Badly Drawn Boy - Disillusion

SEP 04 2000 · 12:00

Badly Drawn Boy - Disillusion (2000) Director: Garth Jennings Era: Post-Britpop Indie Auteur Era (2000) - Peak UK indie singer-songwriter moment coinciding with Mercury Prize recognition and the rise of Twisted Nerve/XL Recordings as tastemaker labels High curatorial value as a confirmed Garth Jennings / Hammer & Tongs production from their most fertile period, tied directly to one of the most celebrated UK albums of 2000. Documents the intersection of Mercury Prize cultural prestige, Twisted Nerve's independent ethos, and the sophisticated visual wit of Hammer & Tongs at a historically significant moment for British independent music. An essential archive piece for any study of UK indie visual culture, early 2000s music video craft, or the career arc of Garth Jennings prior to his feature film transition. Context: Released September 4, 2000 as a single from The Hour of Bewilderbeast, the album that won the 2000 Mercury Music Prize, cementing Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough) as a central figure in UK indie songwriting. The video arrived during a transitional post-Britpop moment when UK indie was fragmenting into more personal, lo-fi, and singer-songwriter forms. Twisted Nerve Records, co-founded by Gough, embodied a DIY Manchester ethos that stood in deliberate contrast to the bloated stadium ambitions of mid-90s Britpop. Garth Jennings, operating via Hammer & Tongs at the height of their creative powers, brought a conceptually playful but emotionally grounded visual language that matched the song's introspective weight. Director notes: Confirmed directed by Garth Jennings via IMVDb and multiple Discogs release credits, which list the video explicitly as 'Badly Drawn Boy - Disillusion (directed by Garth Jennings)' with a runtime of 4:36. Released 4 September 2000 on Twisted Nerve / XL Recordings (TNXL005CD / TNXL005CD2), UK. The video was produced through Hammer & Tongs, Jennings' production company with Nick Goldsmith. It is one of several Badly Drawn Boy videos Jennings directed during this period, he also directed 'Spitting in the Wind' (2001) for the same artist. The production was recorded at Salford Sounds with string arrangements by Paul Taylor.