Top Hat of the Pops
28/07/88 (Nicky Campbell & Gary Davies)
Shakin’ Stevens – “Feel The Need In Me” (26)
Someone's had too much weetabix for breakfast this morning! So much energy but sadly his top ten days were behind him and despite all his exersions this rock n roll disco cover got no higher.
BVSMP – “I Need You” (22) (video)
Their only hit and it peaked at number 3.
Siouxsie & The Banshees – “Peek-A-Boo” (30)
Sporting a white top hat and a zebra stripe dress, this rather cute tune became Siouxsie and the band's final top 20 hit when it peaked at number 16.
Voice Of The Beehive – “I Say Nothing” (37) (breaker)
Peaked at number 22.
All About Eve – “Martha’s Harbour” (36) (breaker)
One week away from their infamous studio appearance, the song would peak at number 10.
Steven Dante – “I’m Too Scared” (34) (breaker)
Got no higher.
Julia Fordham – “Happy Ever After” (39) (breaker)
Peaked at number 27.
Pat Benatar – “All Fired Up” (23) (video)
Became her final top 40 hit when it peaked at number 19.
Yazz & The Plastic Population – “The Only Way Is Up” (10)
In the studio to debut our 1988 blog title and it will be number one next week.
Glenn Medeiros – “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” (1) (rpt from 07/07/88)
Fourth and final week at number one.
Fairground Attraction – “Find My Love” (32) (video/credits)
This summery song became their second of two top ten hits when it peaked at number 7.
4th August is next.
Our two hosts are dressed in an achingly late 80s way, but are both generally on form – Campbell occasionally tries too hard to be funny, but I did like his reference to Sabrina “bouncing” down the charts! Interesting chart too, with the rare occurrence of a completely static Top 5.
ReplyDeleteShaky makes his 971st TOTP appearance with yet another cover, this time a deeply ill-advised attempt at the Detroit Emeralds classic. As if to make up for the deficiencies of the record, Shaky is in hyperactive mode, even by his standards. I can’t say I remember BVSMP (short for Baby Virgo Shocking Mister P, whatever that means), but I do vaguely recall the song, and I suppose it’s not a bad combination of rap verses and a soulful chorus. The “schoolgirl” the group are lusting after in the video looks considerably older than they are…
Campbell puts the hex on Siouxsie and the Banshees by predicting lots more hits for them when in fact they would only manage two further Top 40 entries after this. While I like Siouxsie's new flapper look, and she puts her all into a performance pointlessly interspersed with brief clips from the video, the song itself is a pretentious, arty mess - typically good drumming from Budgie, though. Steven Dante and Radio 2 favourite Julia Fordham will not be featured again. Neither song is anything special, but Julia's deep voice does at least make hers distinctive, which is more than can be said for Dante's rather anonymous effort. Pat Benatar is in full on rock chick mode, vocally and stylistically, for this final TOTP appearance. It's OK, but a bit one dimensional and far from being her best song.
I never knew until watching The Story of 1988 that The Only Way is Up was a cover, but Yazz very much claims the song as her own and it was the chart sound of the so-called "Second Summer of Love", not that I remember it being referred to as such at the time. The song still sounds fresh and dynamic, and Yazz and her cohorts match the music with some fun and lively dance moves. Last week of Glenn at the top, thank God, and they manage to cut Simon Mayo out of the repeat clip this time! We have a good playout this week, with the better of Fairground Attraction's two big hits, a laid back Latin sound featuring typically good vocals from Eddi and some lovely atmospheric guitar. They never made the Top 40 again after this, and arguments in the band meant that they broke up just 18 months later.
What about Danny Wilson's hit The Second Summer of Love? Although they said it was 1989.
DeleteThat Danny Wilson tune completely passed me by back then, but maybe it helped to popularise the term. According to Wikipedia both 1988 and '89 are classified as being "the Second Summer of Love", which is news to me! Second and third, surely?
DeleteMust have been an unseasonably warm winter linking the years!
DeleteYes, it was a little strange that the Top 5 was completely static and identical to the previous week. I don't recall that happening before. That reminds me of the summer of 1978 when one of the Grease songs was at no. 1 for about 8 weeks I think, causing Father Abraham & The Smurfs to be stuck at No.2 for six weeks, and never made it to No.1 after such a sustained hold on the No.2 spot.
Deletehaving tried to distance myself from shakin' stevens throughout the 80's (and beyond), i was competely ignorant of the fact that he had a go at "feel the need in me" (i certainly don't feel the need to listen to his version btw)
Deleteas someone else has pointed out, forrest also had a stab at it a few years earlier when he followed up his bigger hit that was also an 80's karoake version of a 70's soul/early disco hit. however i suspect not everyone is aware that the detroit emeralds themselves actually had separate hits with different recordings of the same song? the first was a typical early 70's soul effort, and the second (my preference) a mid-70's smoother sounding arrangement that was no doubt inspired by the newly-emerging disco scene
The songs that were missing already on the BBC Four repeats are The Pasadenas 'Tribute (Right On)' (we'll see the band again with 'Riding on a Train' in a post-repeat run episode in November 2019 for a September 1988 episode), UB40 & Chrissie Hynde's cover of Lorna Bennett's 'Breakfast in Bed' (the next time we'll see UB40 on TOTP will be next year in a 1989 repeat run with 'Homely Girl' and for Chrissie Hynde, we'll be seeing her in 1994 for 'I'll Stand by You'), Eurythmics' 'You Have Placed a Chill in Your Heart' (two performances of the song skipped due to audio issues of the two episodes) and finally The Wee Papa Girl Rapper's 'Heat It Up' from the 14/07/1988 episode (in which we'll see these again in November with the follow-up 'Wee Rule')
ReplyDeleteWe may be seeing the Pasadenas' second hit follow-up to Tribute and The Wee Papa Girl Rappers had a big top ten hit in a post-repeat run and also Yazz's 'The Only Way Is Up', a great song from the summer of '88 in which 'The Story of 1988' it wasn't a original song, just a cover compared to Simply Red's cover of Valentino Brothers's 'Money Too Tight (To Mention)'.
Top comedy from Shaky to kick things off, a hilarious display of desperation as he apparently invented twerking before Miley Cyrus got her arse on it. Terrible cover, maybe he knew that and wanted to distract from the horrible, tinny sound? Now the Richard Madeley incident makes sense!
ReplyDeleteUrgh, BVSMP, some unappealing teenagers either rapping about taking virginity or indulging in tone deaf harmonies for the chorus. The whole thing's a bit unpleasant. This went Top Ten and Eric B and Rakim's Follow the Leader didn't! Crazy.
Ah, finally something decent, more than decent, pretty great in fact. I remember Bruno Brookes tore himself away from his Level 42 CDs long enough to be extremely enthusiastic about this track, and I can hear why, it sounded like little else in the charts at the time and proved Siouxsie could innovate with the best of them. The whole thing still sounds exciting. Though she seems to be doing a Liza Minelli in Cabaret impersonation in this performance.
Steven Dante - another Jellybean production? Doesn't make an impression. And Julia Fordham was exactly the sort of "classy" music that held no interest for me whatsoever, not keen on her voice, either.
Pat Benatar, see, she did have another hit, and one that sounds curiously similar to Bon Jovi. I don't mean that as a compliment. Did you know she was in a film with Debbie Harry?
Then the return of The World's Tallest Woman, about to claim the top slot for her own. Liked it at the time, and it is more memorable than the original, but I've just heard it too often to be enthusiastic about it these days.
Glenn's reign of terror nears it end, and then to close the other Fairground Attraction hit, which is much better than their No.1, a wistful little Spanish guitar inflected number with quirky lyrics, though the "very pleased with themselves" vibe is still present.
There was a real danger that if Shaky was invited again TOTP after this performance, that the TOTP ratings would have nosedived for good, which I think had started at this point in 1988 after Shaky was allowed to perform on this show.
DeleteI did find it uncomfortable to hear lyrics of taking a girl's virginity on the BVSMP video, on a family show like TOTP. Suffice to say that the lead college girl on the funny video looked nothing special at the beginning, but when the clothes came off down to a bikini at the swimming pool, I was momentarily looking for my sunglasses just so as to lift them up from my eyes in admiration. Anyway, what the blazes does BVSMP stand for?
Good Lord THX, if Yazz isn't the world's tallest woman, she was certainly one of the tallest women to have graced the TOTP studio, and who's complaining, with an hourglass figure like hers at the age of 27 on this showing? I wouldn't have minded this overplayed tune over the years in the discos, as I can't bear the song anymore, and the only saving grace is how tall, fit and healthy Yazz looked in 1988!
I have always believed that the decline in TOTP's ratings and its ultimate demise were principally the result of the show becoming very badly produced.
DeleteEven during the tenure of Michael Hurll, its greatest producer, from 1985 onwards TOTP became far too obsessed with competing music shows, such as MTV, The Tube, and The Roxy which resulted in a litany of errors, including poor presenter selection and overuse of the same hosts, an excessive emphasis on videos (when Top of The Pops had always been a programme centred on studio performances), dull sets and lighting, and a move away from live broadcasts to a prerecorded format.
The earlier 7pm slot and reduced running time to 30 minutes didn't assist either, however if you compare the current crop of shows to those in its 1983 heyday, the production itself is nowhere near as good.
Most of the changes introduced by Paul Ciani since his arrival have been retrograde steps and this downward spiral would continue until the show's cancellation in 2006.
Apologies Dory, this response was intended to be posted beneath your comment further down the message board.
DeleteDory just to stop you wondering from my DJing days I seem to remember B.V.S.M.P actually stood for Baby Virgo Shocking Mister P
Deletewhat that actually ment is anyone's guess
I really like Gary Davies and Nicky Campbell isn’t bad either. Feels natural the hosting without wacky humour which may have gone too far in the past and been a distraction. Lots of female singers on show again tonight.
ReplyDeleteShakin’ Stevens – Feel the need in me – Shaky kicked off his big time singles career with some great covers. I really liked the trio of ‘This ole House’, ‘You drive me crazy’ and ‘Green Door’. But this is a travesty and nothing can keep the Forrest version out of my head.
BVSMP – I need you – Gave it 20 seconds but for the life of me cannot fathom out why this was such a high entry, let alone reaching the top 10 even. Perplexing.
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Peek a boo – Usually I can take or leave old Siouxsie but a jaunty tune here coupled with her slinky harlequin outfit certainly impressed me than the majority of their minor hits we’ve seen on the show.
Breakers – Voice of the Beehive – Not heard this, sounds ok. All about Eve – lovely voice indeed. More please! Steve Dante – Ouch! No. Julia Fordham – I never knew this was about South Africa until listening to Julia singing it live on the ‘Woman to Woman’ tour with Judie Tzuke and Beverley Craven. Great song…only no27 whilst BVSMP gets top10…hmmmm funny old world.
Pat Benatar – All fired up – Well she and the band certainly are. Exciting stuff without reaching the highs of a couple of her previous hits.
Yazz and the Plastic Population – The only way is up – This had no1 written all over it. What a tune! What an anthem! What a performance. Love the dance moves. Just great.
Glenn Medeiros – Nothing’s gonna change my love for you – Last week of a song that doesn’t get as much appreciation on here as I think it deserves. Certainly one of the best no1s of 1988.
Fairground Attraction – Find my love – Largely forgotten gem. I prefer this to their bigger hit. A bit like the Troggs where most people prefer ‘Wild Thing’ when in fact the lesser known ‘With a Girl like you’ hit no1…and Alvin Stardust.
Siouxie was the highlight of the show for me, despite the annoying video clips dispersed throughout the studio performance while admiring her slinky moves in her customary figure-hugging outfits. The band had certainly stayed together a long time since their debut hit with Hong Kong Garden some 10 years earlier in 1978, and they seemed to chart every year after that, till 1988 at least, so despite Angelo and John G's reminder that the music machine from them was about to run dry at this late stage of the decade, I got to say that Siouxie seemed to look better as we went along this long 10-year tenure in the charts with constant hits every year, and always having the perfect figure and perfect pins no less. I'm sure lots of admirers wouldn't have minded playing some Peek-A-Boo with Siouxie on this studio performance!
DeleteI got to say that the evolution of the TOTP show was now giving the studio a nightclub look and feel, with more emphasis on disco lights, and not being able to see the studio audience, leaving them as silouhettes, and the lights only on the performers on stage. Compare this to the 70s and early 80s where the performers on stage, as well the studio audience, had equally distributed camera focus, and if you were invited to the studio as part of the audience, you could tell your friends to look out for you on the show, but now this had become impossible by 1988.
ReplyDeleteThis gradual demise of the show came hand in hand with the show being reduced to 30 minutes when Eastenders was launched, and this was also part of the problem of the show becoming nothing more than a nightclub look, which does not appeal to everyone, including myself.
Suffice to say that it remained like this until the end of the show in 2006, and no-one had bothered to inform TOTP of how they were diminishing the studio audience involvement, which was always a staple of the show since it started out, especially form around 1970 when broadcast in colour for the first time, and you would see many of the girls in the studio audience wanting to dress like Pans People for example, and they did!
I think the demise of the show was down to contemporary pop and rock music becoming less universal (do you know what's No.1 in the charts right now?) and the way they kept trying to chase those charts on the day they came out, which was increasingly desperate. As time went on, not enough people cared, and as it was the raison d'etre of the show, it started looking pointless.
DeleteI must have finally got off the bus at around the year 2000 (having lost interest for periods in the 1990s). By this point there were so many no1s per year it really devalued the status (mind you the likes of Steve 'Silk' Hurley had started way back in 1987!). Almost every no1 went 'straight in at no1' something that I recall being a real novelty when Slade and Gary Glitter achieved it in 1973. The studio audience was, as you say, becoming very understated by this stage although some of the end of performance cheers seemed louder than ever (dubbed?). This is where the danceouts used to come into their own (rather than showing videos) as you got to see various audience members strutting their stuff, although latterly a lot of the 'audience' were semi pro dancer plants.
DeleteAs for where we are now, I am 50:50. The shows have become very polarised in quality for me as my reviews have shown. Some dire records and some really great records. No more could I listen to a top20 play through (like the Tom Browne 1970s chart shows that I have recently purchased) and enjoy practically the entire top20.
Yeehah ,Gary! Where’s your holster?
ReplyDeleteWe start with some shaking on thin ice, where the calories burnt were directly inversely proportional to the quality of the song. Had I been producer I’d have played a trick on Shaky and asked him to go through it all again as we hadn’t filmed the first attempt properly. Tee hee!
BVSMPWTF??? Horrible tinny sound, horrible tinny vocals, flesh creeping stuff. Almost makes me want New Edition to return. I said almost.
Ooer, Siouxsie returns with a goth punk / Art of Noise mash-up with added accordion. Quite majestic. The decision to ruin the studio turn with video interjections backfired.
An exuberant sugar rush video for another wonderful Beehive track.
Now then. “Martha’s Harbour”. Lovely tune, superb voice, can’t wait to see this live. Ah.
Steven Dante gives us Seal versus Will Downing and another disco thumper. How come Alexander O’Neal’s 11 place jumper missed out on a breaker’s slot to this or indeed the next tune?
Portsmouth crooner Julia Fordham gives us that rarity, a white and white video. Earnest stuff but not my cup of tea.
Yazz there with clothes obviously shrunk in the wash and a tune used copiously over the tannoy by football teams who’ve just got relegated. Surely S-Express’s female bassist is taller than Yazz?
Seven non-movers in the top ten. Good grief! Probably the reason we get an outro not even in the top 30, but a lovely bit of Gaelic Latin there. Doesn’t Eddi look different?
OK, brainboxes, sort this one out:
ReplyDeletehttps://news.avclub.com/internet-sleuths-are-trying-to-identify-a-mysterious-p-1838877869
It's called "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" and was taped off German radio in the 80s - but nobody knows what it is! It's gone viral, does anyone here recognise it? (You can play it at the link).
Sounds German or Austrian, possibly Eastern European, maybe a demo (which will really make it difficult to identify) and the lyrics are barely audible. If anybody does know what it is, they'll solve a 35-year-old mystery! It's actually quite spooky, if you think about it.
that reminds me of when ricky gervais had a stab at being a new romantic pop star in his youth. he couldn't give away his records in this country, yet somehow copies of them made their way half way around the world to somewhere like the philippines and became popular radio airplay fodder despite no one knowing anything about the artist concerned. and it was only after he became famous as a comic many years later that he became aware of that!
Deleteas a similar 80's wannabe pop star i did my fair share of recording in local studios, venues etc. however unlike ricky i never actually got a record deal, so i assume the above never happened with regard to anything i was involved in? not that i would know if it did!
Seeing as how it's a song no one knows the name of, never mind who recorded it, I think it's a mystery that will continue indefinitely unless one of the band hears about it. Though for all we know, they may all be dead.
DeleteCan’t fault the energy in Shakey’s dad dancing...
ReplyDeleteRather excessive drumming on BV etc.. ah, a rap FF...
More excessive drums for a track which is not one of Siouxsie’s greatest... nice dress.
Breakers go downhill after the Beehives...
Was a big fan of Pat Benatar - don’t remember this as a hit single. Doesn’t sound as ballsy as the album track - wonder if it was remixed... Didn’t spend a lot on the video.
Yazz cover of the 1980 Otis Clay track ‘Only Way Is Up’. One of the select number of covers that outshine the original.
While browsing on YouTube, I found a full copy of the 27th July 1978 edition presented by JS, and in the glory days when the show was 40 minutes long and you would see full unhurried plays of studio performances and videos, and what a show.
ReplyDeleteI remember vaguely that summer being only 10 years old and wanting Father Abraham & The Smurfs to get at least a couple of weeks at No.1, having here been around 6 weeks at No.2. This show has the top 2 played in full, as well as Jackson Browne, Voyage, Lindisfarne, and few other gems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0abCQsOOJY
Not sure if this JS show was ever aired on UK Gold or certainly not BBC4, it is one of the best TOTP shows I've ever seen, so a true rarity.
For me it is close thing between 29.6.78 (DLT) and this 27.7.78 (JS) for best TOTP show ever, and at least three songs in common between the two shows, to show that the charts did not move as fast as ten years later in 1988, and probably better that way.
It was not on UK Gold Dory & this copy is from the Google Drive/Mega. That's where the uploader gets most of his TOTP's from.
DeleteShakin' Stevens - Oh dear. Makes Forrest's cover look like a work of genius.
ReplyDeleteBVSMP - Utterly dreadful. If Glenn Medeiros hadn't hijacked the summer I don't think this would've been a hit at all.
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Now this is sheer class. It may be their finest single, if not it's certainly near the top. I love all the backwards bits and its 60s influences.
Breakers - I think the Steven Dante song is very under-rated and it's a shame that its underperformance seems to have killed his career. How on earth this was languishing in the lower reaches while BVSMP had a massive hit is beyond me. The Julia Fordham song is nice enough but she had better songs.
Pat Benatar - So average that I can't even remember if I commented on it before.
Yazz - Quite rightly a huge selling song and the sound of summer that year.
Fairground Attraction - Definitely better than 'Perfect' and sadly barely heard these days compared to that.
Welcome back Shakey. Didn't realise he has a hit in 88. Another cover I feel and his usual energetic routine but this isn't particularly memorable.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to his 1990 album which includes the brilliant "Love Attack" which I bought on cassette from WHSmith on Xmas Eve 1990.
No idea why I remember that random piece of information.
Nice energetic start anyway.
Oh god. BVSMP remember ber this. US kids trying to be cool. This has aged very very badly but was huge at the time at school. Never hear from them again I recall.. Oh well, as long as they had fun. Is he reading that rap off the autocue... Hilarious. 😀
Now I'm a pop head. Not an indie fan as a kid but I LOVED THIS. such a brilliant record. Still love it today. One of the highlights of 88 for me. I'd never heard of them before this but my goodness this is fabulous.
Breakers:
VOTB. oh I'd forgotten this. Its quite good.
All About Eve. More of this to come I think. Hated it at the time. Don't mind it now. Not a favourite though.
Steven Dante. More R+B pop. Forgettable. Bye..
Julia Fordham. Always a name I knew but could never name any of her songs. Seems a nice enough tune. Will check it out. Passed me by in 88.
Pat gets her video shown. More of a US star than a UK one. Don't mind this one. Not gonna set the world on fire though.
Yazz. Enter stage right and you get to win the summer of 88. A great original look, great moves, a really up to date sound. And a cover version, which I didn't find out for about 20 years. Never get sick of this song. On the summer mixtape!
No move at all in most of the top ten and the whole top five. Wow. And we get live Glenn this week. As someone else mentioned a few weeks ago that is an awful karaoke backing track. What were they thinking.
Should also say something the rather fine Fairground Attraction video to finish. Not as good as 'perfect' but very jolly and summery.
DeleteA good show this week. 😀