The Intro
By the time of their third and final number 1, 10cc weren’t half the band they used to be. Literally. Despite the success of their masterpiece, I’m Not in Love, creative differences had come to a head.
Before
While recording fourth LP How Dare You!, the two separate songwriting partnerships – Kevin Godley and Lol Creme and Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman – realised they were drifting further apart. Despite this it spawned two hit singes. Art for Art’s Sake reached five in 1975 and I’m Mandy, Fly Me peaked at six.
At the start of sessions for Deceptive Bends (1977), Godley and Creme decided to leave to make an album together. Although Stewart and Gouldman knew the working environment had got more and more difficult, they couldn’t believe Godley and Creme would be willing to walk out on 10cc at the peak of their commercial and creative powers. To make matters worse, Stewart and Creme were married to sisters.
10cc continued as a three-piece with tour back-up drummer Paul Burgess while Godley & Creme released the triple album Consequences, featuring comedian Peter Cook. Stewart and Gouldman likely felt vindicated when that album sank but their own gave them two hit singles – The Things We Do for Love (six) and Good Morning Judge (five). Having said that, Godley & Creme likely didn’t care too much as they were more concerned with doing things their way.
10cc then went on an international tour, bolstered by guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tony O’Malley and additional drummer Stuart Tosh, formerly of fellow chart-toppers Pilot. The tour was documented on Live and Let Live, released later the same year. O’Malley then left and was replaced by Duncan Mackay and the five-piece set to work on a new album, Bloody Tourists.
Its first single, Dreadlock Holiday, was inspired by a trip to Barbados that Stewart experienced with Moody Blues singer Justin Hayward. Stewart recalled seeing a white man trying to act cool to embarrassing effect, annoying a group of Afro-Caribbeans. This is where the lines ‘Don’t you walk through my words/You’ve got to show some respect’. The chorus, later misunderstood on every cricket highlights package on TV, came about when Gouldman, who was talking to a Jamaican who asked him if he liked cricket, replied ‘No, I love it!’.
The line-up featured Stewart on electric piano, organ, cabaza and vocals, Gouldman on bass, maracas and vocals, Fenn on guitar, backing vocals and organ, Burgess on cowbell, congas, marimba, triangle, agogô and timbales, Tosh on drums, backing vocals and tambourine and Mackay on Yamaha CS-80 synthesiser.
Review
Released in the decade that political correctness forgot, Dreadlock Holiday was a huge hit. But in more enlightened times it proves problematic. Musically, it’s perfectly fine. A good approximation of reggae, well-produced and infectious. But the problem is in the lyrics. Stewart and Gouldman could defend themselves by saying we’re supposed to be laughing at the white man here, thinking that the ‘four faces, one mad’ will leave him alone if he mentions cricket. It’s not good enough really because Jamaicans are certainly not portrayed in a good light either. This gang with ‘dark voices’ are going to rob him, because of course they’re poor criminals, because Jamaica. He manages to escape the gang, only to encounter a dope-dealing woman by the pool. Because Jamaica. Cricket, reggae, crime, drugs, sung in piss-taking cod-Jamaican accents. It’s not that far removed from Typically Tropical’s Barbados.
10cc, or at least Stewart and Gouldman should have known better. It’s a cheap joke and mean-spirited. How can this be the same band that recorded I’m Not in Love? You could argue that perhaps Godley and Creme wouldn’t have allowed something like this through, except they wrote Une Nuit a Paris, a song featuring comedy French accents. No, I think it’s just a case of rich white men not being half as clever as they can be and, well, it was the 70s.
The video to Dreadlock Holiday cheapens the song further. To save money (and possibly to avoid confronting any real-life scary Jamaicans), they filmed on the coast of Dorset instead. It looks about as summery as the field of the campsite in Carry On Camping (1969) and not like Jamaica at all. Director Storm Thorgerson (the man behind the cover of The Dark Side of the Moon) clearly encourages the actors to ham it up big time.
After
Dreadlock Holiday was the last proper 10cc hit. In 1979 Stewart was seriously injured in a car crash. A tour was cancelled and the band was put on hold. Originally planned as a 10cc project, Gouldman made the soundtrack to Animalympics (1980) alone. This animated comedy, made to tie in with the Moscow Olympics, has a special place in my heart as I became obsessed with it as a child. The music is great too.
Both Stewart and Gouldman consider this hiatus the beginning of the end for 10cc. Upon Stewart’s return, tastes had shifted and their next album, 1980’s Look Hear? featured contributions from the other band members, with little collaboration between the founding members. For the next LP, Ten Out of 10 (1981), 10cc were officially just Stewart and Gouldman, with the others demoted to session musicians. In a bid to do better in the US, they collaborated with singer-songwriter Andrew Gold and released a separate version in America with his contributions. They asked him to become a fully fledged member but he declined. His contributions made little difference to record sales.
For their ninth album Windows in the Jungle (1983), Stewart and Gouldman wrote together intending to make a concept album, but a desire to also make a hit single got in the way and it was another failure. That was it for 10cc, for a while. In the meantime, Godley and Creme had made several albums together and had two top three singles in 1981 – Under Your Thumb (number three) and Wedding Bells (seven). They also became very good at directing quirky and innovative pop videos for bands including The Police, Ultravox and Duran Duran. In 1985 they made a very memorable promo for their single Cry, featuring faces blending into each other. I remember being totally mesmerised and disturbed by it at the age of six.
After the split, Stewart worked as a producer for Sad Cafe, Paul McCartney and ABBA’s Agnetha Fältskog. Gouldman produced The Ramones and then formed the duo Common Knowledge with Gold, who changed their name to Wax. In 1985 Gouldman tried the Bob Geldof approach and assembled and produced an unusual group of musicians and celebrities dubbed The Crowd. Featuring, among others, Bruce Forsyth, Rolf Harris, Gerry Marsden, the Nolans, John Otway and Motörhead, they covered the Gerry and the Pacemakers 1963 chart-topper You’ll Never Walk Alone in aid of the Bradford City Disaster Fund. It went to number 1 and Marsden became the first person to do so with two versions of the same song.
In 1992 a 10cc reunion album was released. But …Meanwhile was actually a Stewart and Gouldman LP by and large. Godley and Creme were only on board to fulfil contractual obligations and mostly provided backing vocals. It didn’t fare as well as hoped but Stewart and Gouldman toured once more with former members and a few new ones, as captured on another live album, 1993’s Alive.
The next album, Mirror Mirror (1995), saw Stewart and Gouldman working apart in separate countries. Despite the latter’s initial objections an acoustic version of I’m Not in Love was released from it and actually gave them their first singles chart action in 17 years, reaching 29. Stewart left 10cc after the album tour, saying as far as he was concerned 10cc were finished.
Gouldman disagreed and has continued to perform live as 10cc ever since, with the help of Burgess and Fenn, plus Keith Hayman and Iain Hornal at present. Stewart refuses to speak to Gouldman because of his refusal to stop using the name and Creme has also been critical of the move. However, Godley and Gouldman recorded and performed together as GG/06 in 2006 and Godley also performed at the Royal Albert Hall with the band to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their formation in 2012.
The Outro
Despite my criticism of this final number 1, 10cc were one of the smartest acts of the 70s. The material by the original line-up is never dull and at times, in particular I’m Not in Love, brilliant. In a way, it’s amazing four such multi-talented men, all writers and performers, were able to work together for as long as they did.
The Info
Written by
Eric Stewart & Graham Gouldman
Producers
10cc
Weeks at number 1
1 (23-29 September)
Trivia
Births
23 September: Cartoonist Andy Fanton
25 September: Model Jodie Kidd
Meanwhile…
26 September: 23 Ford car plants were close due to strike action.
