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10cc

Four Stockport songwriters and studio owners who turned pastiche, satire and tape-loop invention into three UK number ones, then split in two at the height of their success.

Origin
Stockport, England
Years active
1972-1995, touring since 1999
Genres
art pop, pop rock
Labels
UK Records, Mercury, Polydor, Warner Bros

Strawberry Studios

10cc were formed in 1972 by four musicians who had been writing and recording together since 1968 at their own Strawberry Studios in Stockport, near Manchester: Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. Gouldman had written hits for the Yardbirds, the Hollies and Herman's Hermits. Stewart had sung with the Mindbenders. Godley and Creme were childhood friends who studied at separate art colleges. Before the band they turned out bubblegum songs for the American producers Kasenetz and Katz, Godley, Creme and Stewart reached number two in 1970 as Hotlegs with Neanderthal Man, and the group co-produced and played on two Neil Sedaka albums. Gouldman said they had been frustrated at doing Sedaka's first album for flat session fees when they could have been recording their own songs.

Jonathan King signed them to UK Records in July 1972 and named them 10cc. Their first single, Donna, a parody of 1950s doo-wop with a falsetto chorus, reached number two in the UK. Rubber Bullets gave them a first number one in June 1973.

Sheet Music and the hits

Sheet Music (1974), their second album, was the breakthrough. It reached number nine in the UK, stayed on the chart for six months and led to a US tour in February 1974. The band produced it and Stewart engineered and mixed it. It contains every possible pairing of the four writers, which they used to experiment, and Godley later said they had begun to explode creatively and recognised no boundaries. Its singles included The Wall Street Shuffle, and its songs ranged from Clockwork Creep, told from the point of view of a bomb on a jumbo jet, to the six-minute Somewhere in Hollywood. A Guardian writer described the album as experimental, funny, beautiful in parts and bawdy in others.

In February 1975 they left King for Mercury, signing for US$1 million after the label heard one song, I'm Not in Love. It appeared on The Original Soundtrack (1975), reached number one in the UK in June and number two in the US. How Dare You! (1976) followed with the hits Art for Art's Sake and I'm Mandy, Fly Me.

The split

Godley and Creme left in 1976 to work on what became the triple album Consequences, which began as a demonstration of their Gizmotron guitar device. Godley said in 2007 that they no longer liked what Gouldman and Stewart were writing. Years earlier he had expressed regret, saying the band was not democratic enough to give them the freedom to do the project. Stewart said he thought they were crazy to walk away from something so successful.

Stewart and Gouldman carried on with the drummer Paul Burgess. Deceptive Bends (1977) reached number three in the UK, and The Things We Do for Love went to number six in the UK and number five in the US. A six-piece line-up that added Rick Fenn, Stuart Tosh and the keyboardist Duncan Mackay made Bloody Tourists (1978), which contained Dreadlock Holiday, the band's third UK number one.

After

Gouldman said in 1995 that things went downhill after 1978. Their last tour before the reunion ended in 1983. All four members reunited in 1991 for ...Meanwhile (1992), with Godley and Creme singing backing vocals, and Stewart and Gouldman made Mirror Mirror in 1995 without them. Stewart left after the tour that followed. Gouldman has led a touring 10cc since 1999, and Godley guested at a 40th anniversary concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 May 2012. Gouldman's band played Sheet Music in full in 2015, and Godley supplied a video for Somewhere in Hollywood the next year.

Godley told the Guardian in 2012 that they had the noise but not the look. Gouldman has said that, unlike Queen, 10cc had three number ones with three different singers. A BBC Four documentary, I'm Not in Love: The Story of 10cc, was shown in 2015.

Members

Records

Songs

Godley & Creme, Queen, The Hollies, The Yardbirds, Neil Sedaka

Where to go next

Official

Reference

  • 10cc Full band history with line-ups, albums and the story of the split.
  • Sheet Music Album article with credits, singles and reception.
  • The Original Soundtrack Album article with the Mercury deal and personnel by track.
  • How Dare You! Album article for the last record by the original four.
  • Deceptive Bends Album article on the first record without Godley and Creme.
  • Bloody Tourists Album article with cover story and single releases by territory.
  • I'm Not in Love Detailed article on the writing, the tape-loop recording and the covers.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. 10cc, Wikipedia
  2. 10cc: It was a tragedy we didn't stay together, The Guardian (2012-11-22)
  3. 10cc: How we made I'm Not in Love, The Guardian (2018-02-26)
  4. 10cc's Graham Gouldman answers readers, The Guardian (2025-01-23)
  5. Old music: 10cc, Somewhere in Hollywood, The Guardian (2012-07-04)
  6. 10cc review, Royal Albert Hall, The Guardian (2012-05-11)