Monday 26 June 2017

That's Top of the Pops Alright

The edition of Top of the Pops from 26th January 1984 features Mike Smith and therefore BBC4 will not be showing it, so a huge thanks to Neil B for making it available here at We Transfer.

And the winner of the glamorous armpit competition is ..... 



26/01/84 (Richard Skinner & Mike Smith)

The Alarm – “Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?” (22)
At its chart peak.

Eurythmics – “Here Comes The Rain Again” (11) (video)
Peaked at number 8.

Madonna – “Holiday” (29)
The Top of the Pops debut of the most successful female chart act of all time in the UK, Holiday peaked at number 6 but it then re-entered the chart in 1985, following Live Aid, and peaked at number 2.

Echo & The Bunnymen – “The Killing Moon” (17)
Peaked at number 9.

Rick Springfield – “Human Touch” (31)
His only top 40 hit, reaching number 23.

Joe Fagin – “That’s Living Alright” (3)
Now at its peak, pet.

The Smiths – “What Difference Does It Make?” (26)
Taken from their number 2 album, The Smiths, this single peaked at number 12.

Cyndi Lauper – “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” (10) + brief interview
Another major debut on tonight's show, and a single that peaked at number 2.

Shaky & Bonnie – “A Rockin’ Good Way” (5) (audience dancing/credits)
At its peak.


Next up is February 2nd 1984.

64 comments:

  1. Thanks as ever to Neil for posting up this edition. Probably the strongest show of the year so far, and of course a fairly significant one in pop history for a number of reasons. Such a shame therefore that BBC4 viewers won't be able to see it, and the cause of that is on particularly irritating form here, full of his normal exaggerated facial expressions and trying too hard to be funny and personable. Dickie, by contrast, puts in a great turn and segues smoothly from that rather embarrassing Cyndi Lauper interview at the end into the farewells.

    The Alarm's hair seems bigger and spikier than ever as they serenade us with another would-be anthem, but one that lacks a good enough tune to qualify for that status. Far better from Annie and Dave to follow, with one of their finest and most atmospheric singles. The bleak video fits perfectly with the mood of the song, and Annie looks very mournful indeed while posing as a Highland crofter.

    It seems that even at this very early stage Madge had acquired a "reputation," but contrary to Smitty's introductory remarks she looks fairly well clothed to me here - he seemed creepily obsessed with her navel at the end, too. I must say that she completely passed me by until Material Girl came out the following year, but in this energetic dance routine you can see her fierce determination to succeed after several years of struggling to make it big - she was already 25 by this time. Holiday itself is to my ears a perky but slight little tune, and much better was to come from Madge later. Echo and the Bunnymen next, giving a serious, unsmiling performance of a serious song. Although hardly the greatest song ever written, whatever Ian McCulloch might think, it is something of a classic and gets the hairs on the back of your neck rising up.

    Then we reach the dud of the night, with this utterly forgettable and repetitive Rick Springfield effort - he moves around a lot on the stage, but it can't make up for the mechanical, by-the-numbers nature of the song. Joe Fagin looks more like Jeremy Beadle than ever here, and he is wearing one of those nasty white ties that became fashionable around this time, but at least he and his band are enjoying themselves, even if the song still leaves me cold.

    Nearly everyone is in the studio tonight, as The Smiths make their second appearance with a lesser heard but rather good offering, with relatively understated vocals from Mozza (and all the better for it), and menacing, atmospheric backing. Cyndi Lauper provides a complete contrast, of course, with her famous "girl power" anthem. Although Madonna may have emerged as the long-term victor from their supposed rivalry, Cyndi comprehensively upstages her here with this memorable stair and set-climbing, audience-grabbing performance. I remember this vividly from the time, but in a sure sign that the memory cheats this was actually the only occasion it was shown, though I seem to remember it being repeated on a number of shows. Still a good song anyway, and one that can withstand huge amounts of airplay.

    No Relax, of course, and we have to make do instead with a brief but deliciously demented interview with Cyndi, which appears to end with her and Smitty doing a bizarre grapple. After that, the audience getting on down to Shaky and Bonnie seems like a real anti-climax...

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    1. The 'bizarre grapple' with Cyndi Lauper was Mike Smith merely playing the same wacky antics as Cyndi, as he complimented her very well I thought in that wacky moment in her British TV debut. You cannot be a John Peel type in front of Cyndi, so Smith handled it brilliantly I thought.

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    2. Maybe Mike was honing his Andy Kaufman impersonation?

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  2. A show tonight choice full of studio performances, with only one video coming from The Eurythmics, which itself was a brilliant 80s video, and typified the era very well, lyrically and visually. One of my all time favourite 80s tracks and still gives me the chills.

    Joe Fagin was already 44 in his appearance in the studio this week, and well into middle age, but hey in those days, people did not burn out by the time they were 44, but he was on the old side though, but then so was John Lennon 44 years old in the same chart, and Paul McCartney 42 years old with his No.1 single pipes of Peace. Nowadays, 44 is well past the sell-by date for the next generation of pop musicians.
    Joe Fagin is still with us now at the age of 77, but well into retirement, and hopefully he is watching these TOTP repeats with relish.

    I just loved the way that Cyndi Lauper in her first TOTP studio appearance just took the confidence to galavant around the TOTP studio instead of staying on one stage which would have been very boring for her, considering she had no band members to join her.



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    1. dory i think you'll find that john lennon only got to 40 before he was killed... and dead people don't have birthdays in my book!

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    2. Good Lord, yes, I was thinking of Lennon's birth year of 1940, and adding 44 up to 1984. It would help if I had remembered that he died about 3 years beforehand!

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  3. no streaming version of this show appears to be available on the internet, so once again i'm dipping into yt for bits and pieces. i only caught smarmy doing one intro, although i can't say i was disappointed there wasn't more of him as he's definitely giving slimy some competition when it comes to dripping with insincerity!

    alarm: i couldn't even bring myself to look for this lot on yt, such is my antipathy for them. so, next!

    eurythmics: still more quirky synth-pop than the mainstream rock guitar bombast they would later churn out, but signs of the latter are definitely creeping in now

    madonna: i love "holiday", but i fucking hate madonna - why didn't she die in a car crash immediately after "vogue"? i did go through a period where i couldn't listen to this thanks to all the crimes (musical and otherwise) she committed after that, but i've managed to blot all that out of my mind now and imagine i'm listening to it the same way as i was back in 1984. i was always curious to know who the male backing dancer was, and many years later i found out it was actually one of her brothers. who perhaps not surprisingly was gay, and who even less surprisingly fell out with the vile woman to the point where they've had nothing to with each other for many years now!

    bunnymen: ah, this week's liverpool act. as with everything else i've heard of theirs (which admittedly isn't that much), the best thing about it is the guitar textures. this is better than the other stuff they've done on the show, but it does sound a bit like different songs stuck together

    rick springfield: he was actually australian, but i'm sure had been based in the US for some time by this point. and by golly is that rather obvious with yet another american-style attempt to do synth-pop and failing miserably miserably, instead being bogstandard stadium rock with a few synths and whatnot chucked in to try and make it contemporary-sounding. to my knowledge the only american-based act who succeeded in that manner was the cars when they recorded the fantastic "heartbeat city", which in my opinion actually beat the synth-pop brits at their own game

    smiths: i couldn't actually remember how this one went, but a brief listen reminded me why i.e. that it was pretty tuneless dirge and certainly nothing on a par with "this charming man". however i had to stop listening after less than a minute, as morrisey's singing with all its affected mannerisms was driving me around the bend!

    cyndi lauper: i saw bits of this on the "the story of 1984" doc, and that was enough for me i'm afraid. she and madonna seem inextricably linked together (in the same manner as howard jones and nik kershaw), but i don't know why really as her sound was far more rock-based than madonna's (certainly at this point, anyway). and they couldn't have been much more different in terms of their vocal style. presumably it was because they both looked and dressed like they were living on the streets?

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    1. I guess Cyndi and Madge also got lumped together because they both appeared to be "empowered" young women emerging into the charts at exactly the same time. I think Madonna produced a pretty consistently good, and sometimes outstanding, body of singles work up until Vogue. The 90s were very hit-and-miss, though I think the Ray of Light album was something of a renaissance. It's been downhill for her ever since...

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    2. john, that's pretty much the way i see madonna - what really annoys me is the way she keeps leaping onto the bandwagon of new musical trends, even though she's old enough to be the mother (if not grandmother these days) of those practitioners involved. also: apparently she hates being referred to as "madge" (something that i think originated in one of the british pop mags such as "smash hits"?), so maybe that should be how i make reference to her here from now on?

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    3. I'm not sure where "Madge" originated, but if memory serves me correctly the first place I remember seeing her called that was Q magazine. I agree that her desperate attempts these days to get down "wiv da kidz" are both undignified and embarrassing - no wonder her son wanted to keep his distance from her!

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    4. Madonna and Cyndi Lauper had probably set in stone the concept of female empowerment, in case anyone still had any doubts, alongside what was now coming up to five years of Thatcherism, which triggered the trend in the first place. Just look at the way Cyndi took over the TOTP studio in her performance, and probably the first to do so, as later on we would see Frankie Goes To Hollywood doing similar in the summer of 1984 with Two Tribes, and then Mick Jagger taking on the same TOTP joyride through the studio the following year with Let's Work.

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  4. Am I right in remembering that Madonna made her UK TV debut (complete with slightly bigger tummy) on "The Tube"?

    She and Cyndi were empowered young women in another way - "Madge" with that book of hers (I clearly remember the Spitting Image puppet of Roy Hattersley exclaiming excitedly "You can see her pubes!") and Cyndi following up "Time After Time" with "She Bop", a single about female self-pleasuring (ahem) which became one of her five top three US hits but didn't hit the spot - boom boom tish! - in the UK, only reaching number 46.

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    1. you're right there arthur - i watched her when she appeared (doing exactly the same routine) on the "the tube" as part of a special dedicated to and filmed at the legendary hacienda night club (aka FAC51) in january 1984

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    2. I think that is the occasion when, according to the recent "Big Hits" show, she ended up sharing a dressing room with Pat Phoenix, of all people!

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    3. I recommend the She-Bop video, which is so 80s it's almost painful to watch. It's SFW, if you were wondering - no demonstrations!

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    4. I had to Google 'SFW' to discover it means 'safe for work' - I'm getting old!

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    5. likewise arthur, although i didn't bother looking it up to find out. unlike madonna, i'm definitely not "dahn wiv da kidz"! in fact i still don't know exactly what that means (presumably "not x-rated" in 20th century/coffin-dodger speak?)

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    6. not surprisingly, the only acronym like that which i'm familiar with is SAW!

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    7. SFW used to mean something else, more sweary, pre-internet, but it's been replaced. In fact there was a 90s film called SFW with the old meaning (it's not very good).

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    8. I purchased from iTunes some time ago the She-Bop video along with all the other Cyndi Lauper videos on there, and admittedly She-Bop is painstakingly slow when you compare it to the pace of Girls Just Want To Have Fun, which was by far her best offering.

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  5. this has nothing to do with this edition, but is relevent with regard to recent ones (and for fans of "where are they now?"):

    i have just watched a rather nasty film on dvd called "nightcrawler", and i noticed a familar name in the credits playing the role of "neighbour". so i watched the actor in question (his only scene lasted 10 seconds, during which his solitary line was asking the protagonist "who the fuck are you?") to make sure it was the same guy, and indeed it was a thirty-year older version of dig wayne of joboxers fame!

    by the way, looking at their entry on wiki, i have been reminded that their final (unsuccessful) single was a song that i seem to remember causing a bit of kerfuffle in the press at the time (and possibly got banned from radio airplay?), due to its then-controversial title of "she's got sex"!

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    1. The things you learn on here! I've seen Nightcrawler, a scathingly grim takedown of tabloid news with a great Jake Gyllenhaal performance, but I never noticed a Jo-Boxer in it! Not really the sort of film I'd want to watch twice, though, so I'll take your word for it...

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    2. thx i know what you mean about watching "nightcrawler" - the film features several car crashes, but the whole thing is like watching one giant car crash in that you find it sickening and yet compulsive viewing...

      as for dig wayne, according to IMDB he's managed to notch up 32 credits as an actor, which is fairly respectable compared to other better-known singers-turned-thesps david bowie (66), roger daltrey (65) and sting (30). it's difficult to tell exactly how many films or tv shows madonna has been in thanks to all her pop videos being credited there, but my estimate is about 15... including this debut performance in a student short made in her native michigan when she was about 15:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TywAqB9Ty_0

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    3. sorry - daltrey should have read (56). i've also just remembered kris kristofferson (117), david essex (26), ringo starr (45, but many of those are actually playing "ringo"), plus the king of course with his 30 bad movies! have i overlooked any other musicians that have dabbled in acting to a noticeable degree?

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    4. Yes, there's lots, stars like Frankie Avalon, Pat Boone and Fabian in the 60s, then later Cher, Tom Waits, Debbie Harry, Sting and Isaac Hayes... it's easier to list those who didn't bother. Then there's all those rappers who believe their ability to lay down rhymes means they're ideal for the acting biz, hence we get clashes of the thespian Titans like Steven Seagal against DMX in Exit Wounds, among a thousand other examples. Blame Frank Sinatra, he seemed to make the idea that singers could act popular and it's never gone away.

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    5. ah yes: curtis jackson, the "actor" formerly known as 50 cent! in fact i suppose it's bing crosby you have to blame, as he was there first?

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    6. I saw Slade in Flame a while back, and as these star vehicles go it's quite a good one, being unusually gritty and downbeat. Great soundtrack too, even if the "acting" isn't up to much!

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    7. @Wilberforce: Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor too, but Sinatra was the real teen idol who capitalised on his fame with musicals. The others before that had been more family entertainers.

      @John G: Slade in Flame is a really decent example of how a rock star vehicle can go right, it's very strong stuff. Compare it to something like Side By Side out the same year and the difference is dramatic. Plus Tommy Vance is in it!

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    8. I suppose I should mention Cyndi Lauper had a try at being a film star with Vibes. It was very... Cyndi Laupery. But not in a good way.

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    9. i actually thought slade came out of "flame" with some credit, given that they weren't not pro's. in particular drummer don powell, who was still actually recovering from the car crash that affected his memory recall - so i don't suppose he found it too easy to learn his lines?

      i also remember the scene with t. vance esquire in some pirate radio-style station off the coast of blighty that i assumed to be a napoleonic structure, but in fact was built to keep adolf out. the towers are known as "shivering sands" and were actually briefly used as a real pirate radio station base by screaming lord sutch. and amazingly are still there!:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivering_Sands_Army_Fort

      despite thx's warning i still want to watch "side by side", and i note that a copy of it is available on dvd for the extortionate price of about a tenner. i once acquired a copy of the accompanying soundtrack album that prominently featured g*ary gl*tt*er. and yet unlike other acts on it such as fox, mud & mac & katie kissoon he doesn't get an appearance credit on IMDB. could it be that he's been airbrushed out of the dvd release?

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    10. Hey, I wouldn't put anyone off wanting to watch a movie, but sometimes forewarned is forearmed!

      Gaz was never in Side By Side, though, he had his own movie, Remember Me This Way (some hope!), which incredibly was released on DVD this year. However, are you thinking of Never Too Young to Rock, which is kind of similar to Side By Side (but more sci-fi, oddly), and features The Glitter Band (not with Gary)?

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    11. no - it's definitely "side by side" that was the film in question (the album tie-in was called "original rocking hits" if anyone's interested). "never too young to rock" has just come onto my list of "old music-related films to watch" and i know the main guy in it is peter denyer - best remembered for being dim-but-nice dennis in "please sir"... that i've just been watching on dvd!

      talking of which, having had my appetite whetted i'd like to watch the sequel series "the fenn street gang". but season one dvd's appear to be as rare as rocking horse shit, fetching prices of £50 on ebay!

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  6. All you needed to do was sign on the dotted line, Smitty, and we could have seen this on BBC Four HD! I'm going off him...

    The Alarm with their alarming hair up first, I thought they were better at the rock anthems than U2 and this was one of their better efforts, good shouty rugby supporters chorus and all.

    Flora MacDonald, Grace Darling, and now Annie Lennox, sizing up The Old Man of Hoy (for a climb? The Beeb could have filmed it all day). Not much sign of rain, but the duo must have been freezing all the same. As for the song, not my favourite, a bit self-consciously classy with those strings, but it's OK.

    I dunno, you tell the kids these days you were there when Madonna made her debut on TOTP and they say "Who's Madonna?" Whippersnappers, grumble... Anyway, she's here at last, an absolute megastar and didn't she know it? The joie de vivre of this ditty made it sound disposable, but her military precision routine made it clear she was here to stay.

    Echo and the Bunnymen with one of their triumphs, a great, expansive-sounding single, terrific production lifting a doomladen tune into epic heights. Also the perfect intro to millennial cult classic weirdness Donnie Darko (begone, director's cut that replaces it!).

    Rick Springfield with a ho-hum bit of electro-rock, though his music career was more successful than his movie Hard to Hold that was out in 1984 which is notable for how often the story contrives to take his clothes off. One of the worst pop star vehicles ever, even the Freddie and the Dreamers one is better, heck, even the Gerry and the Pacemakers one is better, and that co-starred J*mmy S*v*l*.

    Joe Fagin seems to have had a makeover, with that 80s light entertainment signifier, the jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Over here anyway, in the US it meant you were watching Miami Vice.

    The Smith rumble up a bit of don't care posturing with the bunch of flowers in the back pocket, not their greatest but they were on a roll here and Johnny's guitar is well delivered.

    Cyndi Lauper with a song I found irritating at the time, but don't mind now. Her wacky antics like this performance helped - loved her playing the scenery! One of the greatest radio shows I ever heard was a Round Table with her and Robert Palmer, unlikely as it sounds they had brilliant chemistry.

    Shaky and Bonnie seem like an afterthought after all that.

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    1. although in retrospect it seemed a rather dubious concept to allow musicians to be critical about their peers, i'd still love to hear the old radio 1 "round table" recordings again now - especially given we now know how successful (or not) the then-new releases went on to be!

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    2. by chance i recently saw some of the billy fury pop star vehicle (or in his case equine form of transport) "i've gotta horse" on one of the minority channels. i'm a sucker for this kind of thing even though it's toe-curlingly lame at times, and it was evidently a good job that the horse in question wasn't one of those vaulting ones found in gyms - otherwise billy would have been accused of being far more wooden! there was actually one cool scene where his backing band performed a groovy mod instrumental, but the same could not be said about the bachelors' contributions. the movie also starred amanda "saucer eyes" barrie (aka alma from corrie) who was billy's real-life love interest at the time, although nowadays it seems she prefers her own kind...

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    3. I saw I've Gotta Horse on DVD, because I like watching pop and rock star vehicles, often to see how bad they are. You've got to have a hobby. What was notable about this one was how attached Billy was to the animals - he loved the creatures and this film was designed to keep him happy, alas the audience thought it was a bit weird and the film flopped. He's in That'll Be the Day, though, looking about 20 years older (he was not a well man). His first film was directed by Michael Winner (!).

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    4. I still fail to see how Smitty's no-show has got to do with him not signing anything. We get to see John Peel and Tommy Vance, who died in 2004 and 2005 respectively, both of whom couldn't possibly have known that the BBC would repeat their TOTP appearances half a dozen or so years later.

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    5. It seems to have been an outright refusal for any repeats on his part to the extent of blocking them. But he won't know now, will he?

      The last time I saw him on TV he was interviewed about his fame, by then long ago, and he started crying. It was very Les McQueen "It's a shit business".

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    6. Interestingly though a Mike Smith archive hour will be featured on the Radio 1 Vintage pop up station that's been announced today. So it seems Smitty didn't mind his radio work being revisited.

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  7. I can hear Michael Hurll – “The VCR’s buggered, get a load of groups in this week!”

    This edition left me knackered just watching. Morrissey’s shuffling would normally have won gold medal for movement but he didn’t even make the podium this week.

    Thanks, lads, give the game away and ruin the suspense by naming nearly all the acts on tonight early doors. Duhhh!

    Bronze medal for energy to The Alarm (or just Alarm as per that caption) with a gutsy mime and catchy “four winds howl” refrain. Anyone else notice the pre-song caption cock-up, showing their chart position as 29 instead of the correct 22?

    Annie Lennox auditioning for Scottish Widows there, watched by a creepy paparazzi-style Dave Stewart. I have a personal story about this song. Not long before I met my wife, about 2006, I dated a woman who heard an acoustic version of this song on Xfm and wanted to know who the artist was. I contacted Xfm and ended up being interviewed live on air by Lauren Laverne on my way to work, whereupon she confirmed the artist was Dave Stewart solo and sent me a CD copy to woo the young(ish) lady – who decided to dump me a month later.

    What with the clever yet cheesy weather link between the first two songs, I was expecting "After all that rain, what you need is a holiday"...

    Gold medal for energy to arguably the liveliest performance on the show ever up to that date by Madonna with her high vibrancy workout, though I’d have marked her down as a possible one-or two-hit disco act at this stage.

    A mellow comedown with a lovely, keening and atmospheric outing by a smiling (Yes! Briefly but yes) Mac, with Bunnymen drummer Pete de Freitas treating us to a rare sighting of brushes instead of sticks.

    Can nine million Americans be wrong? Yup! Rick Springfield – dear God.

    Jeremy Beadle? Joe Fagin reminded me more of a thin version of Geoff Capes.

    Here comes Manchester’s answer to Bruce Springsteen backed by the three other Smiths. Debut single “Hand in Glove” was superb and worthy of hit status, while “Difference” was enjoyable if a tad formulaic in hindsight.

    Jumping forward slightly, I guess Frankie had the first banned number one since “Je T’Aime”?

    Disregarding the interview (apart from that wacky “Hi Liz” shoutout) and the relatively boring outro, silver medal for energy, but gold medal for attitude, to Cyndi Lauper, ruling the stages and balconies like Adam Ant – but who’s better, Madonna or Cyndi Lauper? There’s only one way to find out...

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    1. I always thought Lauren Laverne was great, nice to see it confirmed (again).

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    2. I find her to be a leftie, right on pain in the arse really. Like that twat jo Wylie. Simpering and jumping on the nearest bandwagon.

      Each to their own of course!

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    3. lalalacanthearyoushesthebest

      Don't mind Jo either, a non-taxing listen to wind down in the evening.

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    4. what - jo wiley's still going on bbc radio? you'll be telling me annie nightingale's still at it next...

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    5. Annie's still on Radio 1, she's their longest-serving DJ. On in the middle of the night though, so I rarely hear her.

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    6. i was actually aware of that thx. i was just making a joke/reference to the fact that these people seem to be allowed to go and on until they either decide they've had enough, or they're incapable of doing it any more - and thus depriving others of the opportunity?

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    7. Oh, I don't know, it's nice some people have a cross-generational appeal. Annie's a bit like a trendy gran, I suppose.

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    8. More like great gran. Has anybody seen her recently? Yikes.
      I agree with wilberforce, they go on forever! I just have a particular hatred for Wylie. She was gushing praise for Radiohead the other night at Glastonbury....despite sneering at them in the past. Hate her.

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    9. i thought annie nightingale was actually quite attractive in a mild rock chick way in her younger days, but now she's definitely got a face for radio - even is she shouldn't be doing that kind of thing any more

      as for ms wylie, for me she's the the DJ equivalent of coldplay - and that's definitely not a good thing!

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    10. Jo did an interview with Radiohead in the 90s where they acted like complete arseholes, they were extremely difficult and then T(h)om went on to play a ten minute dirge that made her late for the news. I went right off them there and then. If they've buried the hatchet since, fair enough, I still can't stand them.

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  8. Oops - I forgot to say big thanks to Neil B for providing this landmark edition.

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  9. Looks like I'm gonna miss this one because I'm on holiday at the moment and it's very unlikely that the WeTransfer download will still be available when I get back home. If I download it now I'll use up all of my data allowance in one go! A shame, because it seems an interesting one.

    I've never associated Madonna and Cyndi Lauper myself (Cyndi is five years older for a start). In my opinion Cyndi recorded the better material but Madonna could sing! Having said that, there's nothing really wrong with Madonna's early hits, particularly 'Like A Virgin' and 'Material Girl' (Nile Rodgers production, real drums!), but I subsequently got the impression that she doesn't like melody!

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    1. This show can be streamed on 4Shared, without downloading:

      www.4shared.com/video/phCyxdHQei/TOTP_1984-01-26.html

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    2. Thanks John, I'll see if it's still available when I'm back home next week :o)

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  10. Looking at the lower end of the new top 40 mugshots section, Eartha Kitt's slinky crawl up the chart ends here with a peak of 36, while ABC’s “SOS” wasn’t answered as it peaked at 39. They’d lost their way a bit by this stage and their star was sadly now in the descent as, having started with five top 20 hits, their other 14 UK chart entries were a number 11, a number 26, two just outside the top 30 and the remainder reaching peaks between 42 and 70.

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    1. I wouldn't have minded hearing Eartha on TOTP, might have been interesting if nothing else. Orson Welles called her "the most exciting woman in the world", though I don't know if he still thought that in 1984 what with Cyndi Lauper around.

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  11. I seem to be a little late arriving to this edition but thanks again to Neil F for making it available to us.

    The Alarm – Where were you hiding – Don’t recall this at all. Not a bad song really.

    Eurythmics – Here comes the rain again – Stylish song and video and certainly for me, one of their most palatable hits.

    Madonna – Holiday – Oh no not again! How many times I have heard this I don’t know. I agree with comments above that this seems quite trite given the vast number of differing (and superior) hits that followed over the years (I still really like ‘Like a Prayer’…but then I really like ‘Frozen’…and what about ‘True Blue’…..). It’s a bouncy performance that just shouts ‘novelty’ hit to me like, say Sabrina’s ‘Boys’. The first UK release for Madonna was ‘Everybody’ from Dec 1982 but that seems to have been ignored.

    Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon – The peak of the Bunneymen for me. This moody track shows off Ian McCulloch’s vocal range well even if this ToTP demonstrates once again what a rotten mimer he is!

    Rick Springfield – Human Touch – He may have sold loads of records in the States already, but this was not one of them. Rotten song.

    Joe Fagin – That’s living all right – Great ‘Oliver’ joke from Mr Smith but I still love this….and the keyboard player looks a deadringer for Mr Smith too.

    The Smiths – What difference does it make – More Smiths….but FF for me.

    Cyndi Lauper – Girls just wanna have fun – Eclectic performance, I love the bouncing around and leaping upstairs to sing from the gantry and then ‘play’ that funny sounding instrumental bit. Boy is the girl whacky in the interview!

    No explanation for not showing the no1 record. Is that a first? Would they have done something similar in 1977 if the Sex Pistols had hit no1 I wonder?

    Shaky & Bonnie – A rocking good way playout – No disrespect to Shaky and Bonnie, but did the producers have something against Matthew Wilder (highest climber)? Smacks of Red Sovine. However, Matthew had the last laugh as this snub didn’t ‘break his stride’ up the charts.

    Chart rundown – Nobody has remarked on Manhattan Transfer being in the chart? Last seen on a street in Singapore I believe. I don’t remember them coming back into the charts at all this late on, but a quick check and ‘Spice of life’ made no19, so perhaps we’ll see that in a short while? However….it’s a change of style (almost Shalamar with the work ‘tonight’ repeated several times) with the song co-written by Rod Temperton….not quite “rat-ta-tat-ta-taaa…”.

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    1. i seem to remember manhattan transfer getting some radio play in the early 80's with both a danced-up interpretation of "the twilight zone" theme and the highly thought-of vocalese version of weather report's "birdland", although presumably neither managed to break into the uk top 40?

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    2. Looks like the Twilight Zone effort made no25 in May 1980 but I don't recall it being on ToTP. No sign of the Birdies however...

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  12. I come back from holiday to find it another 4 TOTP in a week time. So don't expect eulogies from me!

    I find the Cyndi Lauper song another housewife classic that I'd gladly never hear again, and the Madonna song and clip have been on enough, so no crying from me over not being able to see them on BBC4.

    It's more of a shame to miss Echo & The Bunnymen and The Smiths quite honestly, both much better songs.

    Of the rest, The Alarm song is pretty ropey, Eurythmics one is alright, and Rick Springfield's one I can't decide whether I like it or not - his other well known song 'Jessie's Girl' is much better but wasn't a Top 40 hit here despite at least 2 attempts.

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  13. Like any day the show starts with The Alarm, in this case a shrill one, so shrill it makes your hair stand on end. I always thought the title “Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?” was a bit too long for its own good and while it's okay nothing in the world ever encourage me to go out and buy an Alarm record.

    By comparison I bought several Eurythmics singles “Here Comes The Rain Again” being one of them. At this point I had just bought my first VCR and made up compilations of my fave TOTP and other pop show clips and I recorded this video from this show and played it back endlessly.

    I never liked Madonna much from the start, she was always okay but nothing special. There, I've said it. This performance has been repeated many times and I'm a bit bored with seeing it now.

    The Curate's egg show continues with Echo & The Bunnymen which was good to see them in person. “The Killing Moon” was one of a string of classy singles which all had a suitably melancholy, haunting feel about them. I never quite got Ian McCulloch but at least by this point he seems to have cut down the weird antics.

    Rick Springfield left me cold then and still does today. Why couldn't we see ABC instead who were stranded at 39 with the brilliant SOS.

    One appearance of Joe Fagin was enough for me but at least Joe isn't being bombarded with balloons and streamers this time. I wonder who that strange person in yellow is to Joe's right who manages to clap along out of time throughout the whole record.

    Money Changes Everything was a title used by both The Smiths and Cyndi Lauper (in her case a failed single and theirs an instrumental B-side) who both appear on this show. Morrissey has said that “What Difference Does It Make?” was his least favourite Smiths song but it was always one of my favourites. I worked at Our Price Records at the time (altogether now - "Get down to Our Price1")and in February a group of us went to see them at the Hammersmith Odeon. Sandie Shaw was on stage as well for a couple of numbers and there were a few famous faces in the crowd including a soon-to-be-famous Jimmy Somerville who I used to previously see at Bolts in Harringay all the time. He was always getting into fights when people invaded his dance space.

    Cyndi should have changed her last name to Leaper the way she was springing round the studio like a demented firecracker. This had HIT written all over it and was the first of two masssive hit singles from her debut album, although checking out the listings it seems that Time After Time stalled at 54 before re-entering the chart later in the year. Everyone loves a re-entry.

    Is this the first time there has been no top spot song shown since Serge Gainsbourg in 1969? Seems so odd now not to play it when it was being bought and played by millions of people and played on rival radio stations.

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    1. a guy who was renting a room in the same house as me at this time owned a video recorder that he installed in the communal lounge, so i took the opportunity to tape stuff from "the tube" and possibly a few other music shows as well. i still have most of my old video tapes and hope to one day get around to transferring anything still of interest on them to digital format. but they are currently stashed away in the back of a cupboard, and well-down my long list of "things to do"!

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    2. bama your comment on jimmy somerville couldn't help but make me imagine the following scenario: having danced himself dizzy, jimmy is standing on the spot catching his breath. then kevin rowland walks up to him and sings "excuse me please, you're standing in my space!" - thus triggering fisticuffs!

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    3. That's a scenario I'd like to see! The thing about Jimmy Somerville was that he was really passionate about his dancing but being small of stature was often trampled on/knocked into and thus a scrap ensued. I think he was thrown out of the club on at least one occasion.

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