https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/afcb4812dfef23d53cd735327b2eb47a20160626161136/70c029
So glad to be back!
14-1-82: Presenter: Dave Lee Travis
(4) DOLLAR – Mirror Mirror (Mon Amour)
Another new performance of Mirror Mirror now at its peak.
(57) ELKIE BROOKS – Fool If You Think It’s Over
A first top 30 hit for over three years for Elkie who took this Chris Rea cover to number 17.
(13) SHAKIN’ STEVENS – Oh Julie
There was still no stopping Shaky, here he is on his way to his third number one in less than a year.
(7) ALTERED IMAGES – I Could Be Happy
Another bouncy rendition of I Could Be Happy now at its chart peak.
(25) THE STRANGLERS – Golden Brown
Here's another act returning to the top 30 after three years absence, and helped out here by Zoo, Golden Brown would become their biggest hit, making it to number 2.
(3) KOOL & THE GANG – Get Down On It
The UK Amateur Dance Champions perform their routine here to Kool and the Gang, and another record at its peak.
(23) THE FOUR TOPS – Don’t Walk Away
And now here come the 'professionals' from Zoo with their routine to this follow up to When She Was My Girl, which reached number 16.
(20) BROWN SAUCE – I Wanna Be A Winner (video)
The Swap Shop team on their way to number 15.
(10) KRAFTWERK – The Model (video)
With what would become the group's only number one hit.
(1) BUCKS FIZZ – The Land Of Make Believe
The first of two weeks at the top.
(19) THE HUMAN LEAGUE – Being Boiled (crowd dancing) (and credits)
A bit of a cash-in on their recent success is this one, but it did reach number 6.
Next up then is the 21st January 1982 on BBC4.
Dollar - what can I say but I just can't get enough of Dollar lately on TOTP. Theresa Bazaar was dressed up this week as a present with a bow wrapping. Good Lord, what a gift for anyone at any time of the year! Gifts and presents aside, they were already at No.4 with this track, and clearly a big hit with the record-buying public.
ReplyDeleteAltered Images - ditto, and another lovely New Year present in Claire Grogan, with or without wrapping, although DLT was right in his introduction that it's difficult to focus on Claire with all that movement on stage, but who cares, cos she's just sooooo pretty.
Kool & The Gang - at last the video was now available, after the paltry pre-xmas dancing of it by Zoo. I didn't think too much of the Team Disco Dancing Champions dancing over this video in the studio.
Chart rundown - Good Lord, Meat Loaf only up 4 places to No.26 after that humdinger video last week with Cher. I put this down to the record shops not ordering enough 7" singles, cos Meat Loaf was not expected to be a singles seller, and rather an album man with no commercial focus to his music. Suffice to say that the following week the shops got the ordering right, and then Meat went up to No.7.
Brown Sauce - I must admit that what made this watchable was Maggie Philbin in that lovely red dress, strawberry colour and all. She also came across with a great voice for surprisingly, and me being still 13 at the time, I must admit I had a bit of a crush on Miss Philbin. Other interesting observations on this were that none of them wanted to marry Princess Diana. Good lord, poor Diana, it was a cruel world for her after marrying Prince Charles.
Bucks Fizz - it seemed they were now back at No.1 where they belonged after their debut single Making Your Mind Up, nine months earlier in April 1981. And they looked a lot happier for it judging by the smiles on this week's studio performance. No.1 was their home-sweet-home, and by golly they were back there in style.
Playout/Human League - I'm not sure why this hit from before the Sheffield girls were recruited into the group, was released while they were still No.1 with Don't You Want Me. Couldn't they wait like every other band till there latest hit had dropped out of the chart? What was the hurry?
"Being Boiled" was a re-issue of an early Human League single originally released on Edinburgh indie label Fast, in a Japan-style attempt to cash in on an old act (the re-issue was handled by the slightly larger EMI). Like Japan, the League played along and promoted the old track. They'd also released their first single on Virgin under the pseudonym of The Men, as they felt the track was too poppy to fit in with their style at the time.
DeleteI noticed that this edition used a picture of Human League Mark 2 in the chart rundown when they got to Being Boiled, which must have hacked off Ware and Marsh...
Deleteyes, lady diana really did have a shit life didn't she? how she managed to put up being surrounded by fawning sycophants and flunkies doing everything for her on a whim thanks merely to the lottery of birth i'll never know...
DeleteWell, at least one of those flunkies messed her up pretty badly, so not all good luck there.
DeleteJohn, yes it is disappointing when the TOTP staff do not do their work properly, and in this case the credit or caption should have highlighted the previous Human League line-up, and not the new one with the two girls.
DeleteThis was more like Top of the Zoo, and they're there with their mirrors again for the Dollar ditty. They seem to have ditched the band, presumably because nobody was watching them anyway.
ReplyDeleteNow something for the mums. Or grans. Something for people who find Dollar a bit too high octane, anyway, as Elkie sleepwalks her way through the already sleepy Chris Rea tune.
Shaky even more animated than usual here, was the golden girl supposed to be the Julie of the title? She looked a bit of a handful.
Clare decked out in Pinky Blue, surely no coincidence, wending her way through her band as if she was in a maze.
The Stranglers making Clare look even more exuberant in comparison, if that's possible. Yes, it's about drugs, but it has such a strange structure that it really sticks in your head.
Kool and the Gang for this week's "Is my TV on the blink?" moment. The dancers won't be joining Zoo with stuttering moves like that any time soon.
I remember this Four Tops tune better than their previous hit seen here, don't know why but it does pop into my head every so often. Good idea to follow dance routine with dance routine?
Now I want to know if the voice going "Only in my mirror!" as mimed to by David Van Day is the same as the one who goes "I just wanna be a winner!" on the Brown Sauce track.
I absolutely love Kraftwerk, but as The Model was their biggest hit you'd think it was the only record they ever made when it gets overplayed on the radio. Thank goodness for BBC 6 Music - Nemone played Computer World this morning and it sounded great.
The superbly synchronised Bucks Fizz, both sartorially and terpsichorially, at number one. Not sick of this yet.
Then The Human League to end on, a terrific track from a terrific album, which in a nice coincidence was ripping off - er, I mean influenced by Kraftwerk.
The Four Tops I thought made their best single with When She Was My Girl which reached top 5 towards the end of 1981 just as Zoo had arrived on the scene, and in my view it was difficult to follow up successfully, so this new one called Don't Walk Away didn't seem to have a video, and was not really given justice by the new Zoo performance this week.
DeleteTerpsichorially ~ wow, now there's a word! I must look that one up :-)
DeleteI was worried I might have made it up, but nope, it gets a few hits on Google!
DeleteImpressed with the technical quality if this is from a home recording - a bit of drop-out around the end of the model, but no worse than the 1977 David Hamilton one shown on BBC4. Of course we are now in a 3 month period of much yo-yoing in the charts, due to Saturday sales featuring in the survey of the following week as a cost cutting exercise, so that it takes 2 weeks for a TOTP appearance to affect the countdown.
ReplyDeleteBit of crinkle at least another couple of times affecting Four Tops & Bucks Fizz as well.
DeleteIve found the Totp 2 Recorded For Recall slot covering this edition as well, featuring Altered Images, Bucks Fizz, Stranglers & Kraftwerk.
Annoying, that will only repair two of the dropout clips, with Four Tops/Zoo not repeated.
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DeleteWell it didn't take long for 1982 to present us with a Yewtree-shaped hole, did it? This is a DLT one and, as a consequence, it is far easier and more enjoyable to watch than the 'other' sort.
ReplyDeleteFirst up - Dollar with the narcissistic Mirror Mirror. Now there have been a number of videos with a lot of self-love ( Adam, I'm looking at you!) but has there ever been another chart song on this theme?
Elkie. Not as snoozesome as Lilac Wine or Pearl's A Singer but still far too slow and ponderous for me. Chris Rea's version is far superior.
Shakin Stevens. I have not been backward in throwing brickbats in his general direction over the past couple of years, but for this song the former Mr Barrett deserves some credit, because he actually wrote this! It's not my cup of tea - obvs- but it must have struck a chord because it was a world wide hit and was even covered by Barry Manilow.
The Stranglers. I liked this when it was released. For about two days. Then it started to grate, and finally to annoy. Think it might be the harpsichord that irks.
Kool & The Gang. Part video. Part performance from some amateur dance troup. Fully crap.
This is followed by a terrible 'interview' with the dancers with a solitary one word answer, before they get to introduce some 'proper' 'dancers'.
Zoo dancing to The Four Tops. The song is only so-so but that is not the real problem here. It's Zoo - or the four bits of Zoo that have been elected (or forcibly coercied) into performing. It's not working is it? Whether it's the choreography, or because the moves are so of-their-time, but this is just horrible to watch. It seems quite a feat of longevity that this lot managed to cling on to their spot for two years. Personally I'd have binned them off after this!
Somehow Brown Sauce are still climbing the charts and notch up another video appearance. Another example of BBC synergy.
Kraftwerk. A huge dancefloor song from last year finally makes its way onto the show accompanied by what I can only assume is a cobbled together video featuring the band playing some other song and some stock catwalk footage. Although I liked this at the time, it does nothing for me these days.
The Fizzers at number 1 and a Human League cash-in to see us out.
Dancers/the crowd. I am going to have to stop having a separate entry for this because I can only see it being a constant stream of 'Zoo are useless' and 'eighties haircuts and clothes look silly' and 'ooh look, there's Craig Fairbrass'.
DLT. A restrained and virtually faultless performance. He couldn't resist interacting with the guy in the monkey suit and his 'interview' with the amateur dancers was jaw-droppingly awful but aside from that- well played. 8.
The show. Mmmm. A very 'poppy' Pops this week with little in the way of music from the current scene and plenty that Mum and Dad would have approved of. Not me though - 4.
even though it still irks me that the bbc continue to deny me the chance to catch up with my musical memories unequivocably, i can't say there's much here i am bothered at missing out on seeing. however hopefully kraftwerk and the stranglers will elude the curse of yewtree later on thanks to their surprising successes. and as someone else has mentioned here, the fact that the human league were happy to promote their old single "being boiled" (even though half those involved had left the band by then) suggests that maybe they'll get a rare non-yewtree opportunity as well in the coming weeks?
ReplyDeleteregarding the latter: in late 1978 i stolled into my sixth form common room to hear an amazing track being played, that turned out to be "europe endless" from kraftwerk's "trans europe express" album. so not only did i manage to pursuade the owner to sell it to me, but as a result of my new-found liking for synthesizer music i also bought an original fast product copy of "being boiled" off him too. unlike most records back then, due to limited pressing (in mono!) it was supposedly highly collectable and worth a load of money as a result (i probably paid around £3 for it at the time). looking on discogs now, i see the going rate for a copy in decent nick is around a tenner (i'm sure i've still got mine hanging around somewhere, so i might take advantange of that!)
1982 was an unusual TOTP year for the League, as we got "Don't You Want Me" three times, once during a headcsratching one-off section of European chart toppers, plus one non-Yewtreed studio performance which got repeated.
DeleteA thought just came into my mind today the more I hear the Brown Sauce tune. The rhythm of the song is uncannily like All Night Long by Rainbow. I wonder how many people picked up this similarity at the time.
ReplyDeletePerhaps if Julie could have a listen and let us know her thoughts, as I think Brown Sauce may have lifted the splice of the Rainbow song.
This one was a definite step up in quality from the first show of the year, very ably hosted by a rather dapper DLT and containing several memorable studio performances. The mirrors were out again for Dollar at the start, though not in the same quantities as on Christmas Eve. Dare I say it, but DVD looked almost dashing in his suit and bow-tie - I was less keen on Thereza's massive bow, however...
ReplyDeleteThe show's momentum is temporarily halted by Elkie's snoozy Chris Rea cover, which adds precisely nothing to the original - Elk also looks like she has been dragged through a hedge backwards here! Shaky, dressed in the kind of jacket you might normally see on a binman, then livens things up with a decent song that is made more impressive by the fact that he was only a novice songwriter at the time. Even so, this must be one of the least played number 1s of the 80s - I certainly don't recall hearing it much, if at all, on the radio.
Clare Grogan still grates with her incessant movement and the silly bow getting in her eyes yet again, but I really am warming to this song more every time I hear it, and the neon cascade set complements the dreamy quality of the music. The Stranglers then return from the wilderness with what has to be their most famous single. Watching the band's career unfold over the course of these repeats, it becomes easier to appreciate what a huge musical departure this was for them. It has of course been played to death over the years, but I haven't heard it as much of late and it sounded fresh and exciting again. An appropriately sombre performance too, with the band doubtless glad that Michael Hurll toned down the party atmosphere on this occasion. The only jarring thing was seeing Dave Greenfield without a moustache!
We then get two forgettable dance routines in a row, though it was interesting to see those snatches of the Kool & the Gang video. They obviously liked the blurry effect The Jacksons used for the Blame it on the Boogie promo, but it is amplified so much here you can barely see the band! The Zoo performance felt very 80s, particularly as the dancers were all sporting leg warmers. The song isn't a bad upbeat effort from the Tops, but I don't think it fully gels together.
This show also provides a glimpse into the early history of synthpop, with The Model and Being Boiled both rereleases originally hailing from 1978. The Model is another song that has suffered from a certain amount of overexposure, but its icy, powerful synths still make it a compelling listen. Bucks Fizz, meanwhile, finally make it to the top with their improbable anti-Thatcher diatribe, and celebrate with another visit to the studio. I think this is the best TOTP performance of the song, with a great atmosphere in the studio - I also like the group's black oriental costumes.
Wisely, the crowd restrict themselves to clapping along to Being Boiled, rather than trying to dance to it. The pop kids who had just bought Don't You Want Me must have been somewhat nonplussed by the dark synth sounds and impenetrable lyrics of this one! Sadly, no sign of the panther or the gorilla that we saw earlier in the crowd - what with the panda on Christmas Eve, the TOTP menagerie was clearly flourishing at this point. Will we get a giraffe next time?
On the contrary John. I think many of us men would have liked to unwrap that massive pink bow this week on Theresa Bazaar's waist to see what's inside. I mean on one of the Xmas 1981 shows it was Peter Powell who had a good grab of her in front of her boyfriend David Van day, and said he would like her to come through his chimney as a present from Father Christmas. Good Lord, let's not pass up such an opportunity.
DeleteAlso, I'm not too keen on the introduction of animals in the TOTP studio. Did we really need to see that awful gorilla next to DLT? Wasn't DLT gorilla enough for us? Oh and the panda from the Xmas show, good grief!
i couldn't recall any version of "fool if you think it's over" being a number one hit, so i had to check on wiki - where it was apparently top of the US "easy listening" chart (now called "adult contemporary"), but not the charts that count!
Deletealso: unlike 80's soul boys and footballers, dave greenfield (if somewhat belatedly) realised just how uncool moustaches actually are!
Sorry to be pedantic, but I'm pretty sure the current version of The Human League didn't promote the cash-in of "Being Boiled". They did not promote it on TOTP and there's no YouTube footage of the 1982 version as far as I could see. They were still promoting Dare at this time - see the great footage of "Do or Die" on YouTube from Jan 82.
ReplyDeleteOops, fair enough. I think they were happy to play it later in their career as I'm sure I heard it once or twice in their Here And Now tour period.
DeleteAs we say goodbye to Dollar this week in their last appearance with Mirror Mirror, we didn't get to see the video on TOTP, which I curiously had to see.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting one where the pair start as wooden chippings in a toymaker's shop, then turn into a real couple, then break out of the shop window in an Adam Ant style breakout smashing their way through the glass window and singing outside in the snow, and then later jump back in to the shop, and reverse back into wood chippings, and it was all a daydream by the toymaker in his shop. Worth a viewing I would say, and a bit in theme of Mr Benn or Bagpuss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqkI2VBiLgg
I remember that video very well Dory, and could have sworn that it got played on TOTP but we now know otherwise.
DeleteA bit unlucky that we didn't get to see 2 of the 3 performance on BBC4 really.
At the same time we also say goodbye to I could Be Happy by Altered Images, now it's peak of No.7 this week, and taking a look at the video which we didn't see on TOTP, it would have been a perfect play on this week's show, because it features a man dressed-up as a lion, much in the same vain of the gorilla man with DLT this week in the studio, and that awful panda over Xmas.
ReplyDeleteSuffice to say that Altered Images didn't bring the lion man into the studio this week at No.7, but wouldn't that have been brilliant, cos he could have made friends with the gorilla on the same show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfqPJp7Q7qE
At the end of the video, Claire groan gets to kiss the lucky man (erm lion).
Was disappointed to hear of the sad death today of Gordon Murray, the creator of Trumpton at the age of 95. While this is no TOTP reminisce, I remember that growing up as a schoolboy in the 70s & 80s, children's programmes like Trumpton gave us some delight in a world with only three channels, an limited programming.
ReplyDeleteIn fact Trumpton also inspired pop chart singles like A Trip To Trumpton by Urban Hype which got to No.6 in the summer of 1992, giving a well-earned mark of respect to Gordon Murray, and gaining its own spot on TOTP: "Cue Cue Barney McGrew, Cuthbert Dibble Brough!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXYa_qklKPc
Not forgetting "The Trumpton Riots" by cult indie band Half Man Half Biscuit.
DeleteThis show was not a huge loss for me as a lot of the songs we have already seen on BBC4 and others we (presumably) will soon.
ReplyDeleteThere were also some extremely odd edits as well, there was a particularly bad one as DLT was linking out of Brown Sauce and into the chart rundown. Oh, and surely that isn't the floor manager or director shouting "Move it!" just after DLT says his goodbyes, is it?!
One thing I will say is that the hairy one does his job very well here, perfect with the chart rundowns in giving us all the info.
A good idea to start with Dollar, but I'm not sure about Thereze's bow - was it a cast-off from Clare Grogan?
Elkie Brooks - Nah, I prefer Chris Rea's version.
The Shaky song is good, certainly his least heard chart topper I would say.
The Stranglers - hmmm...loved it at the time but I'm a but bored of it now to be honest. I prefer their later 82 / 83 offerings.
Not keen on Kool & The Gang or the dancers then..another dance performance. Yeah, great scheduling there! The Four Tops song is middling, not one of my favourites.
Brown Sauce - still love it, but yet again they chop it as the instrumental bit starts. Why? It's a 3 minute song, it doesn't need chopping!
Kraftwerk - great, but as others have said, it's a shame that you never hear any of their other brilliant songs.
Then Bucks Fizz in some very boring outfits followed by the lovely 'Being Boiled'. The sound of that song always intrigued me as a child and I do think it played a part in my love of synth-pop which endures to this day.
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ReplyDeleteGood God, I don't believe it, in that the early evening TOTP on BBC4 tonight, i.e. the 21st Jan 82 show, has been cancelled in favour of the live Wimbledon action.
ReplyDeleteLooks like there will only be the late night full version to look forward to.
They can not be serious!
DeleteNot to worry, the early evening show is on after all on BBC4 only one hour later at 8.30pm once the tennis is over, so get to work Angelo!
DeleteFirst of all, thanks to Neil B for this opportunity. Certainly worth seeing this show and the video shimmers towards the end do remind me of my own VHS recordings from the late 80s where tapes sometimes did this.
ReplyDeleteDollar – Mirror Mirror – great start to the show and as well as Thereze that bass line is really getting to me.
Elkie Brooks – Fool if you think it’s over – Chris Rea song which Chris himself took to No.30 in 1978. I like both renditions. Elkie liked her ‘Fools’ as a few years later, she had her biggest hit with ‘No more the fool’. DLT raves about Elkie and he’s actually got fine taste as the sleeve notes for the 1972 Clodagh Rodgers album ‘It’s different now’ are written by DLT himself “….this is the album that Clodagh has wanted to record for a long time……track by track you’ll come to realise as the title suggests, it’s different now”.
Shakin’ Stevens - Oh Julie – Penned by the man himself, this is an irresistible catchy slice of pop and that dance!
Altered Images – I could be happy – Their first single I’ll always hate but this one has grown on me and the bouncing Clare is a surefire promotion coup. It couldn’t (and didn’t last).
Stranglers – Golden Brown – Timeless track written in an unusual time signature of three bars of 3 / 4 followed by a bar of 4 / 4. Apparently Jean-Jacques Burnel didn’t play the bass notes on the recording (Dave Greenfield played them on keyboards) even though he is shown miming to them here.
Kool and the Gang – Get down on it – Skip
Four Tops – Don’t walk away – “Why do I say, don’t walk away, you’ll be the way you were before when you don’t want me anymore”. Oh, sorry, not that wonderful song (I wish Jeff had included it in the recent live set), but a really rotten Four Tops song accompanied mainly by the male Zoo dancers. Not a dream ticket for me.
Brown Sauce – I wanna be a winner – Surprised this got another showing but I enjoyed seeing Boycott hit for four by Viv Richards again.
Kraftwerk – The Model – Fabulous. I always wondered if the video was put together in 1981 when this single started to chart based on ‘The Model’ being the B side, but having said that, ‘Das Model’ did get a single release in Germany in 1978 as an A Side (backed with ‘Neonlicht’). Thanks goodness TOTP realised why people were buying the single and didn’t treat us to the inferior A Side ‘Computer Love’. Me, I first heard ‘The Model’, and loved it in 1978 – I always listened to Nicky Horne’s ‘Mummies Chart’ on Capital Radio on Saturday nights. Every week Nicky would play more or less the same tracks off the albums that had been voted into the chart, and for ‘The Man Machine’, he always played ‘Spacelab’ or ‘The Robots’. One week, Nicky was off and I think Tommy Vance stood in, and he played ‘The Model’ and I thought ‘wow’….
Bucks Fizz – Land of make believe – The folks just couldn’t stay away from the TOTP studio could they, and this is another great performance with some smart outfits. The lad at the end is once again chopped off.
Human League – Being boiled – A number of old league singles hit the lower regions of the charts around this time and this was certainly the best, if not in the ‘Dare’ league (ouch!).
i first heard "the model" in 1978 when i bought the 12" version of "neon lights" in luminous vinyl! does anyone know at exactly which point someone decided to the flip "computer love" single and play "the model" instead? i had got hold of the brilliant "computer world" album by this point, and in my opinion the title track would have been a far better follow-up to the surprising flop "pocket calculator". but then again if they had released that they would probably have never had a number one hit!
Deleteby the way, who is jeff?
Stephen is referring to Jeff Lynne of ELO who's last single of 1980 from the Xanadu soundtrack was called Don't Walk Away, and he gave the first lyrics above. By the fact that The Four Tops by coincidence came up with the same title now in 1982, it was not a jot on ELO's completely different tune a year a so earlier, which just happened to get stuck between No 20-30 in the charts for 2 months during Nov 1980 - Jan 1981!
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzwveN64C28
Thanks Dory. In my haste I forgot the word 'Lynne' after Jeff.
DeleteI also recall seeing the luminous 12" single of 'Neon Lights' on a market stall and wondered why on earth someone had decided upon that as the A Side with 'The Model' tucked away as a second B Side track.
http://www.45worlds.com/12single/record/12cl15998
It was also on the B Side of the 7" single which I never realised until now:-
http://www.45cat.com/record/cl15998
Thanks again, Neil, for a vid with very good quality and definition and an incredibly strong studio presence.
ReplyDeleteIn DLT’s mind, if 30 minutes is quite some time, what does an hour constitute? Still, this was definitely one of his best shows.
From their adjacent mugshots, did anyone else think Christopher Cross and Meat Loaf had been separated at birth?
It’s Thereze as Betty Boo again! Hard to remember this sex kitten as the shy trousered brunette from Guys ‘n’ Dolls. Nice to see David scrubbed up this time.
Another excellent vocal performance from Elkie, unfortunately for a soporific setting with background chatter. This song was used as the theme tune for a fine BBC2 sitcom called “Joking Apart”, starring Robert Bathurst as a stand-up comic whose wife had left him.
That’s your own song, Shaky? Good effort, fella! Natty outfit and his best performance yet to my mind. The only thing missing was Lulu (remember her?) hero worshipping from behind.
A buoyant, confident performance from Clare Grogan and, again, my fave performance by an act thus far.
Ah, The Stranglers’ best tune, Just class. Funny to see them so restrained but necessary for this song. No ‘tache for the talented Dave Greenfield but a Gilbert O’Sullivan haircut instead. Why did they cut Hugh’s intricate solo for those soppy dancers? Hundreds of copies of “Golden Brown” were pressed with the wrong B-side, “Samba Some Day” by a group called Music For Boys, as both singles had the same three-figure digit in their catalogue number and the pressing plant mixed the acetates up.
Oh dear. Time for some FF’ing. Kool and The gang was just awful both aurally and visually, The Four Tops’ great effort was ruined by some more crap dancing, and I passed on Brown Sauce.
There was an excellent series about the evolution of music on BBC4 recently, the name of which I’ve forgotten, and one programme gave a wonderful insight on the electronic motoring symphony that is Kraftwerk’s 22-minute version of “Autobahn”.
Interesting Hai Karate outfits for Bucks Fizz, and a nice figure of eight loop dance during the instrumental at the start. Take note, Glamourpuss – ah, too late.
“Being Boiled” is a protest about silk farming and eastern religion with lyrics that make Morrissey sound like Nick Heyward. It turns out to be the song that caused Vince Clarke to form Depeche Mode.
i remember phil oakey droning on about "sericulture" on "being boiled" and (probably not surprisingly) having no idea what it meant (although i think i did make the effort to find out as a result). the b-side of this single is a very kraftwerk-like effort called "circus of death", where somewhat oddly phil actually explains to the listener what the song is about before it starts!:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewEMIiIQX2Q
by the way: if arthur or anyone else here can come up with the name of that bbc4 music series mentioned above then i would appreciate it, thanks
Found it. The series was a three-parter about the evolution of recorded sound, presented by Neil Brand, and it was called "Sound Of Song" - sadly currently unavailable on BBC iPlayer.
Delete...however, snippets of "Sound Of Song" can be found on YouTube, including this eight-minute section on "Autobahn". Enjoy!
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0qyqpUFz8s
thanks arthur - yes, i watched that series when it was on the telly a couple of years ago, and as one interested in the production of music (from a creative point of view rather than a technical one, as i have trouble re-wiring a plug!) it was most interesting to my recollection...
DeleteI remember reading that it was OMD's first single, Electricity, that first turned Vince Clarke on to synths.
DeleteTurns out Music For Boys was a trio which included the (former?) drummer and bassist from Big Country.
ReplyDeleteMissed the wetransfer link for this episode. Any chance of someone uploading it again?
ReplyDelete