately we weren't burned too badly, and we
did capture some amazing footage."
The pair's innovation extended to their videos for their own
songs, notably "Wide Boy" and "Cry". "Cry"'s groundbreaking and very
popular 1985
video featured faces blended into each other using analog
cross-fading, anticipating the digital effect of morphing,
later used in a very similar way in Michael
Jackson's 1991
video, "Black Or White".
The video "Cry" could be seen on Beavis
and Butt-head.
Today
Creme joined the band Art of Noise in 1998. Kevin Godley
continued to direct music videos. In 2006 he teamed up with Graham Gouldman again,
and they released four new tracks under the name GG06.
Discography
Albums
- Consequences
- Mercury/Phonogram (1977)
- L -
Mercury/Polydor (1978)
- Freeze Frame
- Polydor
(1979)
- Ismism/Snack
Attack - Polydor/Mirage (1981)
- Birds of Prey
- Polydor (1983)
- The History Mix Volume 1
- Polydor (1985)
- Goodbye Blue Sky
- Polydor (1988)
Singles
- "5 O'Clock in the Morning" (1977)
- "Sandwiches of You" (1978)
- "Wide Boy" (1978)
- "An Englishman in New York
(Strange Apparatus)" (1979)
- "Submarine" (1980)
- "Under Your Thumb" (1981) #3 UK
- "Wedding Bells" (1981) #7 UK
- "Snack Attack" (1982)
- "Save A Mountain For Me" (1983)
- "Samson" (1983)
- "Golden Boy (Extended)" (1984)
- "Cry" (1985) #19 UK
- "Cry (Remix)" (1986) #66 UK
- "A Little Piece of Heaven" (1988)
- "Love Is Dead" (1988) #84 UK
- "10,000 Angels" (1988)
References
-
Daniel Pearl comment at Cinematography.net
website
External links
