Bowie, the Cure, Neil Young and the golden age of the video shoot

Bowie, the Cure, Neil Young and the golden age of the video shoot

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold August 6, 2026 Duration: 34:00

Tim Pope caught the video wave in 1981 and made hundreds of promotional clips, often three or four a week, edited at night and on-air days later. You’ll have seen them, singles for the Style Council, The The, Iggy Pop, Hall & Oates and many others. For 15 years he was the man to call – inventive, caffeinated, risk-loving, clubbable – and “nothing was too mad or stupid”. He celebrates that magic age of big budgets and creative freedom in his story-filled memoir ‘I Shoot Rock Stars’, just out, and looks back here at …

 

… the video that made his reputation

 

… MTV showing six of his clips in a row

 

… the thrill of Bowie’s silhouette as he walked across the Rainbow stage in 1977: “there was so little footage back then, you’d rarely seen people move”

 

… his teenage love of Dusty, ELP, King Crimson and Pink Floyd

 

… shooting seven clips a fortnight and the one time a record label tried to interfere

 

… Neil Young’s 2,000-acre Broken Arrow Ranch and the “burning fires of his eyes”

 

… Iggy Pop singing I Wanna Be Your Dog in the John Snow pub in Soho

 

… “German sausages, lumps of lamb, maggots, a whole party”: the Soft Cell clip that caused a walk-out

 

... “You’re a funny little arsehole!”: breaking the ice with Bowie

 

… what he learnt from Mark Hollis of Talk Talk and spending time with his ashes.

 

Order ‘I Shoot Rock Stars’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/i-shoot-rock-stars/tim-pope/9781035426959

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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