We've come a long, long way together to the 15th of January 1999 edition of Top of the Pops!
Block of the pops
15-1-99: Presenter: Kate Thornton
(9) HONEYZ – End Of The Line
Had already peaked at number 5.
(3) BLOCKSTER – You Should Be…
This Bee Gees cover was their only top ten hit and it was at its peak.
(6) BRYAN ADAMS & MELANIE C – When You’re Gone
A second studio performance for a song that had peaked at number 3.
(8) ULTRA – Rescue Me
Here with their only top ten hit and also their final hit and it got no higher.
(ALBUM TRACK) ROBBIE WILLIAMS – Millennium
Number one single from his number one album, I've Been Expecting you.
(14) DA CLICK – Good Rhymes
With their first of two top 40 hits, this being the biggest but it got no higher.
(11) JUSTIN – Over You
Performing his second of four top 40 hits, this was his biggest but it got no higher.
(1) FATBOY SLIM Praise You (video) (and credits)
Just the one week at number one for his only number one.
8-1-76: Presenter: Noel Edmonds
ReplyDelete(NEW) OSIBISA – Sunshine Day
(4) SAILOR – Glass Of Champagne ®
(43) R & J STONE – We Do It
(23) THE SMALL FACES – Itchycoo Park (danced to by Pan’s People)
(NEW) TONY CHRISTIE – Drive Safely Darlin’
(31) SHEER ELEGANCE – Milky Way
(46) ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA – Evil Woman
(NEW) BARBARA DICKSON – Answer Me
(1) QUEEN – Bohemian Rhapsody (video)
(25) CRISPY & COMPANY – Get It Together (and credits)
The 50 year anniversary look back continues and with far more to show than last year. I'm assuming that all the editions that can be re-shown from '76 will be shown which is good as I didn't really get on board with it till it reached around Spring '77. I'm hoping to catch a handful of clips on the TV; hopefully 'Dancing Queen' , 'The Continental', 'Ring Out Solstice Bells'. Perhaps Can also?
DeleteTo have 2 pre re-run editions to kick things off with one in not the best picture quality is a real suprise for me. I wonder if more home recorded/restored editions are to follow. 8th Jan '76 isn't wiped but I presume it's the first time it's been shown on uk tv since original airing. Whilst it still remains weird to watch even one song performed twice within an hour in a tv schedule it's still a great act of archival generosity. Thanks all.
8th Jan has a few tropes from what's left of '75. It's a shame so little survived as the sci fi set is evident here, interspersed with some art deco and a big blue curtain. And some cheap, shiny streamers that twinkle at the side. It is just after Christmas.
Noel had to start with a 'clever' alternative to hello.
A great start with a single that maybe would've been on every summer compilation ever released if it had come out in summer rather than the dead of Winter. Maybe 'Sunshine Day' was intended to bring a burst of warmth. I don't know if Jan '76 had much sun but looking at Wickipedia, it had a hell of a lot of wind. Worcester Cathedral damaged among other mayhem so this track would've been either a therapeutic listen or a rather needling one. I've been soaked to the skin and frozen to the bone in the same hour this week and I enjoyed listening to it.
Osibisa live up to the exotic name. The lead singer had loads of charisma and a great live vocal and a keyboardist with the best shirt and hat combination I've ever seen on the repeats. He's happy, as is the drummer who doesn't make the slightest attempt to properly mime drumming.
I think 'Glass of Champagne' is a classic pop tune and sounds way ahead of it's time. It's not hippy harmonies or clodhopping thump but sounds like Talking Heads at their most pop. In other words like Talking Heads. The presentation is pure 'Basil Brush Show' though it could be a frothy thing from 1979. I liked the general larking about from the others, particularly when the bespectacled guy bangs his drum. Brilliant harmonies, enormous sounding keyboard part. Everything in that.
The Sailor look is '75/6. The next act...isn't. Has anyone informed the male half of this duo that it isn't 1969 anymore? He sings well though and it is an attractive song particularly when R or J steps in to look seductively into his eyes and possibly contemplate why he looks so late '60s. Something of a gift to secondary school gates that single.
Late Pan's People with Leigh Ward or Mary Corpe (I don't know which one's which) looking dreamy on her toadstool in another few minutes that take a visual departure from the present time. Staggeringly when two videos were released to mark 25 years of Top of the Pops, this clip was featured to represent their dancing troupes. Says something about what people in the late '80s thought about the late '60s but then this routine also says a lot about what people thought about the time only 9 years later.
Part 2
DeleteTony Christie does his big voice thing very well in front of the sci fi set. The song sounded rather over explained but a nice country sweep to it. It sounded a bit like the theme to 'The Littlest Hobo' in places.
More from sheer collar mass and a decent energetic performance though im sure I saw the lead singer let go an unfortunate gobbet of spit at one point. Pleasant song with cheerily mad lyrics.
Good to catch some ELO in their mid '70s pomp and a shades less Jeff Lynne enjoying himself. Great bluesy tune with regulation off centre string bit.
I was really looking to seeing 'Answer Me' on the TV and Barbara Dickson is in fine voice. Everything she appears the camera always arrives at her via a ponderous camera pan, this time pulling away from ELO to sweep over the back of her head. An appreciative Noel intro out of vision then the camera keeps swirling around her, round and round till it gets rather annoying . Barbara peers awkwardly into the camera as if she's wondering if it's ok for her to perform but it's a lovely few minutes. Yes Noel, she deserved a first chart hit. Maybe he as watching the swirly camera work on his monitor because he loses his balance when the camera swings across to him. Doesn't make a joke out of it suprisingly.
To Queen and a special version of the video for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (started halfway through) and it's interesting to see this momentous single at the time it was No.1. At the end Noel said it makes him "go to pieces" which i wasn't expecting him to say about it. A playfully simpering goodbye then a playout that might be crispy but isn't very memorable.
Loved that.
22-1-76: Presenter: David Hamilton
ReplyDelete(2) SAILOR – Glass Of Champagne
(22) BARBARA DICKSON – Answer Me
(23) OSIBISA – Sunshine Day ®
(12) SLIK – Forever And Ever
(10) PAUL DAVIDSON – Midnight Rider (video) (danced to by Pan’s People)
(14) ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA – Evil Woman ®
(29) DAVID RUFFIN – Walk Away From Love (footage from Soul Train 13-12-75)
(NEW) SMOKIE – Something’s Been Making Me Blue
(7) R & J STONE – We Do It
(1) QUEEN – Bohemian Rhapsody (video) (and credits)
At first I wondered why this episode was shown on the same night as the 8th Jan '76 episode, especially as six songs are repeats of the 8th Jan show, but looking at next week's BBC4 schedules with 25th March '76 followed straight after by 1st April '76, it looks like BBC4 is starting all the reruns again from 1976 as they did in 2011, but this time without the JS and DLT shows, although it doesn't explain why the are skipping two February 1976 episodes with Noel Edmonds and David Hamilton that are not wiped shows. Anyone know?
DeleteAnyway, back to 22nd January '76, and although they edited out David Ruffin with footage from Soul Train (to fit the show into half an hour?) it was great to see Sue Mehenick back in Pans People after being absent from the Itchycoo Park red mushrooms set on the show a couple of weeks earlier, with the group now back to five girls dancing in sexy hotpants for Paul Davison's Midnight Rider.
The clip of 'Walk Away from Love' was taken from a Soul Train episode on the 13th of December 1975, but NTSC quality for US TV clips are fuzzy as hell. So in order for that due to the 6-minute Bohemian Rhapsody video and timing reasons, they couldn't pay Don Cornelius Productions for the clip neither, they had a problem before with Gene Chandler (they had to cut it out) in the 9-3-79 episode and for the first time it was a TOTP-studio only episode with new and old performances.
DeleteNice explanation for missing david ruffin track. I thought it was curious…
DeleteGloria Estefan was a new entry this week and at peak at No.28 with Don't Let This Moment End, but didn't make it onto the show, with this her penultimate single, as only one more single a year later in January 2000 called Music Of My Heart only managed No.34 at the start of the the millennium.
ReplyDeleteTOTP2's (first 3 of January)
ReplyDeletehttps://fromsmash.com/TOTP2-First-3-Jan-1999
Thanks Rob!!!
DeleteThanks Rob!
DeleteI hope everyone had a good Christmas and ate lots of mince pies!