Bonnie Tyler — It's A Heartache

JUL 01 1977 · 12:00

Bonnie Tyler — It's A Heartache (1977) Director: Mike Mansfield Era: Late 1970s UK Pop (1977) - Pre-MTV British promotional clip era; spotlight-stage performance promo produced as a broadcast television insert for ITV pop programmes Rare surviving example of a confirmed Mike Mansfield-directed performance promo from 1977, preserving the aesthetic vocabulary of pre-MTV British pop promotion at its purest: single-take, spotlight-stage, optical rain effect, zero edit. Invaluable as a primary document of the ITV pop television production culture that Mansfield epitomised, and as an audiovisual record of Bonnie Tyler's breakthrough international single and the voice that defined her career. Context: Released in November 1977, 'It's A Heartache' arrived at a pivotal juncture in British pop culture — the tail end of glam rock and the eve of punk's commercial breakthrough. The promotional clip reflects the dominant mode of UK pop video production of the period: a single-camera, performance-to-playback studio shoot, designed primarily for broadcast insertion into ITV pop programmes such as Supersonic and Top of the Pops. The song itself became a transatlantic breakthrough, reaching No. 3 in the US and No. 4 in the UK, and topping charts in Australia, Canada, and multiple European countries, selling approximately six million copies worldwide. Tyler's distinctively husky voice — the result of surgery to remove nodules from her vocal folds — became her signature artistic identity and was widely compared to Rod Stewart's rasp by contemporary critics. Director notes: Confirmed by IMDB (tt11271824) as director of the 1977 Bonnie Tyler promotional clip. Per IMDB synopsis, the video consists of Tyler performing under a spotlight, with a rain filter effect used at the opening and closing of the video. The production is consistent with Mansfield's concurrent work on ITV's Supersonic programme and his broader practice of directing performance-based promotional clips for British pop acts in the mid-to-late 1970s. The single was recorded at The Factory Sound in Surrey, England, and released November 1977 on RCA Records.