Rod Stewart — Passion

JUL 01 1980 · 12:00

Rod Stewart — Passion (1980) Director: Mike Mansfield Era: Post-Disco New Wave Transition (1980) - Rod Stewart pivots from late-70s disco gloss toward synth-driven early 80s pop, captured in a brooding, church-set promo at the dawn of the music video era High curatorial value as a confirmed, director-attributed artefact from the cusp of the music video era, produced by one of Britain's foremost music television directors and promoting a top-5 US chart single. The video's church location, optical blurring techniques, and near-static slow-cinema grammar make it a textbook specimen of pre-MTV European promo aesthetics, directly comparable to contemporaneous ELO and Adam and the Ants clips from the same director. Context: Released in late 1980, 'Passion' occupies a precise cultural hinge point: the end of the post-disco commercial boom and the first stirrings of synth-dominated early 80s pop. Stewart, having achieved massive commercial success with 'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?' (1978), was navigating an artistic and commercial repositioning. The promo clip — shot in a church with low light, blurring effects, and a near-static camera — reflects the transitional grammar of UK music video production before MTV's August 1981 launch redefined the medium globally. Directed by Mike Mansfield, a central figure in British music television via his ITV series Supersonic, the video embodies the European promotional clip tradition: atmosphere and iconography over narrative, designed primarily for UK and European television broadcast. The song's chart success (#5 US Billboard Hot 100, #2 Canada) made the clip an internationally circulated artefact of this transitional moment. Director notes: Directed for Rod Stewart in 1980 to accompany the lead single from the album Foolish Behaviour. The video was shot in a church interior, with notable use of optical blurring effects and animal imagery. The production reflects Mansfield's characteristic theatrical, location-based approach to music clip-making, favouring atmospheric staging over narrative. His wider 1979–1983 directorial credits include ELO's 'Last Train to London' (1979), 'Don't Bring Me Down' (1979), 'Hold On Tight' (1981), Adam and the Ants' 'Stand and Deliver' (1981), The Cure's 'Charlotte Sometimes' (1981), Kim Wilde's 'Love Blonde' (1983), Ozzy Osbourne's 'Bark at the Moon' (1983), and Def Leppard's 'Too Late for Love' (1983), establishing him as one of the most prolific British music video directors of the era.