Thursday 19 February 2015

So Good to Be Top of the Pops Again

I'm not able to be in front of a tv set this Thursday to watch young Steve Wright make his 7th February 1980 hosting debut on Top of the Pops, so I'll have to cheat a little by using the running order (thanks so much as always to the wonderful Popscene website) to write this post before the edition goes out on BBC4. I don't know what will be edited out ~ it could be the Rats since we've seen that one before, and maybe the Nolans, the Regents and the Buggles.......

Love the show...?




7-2-80: Presenter: Steve Wright

(30) JEFFERSON STARSHIP – Jane (and charts)
They began life as Jefferson Airplane back in 1969 but had become a Starship by the time Jane became their fist hit single, peaking at 21.

 (46) THE TOURISTS – So Good To Be Back Home Again
This follow up to I Only Want to Be With You was the band's second and final top ten hit.

 (27) CLIFF RICHARD – Carrie (video)
This was the first of two top ten hits for Cliff in 1980.

 (18) THE WHISPERS – And The Beat Goes On (danced to by Legs & Co)
Something for them to shout about here, this was a number 2 hit.

 (8) THE BOOMTOWN RATS – Someone’s Looking At You ®
Though it seemed unlikely at the time, this was in fact the penultimate top ten hit for the Rats.

(3) THE NOLANS – I’m In The Mood For Dancing
The sisters now at their peak in the charts.

 (44) THE CHORDS – Maybe Tomorrow
This one could fall victim to the 7.30 edit, at 40 this was The Chords biggest hit.

 (11) THE REGENTS – 7 Teen
Now at its chart peak.

 (20) QUEEN – Save Me (video)
A second single from their forthcoming number one album, The Game.

 (21) THE SELECTER – Three Minute Hero
The follow up to On My Radio, peaked at 16 in the charts.

 (47) AC/DC – Touch Too Much
The first of seven singles released in 1980 by the Aussie Rockers, though only the very last of them made the top 20. Back in Black was a big number one album though in the summer.

 (28) BUGGLES – The Plastic Age
On its way to number 16 in the charts.

 (1) THE SPECIALS – Too Much Too Young (video)
Final week at number one.

 (5) JOE JACKSON – It’s Different For Girls (and credits)
His first of two career top ten hits, now at its chart peak.


Next week is a Sky At Night Week, so Top of the Pops returns in two weeks time with the edition from February 15th 1980.

53 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 'Carrie' was one of a number of hit songs penned by Manchester-born, Adelaide-bred Terry Britten, a consummate songwriter who would win 2 major Grammy awards in '85 as producer and co-writer of Tina Turner's comeback smash 'What's Love Got To Do With It?'

    It was a joy to hear The Whispers again; you don't hear enough of this kind of classy R&B in the Top 20 these days. As well as The Whispers, whose line-up included identical twins Walter and Wallace Scott, Solar Records was also home to hitmaking bands Shalamar and Midnight Star, not to mention The Deele, which included future mega-producers LA and Babyface.

    Despite a spirited performance, a strong vocal blend, and some obvious songwriting talent, The Regents never did become Britain's B-52s.

    Joe Jackson's second Top 10 hit would not come until '83 with 'Stepping Out', which contained that unforgettable couplet: 'You can dress in pink and blue just like a child/And in a yellow taxi turn to me and smile'! He had relocated to New York by then, hence the reference to that city's cab system. Currently resident in Berlin, the multi-talented Mr Jackson won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album in '01 with his classical work 'Symphony No.1'. BTW, both he and I are accomplished melodica players.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you can play the melodica as well as Joe did on the album track "Geraldine And John", I'd be mighty impressed! I think Joe was holding his melodica on the cover of "I'm The Man" from which album the tune came.

      Delete
    2. His playing is very impressive on that reggae-flavoured offering, which always makes me think of Elvis Costello's '(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea'. Those two singer-songwriters have often been compared to each other, both branching out into jazz and even the classics. I only wish they could both be more successful in terms of chart placings and sales, but at least they've each won a Grammy award.

      Delete
  3. For the second week in a row, I have sneaked a look at the line-up ahead of the show and for the second week in a row I am less than enthused. I think that this may be a negative way to review the show so I will have to stop it and try to get into the same kind of mindset I had when I watched the original - that is, not knowing who was going to appear. Anyways, lets get going. . .

    And a very nervous, looking-at-the-prompter beginning for Steve Wright on his debut. Jefferson Starship nee Airplane get us underway to the accompaniment of the charts with something I neither know/knew or care/cared for.

    The Tourists. Seriously! How did Dave and Annie get a recording contract after this? A nothing song saying nothing and with the weakest production you could imagine. Maybe its my anti-Annie leanings but this is junk!.

    Cliff. 'Carrie' is one of the few Cliff songs that I find even bearable ( the others include The Day I Met Marie and Daddy's Home, if you are interested) His performance is,however, slightly cringy - all 'light entertainment', pretending to hold a telephone etc.

    Legs dancing to the Whispers. One of the few disco songs of this era that still stands up today. And the girls looked lovely in rainbow coloured short outfits.

    Then we get a repeat of the Jagger-wannabeing Rats - There's Always Someone Looking At You.

    The Nolans once again singing live, so you have to give them credit for that, especially the one who was seriously flat during the opening bars. And this included split-screen looks at the audience who, in fairness, were giving it a bit of a go. It wasn't often the audience got the chance to be centre stage in front of the camera - and I'm guessing there are a few fifty year old men cringing at their young selves tonight!

    The Chords. Tuneless, structureless, talentless. I'm sure they were nice to their mums though.

    The Regents. AGAIN!! Looking at the performance now, it has all the hallmarks of a throwaway album track that some exec picked up on and forced the band to release as a single. The musos look embarrassed to be there.

    Queen - Save Me. And a video that seems to mash together the videos to A-ha 'Take On Me' and 'Walking In The Air' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. The song itself is still pants though.

    Selecter - A studio performance of three minute hero which was two and a half minutes more than I could tolerate. Had they always been known as Selecter as written on the walls behind them? Because I was always under the impression they were called THE Selecter.

    ACDC - Not a fan of metal so I am sure I would have ignored this. It hasn't improved with time. I seem to think that there was a lot of metal songs in the charts around this time and I'm wondering why?

    Buggles- a repeat showing of Plastic Age notable only for the clever couplet - 'they send the heart police to put you under cardiac arrest'.

    The Specials ending their run at number one with the same old concert footage, and Joe Jackson sees us out.

    And the scores on the doors? Well Mr Wright picks up a 4. He didn't look at all comfortable in front of the camera and he added nothing in his between-song patter. He also fell into what has become a regular TotP Presenter trap of predicting great things for an act that did absolutely bog-all after their ToTP appearance ( this week's jinx was The Chords). The show also gets a 4 which would have been a 5 if The Whispers had have made a video or studio appearance.

    Adios amigoes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. shaky i know what you mean about checking out what's on the show beforehand, as however strong the temptation to do so you know it's going to be a disappointment. therefore i also always try and avoid that if i can...

      Delete
    2. re: selecter/the selecter quandary - i was thinking of starting up a band and calling it "the definitive article", but then again it might just be "definitive article"... if i've already done that one here then apologies!

      Delete
    3. Call your band World Leaders - loads of free plugs on the news!

      Delete
  4. Poor old Bon Scott died just 12 days after this was broadcast ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. when i was watching this i thought that bon couldn't have been far off leaving for the great gig in the sky (in classic rock 'n' roll manner via choking on his own vomit) - i thought about a couple of weeks, which wasn't a bad guess!

      Delete
  5. Interesting show for audience watchers, this one, with The Incredible Hulk making an appearance, Steve Wright's fan club - both of them - in matching jumpers, and a lot of silly dancing recorded in pitiless detail, though at least the first girl we see shies away from the camera in embarrassment.

    Recognise the Jefferson Starship tune, but don't recall it from the time, can't have made an impression. Then The Tourists, with Annie apparently having arrived on horseback. Quite a warm song when New Wave could be colder and spiky, but who was playing the invisible organ?

    And Cliff got in on the New Wave act with this, a mystery song because we're not told the whole story, sort of Cliff's Ode to Billie Joe. Was it Carrie from the Stephen King book? Or Carrie from Carrie's War? We shall never know...

    In case you didn't recognise them, Legs & Co had their name in lights behind them. Standard routine for some reason conducted in semi-darkness, but it's a trilling disco tune that still sounds fine.

    It really does take ages for the chorus to arrive in the Boomtown Rats song, doesn't it? Almost as if they nearly forgot to include one till the last minute.

    The Nolans doin' it live once again, you have to admire their pluck, but I'm getting a little tired of this. Looking forward to their other hits, though, they delivered some solid pop.

    The Chords, who really really wanted to be The Jam, but unfortunately that position was filled. It's OK, but you wouldn't mistake it for the real thing in spite of an impassioned lead singer.

    The Regents, with Mr Regent sporting that soon to be popular bean bags gaffer taped to the shoulders of his jumper look. Clunky, wonky song, but it has charms.

    Queen, ooh, with a delicate flower of a video complete with flying dove and sensitive lady in animated form. Suppose it's quite clever, but doesn't do anything for a lacklustre tune. Didn't spot any ballet as Steve seemed to see.

    The Selecter, this was the highlight for me, Pauline Black was the coolest person on the show, and I did try and make out the lyrics, but I'm afraid I'm little the wiser. Very much brought up the energy levels after the snoozy Queen.

    AC/DC, was this Bon Scott's final TV appearance? Not their best song, but most of their tunes are pretty much the same anyway, so it's a matter of which version on their themes sounds the best. You could take a bet on when Angus will lose his cap.

    The Buggles, yeah, still like this, though bemused at Mr Keyboard Buggle wearing Marigolds as if just in from washing up in the kitchen.

    Rowdy Specials to end, cut off once again before they start to go into too much detail. As for the presenter, Steve was twitchy and squirmy, but he would only get better. Er, wouldn't he?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Annie Lennox OBE, who studied piano at the Royal Academy, placed one hand on the keyboard at the end of the first chorus, but forgot to mime the rest of the part! In the promotional video, she is clearly shown performing the solo on a two-manual Crumar T2 Organiser (a portmanteau of "organ" and "synthesiser"). BTW, did you notice that David A Stewart, prophetically, rounded off the song with the main riff from 'Maggie's Farm'?

      Delete
    2. Ah, I suppose she let her enthusiasm get the better of her and was carried away. Didn't notice the Dylan riff, but I wouldn't put it past Dave.

      Delete
  6. The Chords' best TV performance was probably their turn on that group-breaking monolith, "Cheggers Plays Pop".

    If Cliff was singing to a backing tape, was it Carrie Oakey? I'll get my coat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. was she related to phil oakey of the human league? hang on arthur i'm right behind you...

      Delete
  7. Why was the AC/DC song edited? Chunks were missing. The YouTube version had been vandalised in the same way. Had some of the lyrics suddenly been deemed rude just prior to transmission? And the song was cut before the lead guitar playout solo thus depriving us of the finest moment in hard rock.
    Fancy getting them into the studio and then making such a pigs ear of it.

    Brian May paid the Bon Scott era AC/DC a tribute when on Desert Island Discs in 2002 chose 'Highway to Hell' as his second favourite disc and described their music as rock in its purest form.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I noticed that too, but thought my recording had messed up. If it's the same on YouTube we have to assume the original broadcast was like that, but I can't think why.

      Delete
    2. it is edited due to the double entendres (of course the Specials also cut short before mentions of contraception and the cap) - it was edited like this on both TOTP2 and UK Gold. I did see the original show 35 years ago, and I don't remember it being so horribly cut then, but my memory may be at fault.

      Delete
    3. All three appearances of the Specials on TOTP on three shows in a row, had cut out at one-and-a-half minutes of the song because of the next part of the song mentioning the word 'contraception' in what was a family show, and with kids watching, it was certainly not appropriate.

      That is the first week in the charts straight in at No.15, and then two weeks at No.1 had the same edit treatment on the original shows broadcast in 1980, because of the inappropriate lyrics.

      The Specials appeared to dig their own hole, because they were always available for the TOTP studio until this one, where for obvious lyric reasons, they could not be invited in to perform it, and only a cut video could be aired.

      Delete
    4. Dory - thanks for clarifying the Specials being cut short every time! It never occured to me that the lyrics were too risque for TOTP since it was presuambly played in full on the radio. I didn't even know what the meaning of 'cap' was in that sense at the time! For me, this is one of the weakest number ones of the 80s. The Specials were much better on 'Gangsters', 'Message to you Rudy', 'Rat Race' and of course, a certain other number one of theirs.....

      Delete
  8. Dare I say it, but I thought Mr Wright did pretty well on his debut, with some smooth and even mildly amusing links, though his voice sounded notably higher and posher than it does these days. I was listening to his Radio 2 show yesterday, and ironically he played Rupert Holmes' Escape - I wonder if anyone has ever pointed out the physical similarity to him?

    A good show overall, and it got off to a great start with possibly the Tourists' best single. I notice that Annie's obsession with wigs had already begun at this point - it would continue throughout the Eurythmics years. Next up, Cliff with one of his finest songs, and a real highlight of his 1979-83 purple patch. Quite a moody video, too, though as ever Cliff himself is much easier to listen to than to watch, with his silly arm and hand movements. Much easier on the eye were Legs, with a fine (and colourful) performance, though it would have been hard to go wrong to this eminently danceable tune.

    The other new songs featured were a bit of a mixed bunch. The Chords' effort was so-so, but they were so desperate to be The Jam that it was slightly embarrassing! Queen had a nice video, but a boring song, and The Selecter looked very cool, but their offering was too similar to On My Radio to really stand out. I thought the AC/DC number was a relatively quiet one for them, and was actually quite good - I am not a fan, in general. Strange to think that Bon Scott would be dead just 2 weeks later. I am familiar with the Jefferson Starship number, and it is one of the better examples of American AOR from this period. However, it isn't a patch on their best work as the Airplane - I have their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow, and it is one of the classic works of the psychedelic era.

    While not every song was great, I thought this edition did have a nice atmosphere, thanks to a more enthusiastic audience than normal. Amusing as well to see the two Steve Wright fans and the man in the monster mask - what was that about, exactly?

    I see we do have a Sky at Night break coming up, after all, though I don't why it is later than usual. Presumably it will now always be at the end of the month, though who knows what goes through the minds of the schedulers sometimes...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steve Wright and Rupert Holmes - separated at birth? Looking at both their photos on this site, I'd forgotten how much glass went into spectacle frames in those days. A touch of the Dennis Taylors!

      Delete
    2. It's amazing, looking back, at how big glasses were in the 80s and 90s. At the time, it didn't seem odd at all...

      Delete
    3. Check out Michael Caine in Blame It On Rio for massive specs. They're funnier than anything else in the movie. Nowadays it seems only George A. Romero is the last proponent of big glasses.

      Delete
  9. host: looks like angelo's used the same picture for this week's show as last week... i've always felt men with facial hair growth of any kind are probably best avoided, but the ones who leave some kind of gap between moustache (apart from mr wright, sergio mendes comes to mind) are definitely inviting contact with a lump hammer to their face... i wonder if the man himself watched his debut, and if so hopefully cringed at that pathetic attempt at an "oirish" accent inbetween the rats and the nolans...

    jefferson starship: this is okay (and certainly preferable to "we built this city"), but if you like some funky rock then check out "love too good" from their "earth" album - i remember going a school trip to london at the time of release, and loving it when i heard it blasted out in one of the flagship record stores in oxford st

    tourists: this is pleasant enough i suppose, but gives no hint of what is to come. but then again it wasn't really annie & dave's baby but peet coombes (who unlike them faded into obscurity before an early narcotics-related death). cutting off a horse's mane and sticking it in her flying helmet (or whatever it was) is not a good look for annie. in fact it's a bit of a 'mare (ho ho)

    cliff: good to see he had some kind of band behind him (was brian bennett aka "golf club dad" among them?) for a change, but still pretty much fast-forward material

    whispers/legs: an okay disco track for an okay legs routine. i remember this being played to death in discos at the time, and neither liking nor disliking it. and i feel the same now, although i acknowledge it was an early form of the 80's soul/disco/r&b groove style that had no name at the time but is now rather lamely known by da kidz as "boogie"

    nolans: my favourite nolan maureen wins this week's "skin-tight satin pants" award - a lovely puce pair to boot!

    chords: they try so hard, and yet it's nothing but complete tune-free rubbish

    regents: still can't decide what to make of this, so i suppose i never will. despite his trendy plantpot haircut the singer definitely looks like the kind of kid at school who got picked on!

    ac/dc: one of the better metal bands, and one of their better efforts. but nothing to get excited about

    selecter: much akin to the chords, but in its defence at least you could have danced (or more likely hurled yourself around) to this if you heard it in a disco (and i remember discos having mod/ska interludes in between all the usual stuff)

    buggles: is this the same guitarist as seen on their last appearance? if so then a visit to the hairdressers has gone horribly wrong. either that or he's just stuck his hand on a van der graaf generator (or whatever that device was in school physics classrooms that made your hair stand on end)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mention of Van Der Graaf Generator! Prog rock alert! The device that made my hair stand on end at school was our stand-in English teacher.

      Steve Wright suffers from the same facial hair problem as me, with no stubble in the philtrum - that bit between the vertical grooves under your nose. Anyway, I don't grow any face fungus as I can barely get what Eric Morecambe termed a cricket moustache - eleven a side!

      Delete
    2. I used to have a batty old great aunt who couldn't stand men with beards. Fortunately her eyesight wasn't all that good (I'm fair-haired and have never been a Z Z Topper).

      Delete
    3. I don't believe VDGG ever made TOTP which is a shame as 'Theme One' is quite famous being the theme tune of the Friday Rock Show at some point.

      Delete
  10. Gave Jefferson Starship's Jane a proper listen on YouTube and now I quite like it, they're obviously doing themselves a mischief to rock out to the max, but they just about succeed. Sounds like an awful lot of other things around at the time, mind you.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I’ll be controversial and say that, dull Queen video apart, I thought that one of the best shows of the re-run, though I felt giddy watching Steve Wright imitate a Thunderbirds puppet throughout the show, and he was almost as wooden. Must have been a really hard three days for the make-up artist.

    I loved “Jane” by Jefferson Starship and still do. Probably the first top 30 single in Britain on the Grunt label, but it was eclipsed success-wise by Starship’s chart topper.

    Was Annie Lennox wearing a police helmet or a sawn-off gimp mask? Er, allegedly! And that definitely isn’t a ponytail as we know it. Loved the “ooh, hark at me” reaction of the shy audience dancer.

    Did Cliff have terrible BO? His band couldn’t have been any further back. Loved the literal acting of the lyrics. Method acting at its finest.

    Ladies and gentlemen, that’s why the dance troupe are called LEGS and Co. Just look at them! Those dresses were shorter than 80’s football shorts, but why three blue dresses and no red or orange? Maybe I hadn’t been paying proper attention, but I hadn’t noticed Sue’s frizzy hairstyle before – was this its debut?

    No, Steve, the Boomtown Rats aren’t AROUND number 8. They ARE number 8! (slaps hand to forehead)

    Fair play to The Nolans, always giving it a go live. I wonder if they ever gigged with The Dooleys? That would have been chicken-in-a-basket Heaven!

    I think The Chords were discovered by Paul Weller, which may be why they ended up on the same label. Their producer at this time was Andy Arthurs, last round these parts as co-writer and producer of Tonight’s “Drummer Man”. I’ll stick my head above the parapet and say I loved this.

    Nice jetpack outfit by Martin Sheller, but had he locked The Regents’ guitarist in the toilet this time round? And girls, please try and keep in time. Music and movement!

    An energetic turn by The Selecter, with their proper logo behind them unlike the stylings for most acts tonight. Pauline Black was and still is powerful, bold and alluring.

    Such a shame Bon Scott’s final TOTP was sliced in strips like the steak allured to in the lyrics, along with a ‘velvet glove’ line that Debbie Harry got away with years later. May as well have played one of the tracks on the B-side instead. By the time the single earned a mugshot, Bon was gone.

    Talking of gloves, had someone sneezed on The Buggles’ keyboards just before their turn, hence the Marigolds? Geoff really should have worn velvet gloves in solidarity with AC/DC. Do you think Level 42’s Mark King gazed in awe at the guitarist’s high strap and think “that’s the look for me”?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. athur excuse my ignorance, but i presume your "velvet glove" reference relates to lyrical euphemisms for sexual acts i.e. "give the dog a bone" in squeeze's "cool for cats"?

      also, maybe mark king's bass-holding style was influenced by haircut 100?

      Delete
    2. It’s a euphemism for we called back in the day a lady’s ‘tuppence’. AC/DC’s song also mentions how the object of Bon’s, erm, affections likes it hard, fast and medium rare, hence the steak allegory.

      Delete
  12. A stand-out show for the presenter alone. Steve Wright, the original version - I wonder if he's happy for this to be shown? I think it was around the late '80s when he went fully in for this 'image' thing, with the circular glasses and all that, and I don't think he's had an official publicity photo taken since shortly after then.

    But what we have here strikes me as a man who so desperately wants to be Kenny Everett. The mop of hair and chinstrap beard of 1970s Kenny, plus the watered-down mannerisms are plain to see. To be honest, I have no idea what his R1 show was like in the early days since as an FM/ILR listener right through the 1980s I never tuned into 275/285. It was only right at the end of the decade, when I used to get a lift into town after work, I was exposed to what was on R1 (by now on its new-fangled FM frequency) at that particular time. And what a load of annoying drivel it was too, I thought. Consequently I've never liked him since. And there's the problem - how I see him on his TOTP debut (i.e. a right prawn) is coloured by my opinion of him much later in his career.

    Notwithstanding, there was a lot of seriously good music on this edition (maybe I'm just easy to please) and I always like to see a colour-coded Legs & Co (after all, that's what this colour TV thing is all about - the Go-Jos could never do this!). But unbelievably we're now into February and still seeing pre-Christmas stuff in the form of the Regents and the Nolans. I can't recall any other period during these re-runs when the turnover of singles was so tardy. Hopefully things will soon be back to normal with a bit more 'churn'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. steve wright's shows were essential radio listening for me in the early 80's - not because of the music (what little was played was innocuous chart crap), but for what was at the time the breakthrough format (in the UK anyway) of featuring scripted comedy routines with characters such as gervais the hairdresser (yes i know, a bit homophobic by today's standards), mr angry from purley and "david bowie" ("tell me what the time IS! tell me what the tem-pra-cha IS!"). i even liked the fact that he would carefully make use of audience effects that ranged from a polite smattering of applause to a stadium crowd erupting. yes, i know much of it has now been parodied by the likes of alan partridge, but it certainly made a refreshing change from the blandness of birthday dedications etc that was still proffered by most of his peers at the time...

      Delete
    2. I have to agree, I used to like listening to Wrighty when I got back from school, all those characters and clips and features meant it was never boring. Thinking back I'm not sure why it wasn't, it was the same bloody thing every afternoon. No idea how I'd respond to it all now, mind you, and I don't listen to him on Radio 2, but you know? I'm sort of glad he's survived, even if I've moved on.

      Delete
  13. Steve Wright's shows were enjoyable when - and only when - Phil Cornwell was around to do most of the comedy and impressions. The rest of the time it ranged from just unfunny to utterly cringeworthy. It's a total joke now, but mysteriously housewives still listen to it as if it's radio gold.

    As for this edition of the Pops, it was a middling one for me. As I pointed out before, I seem to be the only one round these parts who actually loves 'Save Me'. The Selecter were as entertaining as ever, The Tourists song I like, and we're now getting the Cliff songs produced by Alan Tarmey so 'Carrie' is the first in a run of top pop tunes. Let's just hope that we get to hear them all, and the BBC don't bow to 'media pressure' and get the scissors out. Again.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Bearing in mind today's verdict, what do you reckon the chances are the BBC will try and remove The Human League's Glitteresque debut from the re-runs? It'll be a difficult job with the scissors, as The 'League are the first act straight after the chart rundown, but I wouldn't put it past them, despite Phil Oakey's starring role in the start-of-year almanac.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You would like to think the Beeb wouldn't be so stupid, but I wouldn't put it past them either, despite GG being a known sex offender for many years prior to this verdict. I think it's safe to say that the man himself won't appear again in the reruns, if we get that far, and doubtless Cliff will disappear to if the police eventually decide to make an arrest.

      Delete
    2. Sorry, that should have been "too" in the final sentence!

      Delete
    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    4. and of course Splodgenessabound's version of Two Little Boys comes along later in the year.

      Delete
  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Interesting-sounding programme on ITV shock: this Wednesday evening after the news (or Friday if you're in Scotland) ITV are putting on their own version of TOTP2, a bunch of clips from their extensive music archives. Narrated by Andy Kershaw for some reason. Might be worth a look?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is very interesting as I guess that ITV did not at the time have an equivalent competitor show to TOTP, and so if this their own version of TOTP2, it would probably be clips from fun shows like Tiswas, unless they are going to show promo videos, which is not exclusive to any TV channels. Will be interesting to see what is churned out on Wednesday.

      Delete
    2. As far as I know it's not "The Best of the Chart Show" so it'll be actual archive performances, presumably from stuff like the Saturday morning shows, Razzmatazz, The Roxy, er... Shang-a-Lang?! Plenty to choose from, anyway.

      Each episode has a theme, and this week's is hellraisers, which of course means Oliver Reed on Aspel and Company.

      Delete
    3. The Chart Show was a weekly show on Channel 4, not ITV, and it used promo videos and not studio performances, cos there was no studio.

      Delete
    4. The Chart Show started on C4 but moved to ITV for its latter years before it was replaced by CD:UK. And, er, I know it was all videos, that was my joke!

      Delete
    5. hopefully a lot of what they show will be from "supersonic" ("cue lights, cue snowstorm"...). however, it doesn't bode well that the picture used to promote this show is of the bloody gallagher brothers!

      Delete
  17. Presumably a fair bit of this week's show will come from Tony Wilson's output!

    Andy Kershaw seems everywhere lately - see, people can be rehabilitated it would appear (when the powers that be want them to)

    ReplyDelete
  18. If only Chris De Burgh's "Don't Pay The Ferryman" was on Top of the Pops, we could have had Steve Wright back announce it with a quip "Please, don't kick me!"

    Anyone noticed the UK Gold repeat edition had the 1981 flying disc titles anachronistically retro fitted?

    ReplyDelete
  19. I thought this was a good episode until Dury-Village People-Judas Priest.

    Annoying to see The Gap Band still in the Top 10.

    The crowd at the end still up to their antics of waving so that they think they can see themselves on camera easier when it airs.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Great to see this show repeated again in Feb 2023, and it's amazing how the TOTP studio sets were still in 1979 style, and the format of the show with the whole Top 30 rundown at the start of the show, the same as in the early 70s, nothing much had changed really.

    I thought Steve Wright did very well on his first show as presenter, despite looking a bit nervous throughout the programme, and roster wise, who could forget that Cliff Richard video for Carrie where he is looking very lost looking for her, and ACDC in their Bon Scott days always ready for appearing in the TOTP studio, as it was different for the rest of the decade when they could only been seen on the show with their videos with Brian Johnson at the helm.

    ReplyDelete