Godley & Creme - Wide Boy

JUL 01 1980 · 12:00

Godley & Creme - Wide Boy (1980) Director: Godley & Creme (Kevin Godley and Lol Creme) Era: Post-Punk / New Wave Transition (1980) - British art-rock duo pioneering self-directed promotional video in the nascent UK music video era, released as a standalone non-album single on Polydor in March 1980 High curatorial value as a rare, documentable example of artist-directed conceptual music video from the immediate pre-MTV era (March 1980). The video bridges 1970s promotional film conventions and the imminent explosion of music video as a mainstream form. As an early directorial work by Godley & Creme, who would become defining figures in the 1980s music video canon, 'Wide Boy' offers scholars a crucial data point in mapping the development of their visual grammar and the broader British art-pop promotional tradition. Context: Released in March 1980, 'Wide Boy' arrived at a critical inflection point when the British music industry was transitioning from pure audio promotion to visual storytelling via the promo clip, a format that would be institutionalised by MTV's 1981 launch. Godley & Creme, freshly emerged from the art-school experimentation of 10cc, were among the handful of UK acts treating the music video as a distinct creative medium rather than a filmed performance. 'Wide Boy' exemplifies this approach: a non-album standalone single with a self-directed video built around concept rather than spectacle. This era of warm-toned, film-originated or early-video UK promos represents a transitional aesthetic bridge between the 16mm promotional films of the 1970s and the glossy HD productions of the mid-1980s. Director notes: The 'Wide Boy' promotional video (1980) was self-directed by Godley & Creme, one of their earliest exercises in music video direction. Both IMDB and Amazon editorial credit them as directors. The single was released March 1980 on Polydor (cat. POSP 145) as a non-album standalone single backed with 'I Pity Inanimate Objects'. The video has been cited by multiple sources as 'wonderfully innovative', establishing the template for the conceptually ambitious, self-directed promos the duo would become celebrated for throughout the early 1980s. The song is noted as an Art Rock / New Wave composition, produced by Godley & Creme themselves.