UB40 — Red Red Wine

JUL 01 1983 · 12:00

UB40 — Red Red Wine (1983) Director: Bernard Rose Era: Early MTV Era (1983) - UK reggae-pop crossover at the dawn of the music video age; black-and-white pub-set promo reflecting post-punk British working-class aesthetics and the Labour of Love album cycle Exceptionally high curatorial value as one of the defining music videos of the early MTV era and a document of British reggae-pop at its commercial apex. The video's confirmed Birmingham location (now demolished), its real-pub-with-real-patrons production approach, and its place in MTV's own Top 100 Videos of the 80s make it a primary source artifact for multiple intersecting cultural histories. Its remastered HD re-release ensures archival longevity. Context: Released in August 1983 as the lead single from UB40's covers album Labour of Love, 'Red Red Wine' was a reggae-style cover of a Tony Tribe version of Neil Diamond's 1967 original — a lineage UB40 themselves were unaware of at the time of recording. The video's Birmingham pub setting grounds it firmly in British working-class culture of the early Thatcher era. The song reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in 1983, making it UB40's first chart-topper at home, and was later re-released in the US in 1988, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — one of the most successful delayed chart ascents in pop history. The video's black-and-white aesthetic and location realism reflect the documentary-influenced visual grammar of early British MTV-era promos. Director notes: The 'Red Red Wine' video (1983) was directed by Bernard Rose as part of a longer half-hour black-and-white short film built around UB40's Labour of Love album. It was filmed on location at the Eagle & Tun pub, 52-54 Banbury Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, West Midlands, England (since demolished for HS2 construction). The production famously used local factory workers as unpaid extras in exchange for a covered bar tab, resulting in most of the extras becoming heavily intoxicated by midday. The video is shot entirely in black and white, consistent with the broader short film format Rose constructed for the album cycle. The clip was listed in MTV's Top 100 Videos of the 80s (1989).