Cliff Richard — We Don’t Talk Anymore (Starparade, 11.10.1979)

JUL 01 1979 · 12:00

Cliff Richard — We Don’t Talk Anymore (Starparade, 11.10.1979) (1979) Director: Brian Grant Era: Late Soft Rock / Pre-MTV Pop (1979) - Cliff Richard's commercial renaissance at the intersection of polished UK pop and continental European televised variety entertainment, captured on ZDF's flagship music programme Starparade just weeks after the single topped charts across eight countries. High archival and cultural value. This is a contemporaneous broadcast document of one of the biggest-selling UK singles of 1979 performed on Western Europe's most prominent public television variety stage, captured in the original analogue PAL broadcast format. It offers a direct window into the pre-MTV European pop promotion ecosystem and the specific aesthetic register of ZDF variety production. As a companion to Brian Grant's separately produced official music video, it illuminates the dual promotional infrastructure — broadcast television performance and standalone video clip — that characterised the transition period between the two eras. Context: Broadcast on ZDF's Starparade on 11 October 1979, this performance documents Cliff Richard at the peak of his commercial resurgence. 'We Don't Talk Anymore', written by Alan Tarney and produced by Bruce Welch, had reached #1 in the UK for four weeks — Richard's first chart-topper since 1968 — and simultaneously topped the West German charts for five weeks, making it his only English-language German #1. The single ultimately sold over 4 million copies worldwide, topping charts in the UK, Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Finland, West Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Switzerland. Starparade, ZDF's flagship variety music programme running from 1968 to 1980, regularly hosted major international acts and was broadcast to a broad Central European audience, making this appearance a key artefact of transatlantic and British-continental pop exchange in the pre-MTV era. The broadcast's warm analogue aesthetics and unhurried pacing reflect the European televised variety format that predates and contextualises the music video revolution that would follow within two years. Director notes: The standalone official music video for 'We Don't Talk Anymore' (1979) is confirmed as directed by Brian Grant, per IMDb (tt11800258) and IMVDb. The Starparade performance archived in this file is a separate broadcast document: a live or playback studio television performance recorded for ZDF's Starparade on 11 October 1979 — distinct from Grant's produced music video clip. Starparade was an approximately 90-minute West German variety programme on ZDF, filmed in venues across Germany, hosted by Rainer Holbe with the James Last Orchestra as house band. The programme regularly featured major international artists performing to playback. The 11 October 1979 date aligns with Starparade's Thursday broadcast slot. The single had reached #1 in West Germany for five weeks, making this appearance a direct promotional response to that chart success. The slow shot rhythm (avg. 14.91s), low motion score (7.51), and 17 scene changes over 253.4s are fully consistent with ZDF's multi-camera broadcast production style rather than a constructed video edit.