Good welcome to the 26th June 1980!
Top of the Pops 26th June 1980
Hosted by David Jensen
(11) STACY LATTISAW - Jump To The Beat
Plays over the credits, soon to become her only top ten hit
(47) PHIL LYNOTT - King's Call
Featuring Mark Knopfler on guitar, this tribute to Elvis made it to 35 in the charts
(29) THE SEX PISTOLS – (I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone
Legs & Co get all punky again to this cover of the Monkees which peaked at 21
(2) LIPPS INC - Funky Town
A repeat here of the Legs routine with Funky Town now at its peak in the charts
(39) ELVIS COSTELLO - New Amsterdam
Slowly climbing to its peak if 36
(41) AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
One of four singles released in June by the band, this one was the biggest hit when it peaked at 36
(8) LIQUID GOLD - Substitute
Now at its chart peak
(19) UB40 - I Think its Going to Rain
The double A side with My Way of Thinking, peaked at 6
(30) ODYSSEY – Use It Up Wear It Out
On its way of course to the very top of the pops.
(16) QUEEN – Play The Game
Freddie here wearing his Flash Gordon t-shirt - this song peaked at 14
(6) TEENA MARIE – Behind The Groove
A repeat of the Legs routine here, with Behind the Groove at its chart peak
(1) DON McLEAN - Crying
The second of three weeks at number one for Don.
(7) SPLODGENESSABOUNDS – Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please
Plays over the credits this week after leaping to number 7 in the charts, but it got no higher.
Saxon last time and now AC/DC, I sense than Mr Murphy is a metal head, so heads up for future editions - if there's a metal band in the Top 75 they'll be on the show. An interesting line up but I have to say that this is breaking the rules again I'm afraid. UB40 would not to be featured two weeks in a row even if it was with a different song (nice to see the other video though) and the two Legs performances wouldn't be shown together. Also a word about the presenter. David Jensen left the BBC at the end of May to work in Canada (remember he announced it on air) so he wouldn't have presented this week's show.
ReplyDeleteI'm in agreement that it is breaking the rules, cos it seems that Stephen is putting the songs that he likes, rather than being neutral and thinking like a TOTP producer, which is the whole point of the game.
DeleteFor example, there is no way that Xanadu would have been played as a video last week at No.39.
It would have been shown this week at No.14 for the first time as main line-up, as TOTP only show studio performances if the song is going up but has not reached the top 30 yet.
Also, as you say regarding UB40, you are right, and it kind of makes it difficult to play the TOTP Game, but I will continue to put my effort in, as we are still a few weeks away from the return of the BBC4 repeats.
It is not quite a personal choice on our part. Its Just the way the chart goes and the footage we can obtain to make these shows. And I know the kid was not scheduled to host. But as there were a lot of links featuring david Jensen. It was mutually decided he was the man to present that week. When I first saw it six or seven weeks back I thought it was crap after the tommy vance one. But having seen all these shows the 26th has actually grown on me. Because
DeleteThere is some good music on it. It has just been let down through breaking school rules lol
alan are you an associate of stephen murphy?
DeleteYes I am. And I know this episode isn't the best 1. Thats why we never did the 3rd of July. And moved onto the tenth.
DeleteBut there will be a 3rd of July I am doing this 1. As we are now mid strike a lot of the good stuff has dried up. So this might be a bad 1 aswell. But things will pick up. There R some good studio 1s and the links will get a lot better Hopefully these Mid strike shows wont put people off.
alan, as long as you (and whoever else) keep producing them, i'll keep guessing what the line up will be. thanks again for what i know from my own attempts at dabbling with film editing is a time-consuming task!
DeleteElvis Costello had actually already peaked at 36 two weeks previously, "New Amsterdam" having dropped to 43 and then bounced back up slightly to 39. Still, I won this week, which was unexpected. I can put that on my CV!
ReplyDeleteTalking of AC/DC, I caught a bit of Danny Baker's Radio FIve Live show on Saturday, and he re-played a clip of Nottingham Forest player John McGovern talking the first four lines of "Whole Lotta Rosie" in the style of Brian Clough!
Damn! I should of seen that 1. Sorry about that. But new Amsterdam is still a good song tho. It was me Fishy what gave Steve that weeks order. So I take full responsibility on that one
DeleteBon Scott died a few months bEfore whole lotta Rosie was in the 40 and by the time of it he was replaced by Brian Jonson
ReplyDeletePhil Lynott - impressive editing of promo video plus studio footage. Did Mark Knopfler really join Phil Lynott in the TOTP studio as some of the footage on this edit suggests?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the guitar work from Knopfler was a prelude to what was to come in 1981 with his Making Movies album with Dire Straits. Nothing less than genius.
The SexPistols - how nice to see the Legs girls dressed as the Flintstones. Can I be Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble, just go home with these ladies and throw the cat out of the front door?
Elvis Costello - it seems he only went for outdoor videos, as yet another one was churned out for this New Amsterdam effort.
On Costello - maybe considering the often serious/political content of his songs a realitic setting outdoors would have been thought better for the music video. Still a humdrum song for me though.
DeleteThat's the straight footage we recieved for this song. But is does look like the TOTP studio in places. And also the,Don Mclean looks like TOTP as well
DeleteI didn't think this line-up was as strong as those for the last couple of weeks, but the Phil Lynott song was a pleasant surprise, a very nice tribute to Elvis. Clearly Mark Knopfler was a devotee of the King's, given that Dire Straits much later recorded Calling Elvis. I'm amazed that there were any scrapings left from The Sex Pistols' barrel by 1980, but the infamous "punk" Legs routine went well with this decidedly humdrum effort.
ReplyDeleteWhole Lotta Rosie should have been a bigger hit. I'm no great fan of AC/DC's (too shouty and one-dimensional for my tastes), but I like this one. I wonder if they would have performed this in the studio with Brian Johnson if it had ever made it on to TOTP for real? Queen are another overrated band, in my view, but this is one of their better efforts and this is I think the first time that Freddie's famous tache appears in one of their videos. Most enjoyable song of the show for me though was Odyssey - I know it divides opinion, but I think it's an infectiously catchy disco record.
As Bama mentioned above, Kid would definitely not have hosted any of the shows lost to the strike as he had quit the BBC by this point.
Perhaps the Kid might have hosted it in his spare time? :-)
DeleteSurely nearly every group/musician that has had lots of fame is overrated to an extent considering those others that are good but hardly get any fame. It's the nature of popular music and all the marketing that's involved in it.
Deletei've discovered that i can watch "this week's" edition - hoorah! and i checked last week's and that now works too - i suspect that the fact that i installed flash a few days ago in order to watch the world athletics championships on bbciplayer is surely no coincidence...
ReplyDeletein terms of comments, not much to say other than:
1 - why is a there a spoof picture of nipper the hmv dog for splodgenessabounds in the chart rundown? are there no pics of them in existence?
2 - the phil lynott thing (that i don't recall) sounds much more like a dire straits song than a thin lizzy one. unlike phil who was born to wear them, mark should resisted the temptation to sport leather trousers. i think that's lizzy drummer brian downey behind them?
3 - what? no "good love" from the kid at the end?!
Wilberforce, there's a simple answer to your point 2.
DeleteBy Phil Lynott agreeing to 'sound like' Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler had to agree to 'look like' Thin Lizzy. It's a case of mutual understanding in order to move forward.
The Lynott song was pleasant enough, nice vocal.
ReplyDeleteConversely the AC/DC one had a vocal than annoyed me, sounded very generic. The guitar solo and stage antics enlivened it though.
The Sex Pistols one didn't rock as much but had an interesting wailing sound over the top. On this listen it didn't sound like them at their best though.
Quite a few songs seemed repeats, like the dullish Costello one, the Queen one? (decent song), the UB40 I thought was but apparently it's different (still dull to me though).
Nice to see more of the Odyssey one than the 2 second clip we saw from the Legs and Co performance later in the year.
The Odyssey video shown in this week's game of TOTP, was not available at the time in June/July 1980, hence TOTP had to use Legs & Co.
DeleteOdyssey didn't make a video at the time for this song, brilliant as it still is to this day, and I think this footage which is now the 'official video' was a stage performance somewhere in Europe later in the year.
It was the only footage available of Odyssey performing this song, and fittingly it was used thereafter as the 'official video' for Use It Up And Wear It Out, as no other footage exists of them performing it in 1980.
Hence, all that TOTP could do, with no studio performance and no video available, was to put Legs & Co in place for it, as was shown on the 9th July Pilot show.
I'm not sure if this is off music laden from germany.
DeleteDory - is there a copy of the pilot show available ? i've seen clips but not a "full show"
DeleteA Maher. Go on youtube type in TOTP 26 06 80 Spoof. There is this spoof episode of top of the pops.Its Quite funny this is the 6 7 80 pilot with dubbed over sound. So there must be a copy hanging round somewhere. But how to get hold of 1 that is the question
Deletereaders may remember several other retro totp blogs in the past. well, i've just come across another one that may be of interest to you:
ReplyDeletehttp://soundofthecrowd.org.uk/category/tv/top-of-the-pops/