Imagine there's no Top of the Pops....
Top of the Pops 11-12-80: Presenter: Richard Skinner
(16) ADAM & THE ANTS – Antmusic
As soon as Dog Eat Dog left the top 30 in came Antmusic which marched on all the way to number 2. There's even a large screen with the lyrics to sing along to, years before karaoke!
(32) SHOWADDYWADDY – Blue Moon ®
At its peak of 32 and cut from the 7.30 edition. But before the next act along comes special guest Jermaine Jackson, who is handed a cake for his 25th birthday. Richard Skinner also informs us there's no Legs & Co this week because they are rehearsing for the Xmas Day and New Years Day specials, neither of which we will get to see on BBC4 sadly. (Instead, they are showing Xmas Day 1975).
(4) MADNESS – Embarrassment
John Lennon had mentioned being a fan of this group in the interview he recorded for Radio One on December 6th, even doing an impression of 'don't listen to that, listen to this.....'
Good to see the nutty boys make it into the studio, seemingly paying homage to the Bay City Rollers, with Embarrassment now at its chart peak.
(17) STATUS QUO – Lies (video)
With a video that was hard to distinguish from a TOTPs studio appearance, this follow up to What You're Proposing made it to number 11.
(31) MATCHBOX – Somewhere Over The Rainbow
1980 had been a very good year for Matchbox but this would prove to be their final top 20 hit. It wasn't a good 7.30 edition for them tonight though, they got the chop.
(9) THE POLICE – De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (video)
The second single from their number one album Zenyatta Mondatta made it to 5 in the charts. Judging from the video, it looks like they turned up for Wham's Last Xmas party about four years too early!
(20) QUEEN – Flash (video)
Taken from their soundtrack album for the Flash Gordon movie, this was perhaps their most peculiar hit, peaking at number 10.
(10) THE STRAY CATS – Runaway Boys ®
The first of their two top ten hits, both of which peaked at number 9.
The Top Ten Rundown:
(9) THE POLICE – De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (video)
Straight into the charts.
(8) EDDY GRANT – Do You Feel My Love? (still picture)
Peak position.
(7) BLONDIE – The Tide Is High (video)
Not the 'Darth Vader' clip!
(6) SPANDAU BALLET – To Cut A Long Story Short (still picture)
Down from number 5.
(5) THE BOOMTOWN RATS – Banana Republic (video)
Down from number 3.
(4) MADNESS – Embarrassment (clip of TOTP 11-12-80)
It got no higher.
(3) JONA LEWIE – Stop The Cavalry (still picture)
Might have got to number one had events in New York not taken place.
(2) ST. WINIFRED’S SCHOOL CHOIR – There’s No-One Quite Like Grandma (clip of TOTP 4-12-80)
Nothing and no one would stop this lot from grabbing the Christmas number one spot.
(1) ABBA – Super Trouper (video) (and credits)
The final week at number one for Abba, ever.
JOHN LENNON – Imagine (live clip)
A sombre Richard Skinner introduces this Top of the Pops tribute, taken from the April 1975 tv show A Salute to Sir Lew Grade, filmed in New York, this was John Lennon's last ever public performance.
Next week then is the final regular edition of Top of the Pops 1980, from December the 18th.
Ah, the historic Richard Skinner – the only man to host the trio of TOTP, OGWT and the Sunday afternoon Radio 1 chart rundown, the first voice on the live broadcast of “Live Aid”, and the man who informed Paul McCartney via an employee at his home that John Lennon had been killed.
ReplyDeleteIt's all too easy for people to say that had Lennon not moved to New York and turned his back on Britain which made his career successful, then he may still have been with us now, and would have been aged 75 this year like Cliff Richard, which is not old in today's generation.
DeleteJermaine Jackson - who was responsible for one of my favourite ever ballad hits, 'Do What You Do' - mentioned his forthcoming reunion with his brothers. This would not become official, however, until he left Motown and signed with Arista in '83.
ReplyDeletePolice's much-derided 'De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da' would break their run of chart-toppers in Britain, though they would return to the top slot twice. The Bleach Boys share with their fierce chart rivals Abba and Blondie the distinction of following a hat-trick of British No.1 hits with a single that stopped at No.5. (Note: Police's hat-trick of No.1 hits with successive official releases was interrupted by the reissued early singles 'So Lonely' and 'Fall Out', which peaked at No.6 and No.47 respectively, as well as the sextuple single 'Six Pack', which halted at No.17.)
And so to John...who would have thought that one of the greatest Scousers the world has ever known would be denied the Christmas No.1 slot by a Mancunian school choir? It could only happen in Britain...
i'm not sure which which i find more nauseating: the st winifreds thing or lennon singing "imagine"...
DeleteAs a point of trivia, I have a copy of the police de do do dah sung on one side in Spanish, and on the other in Japanese. Interesting that these recordings were left of the incorrectly titled 'Complete Recordings'
Deletehow do you sing "de do do do, de da da da" in spanish (or japanese)?
DeleteApparently Jermaine changed the spelling of his surname to Jacksun in 2012, citing the change as being for 'artistic reasons', and his new surname became official in February 2013.
DeleteI haven't seen this show yet but, seeing as The Police's song's lyrics mention rape, albeit in a typically Sting abstract manner, if the song was shown without editing, this would be an unusual case of Yewtree or not Yewtree.
ReplyDeleteWe heard last week on the Boomtown Rats single Banana Republic, lyrics like "sleeping with your whore" and this was never cut by TOTP even in 1980, never mind now in the re-runs. This is just as strange as your point about The Police's song lyrics on this weeks show.
DeleteAngelo, is there a copy of that John Lennon Radio One interview a couple of days before his death, where he did an impression of Madness's One Step Beyond as you say?
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to hear it, as I did not know he was a fan of Madness.
Hi Dory, yes its all on Youtube ~
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTy3kSxyoo
Its the whole 2 hours worth, but split into four parts - the Madness bit is in the last part I think where he's talking about the 1980 music scene and his plans for future releases. I listened to the whole thing myself for the first time last week, he does quite a few silly voices including some not very pc ones nowadays, such as a Chinese accent!
It was certainly a great mark of respect by Richard Skinner at the end of this week's TOTP show to have a black background to discuss Lennon and the tribute with his last ever live performance from 1975 in New York.
DeleteSay that Jermaine Jackson was 25 he was actually 26 so it must of been his 26th birthday
ReplyDeleteAlthough the show was shown on 11th December which is when Jermaine was 26, the show was recorded a couple of days earlier, and so technically he was still 25 for a couple more days, but yes the birthday cake was for being 26 now.
DeleteGary numan popped in to chat to Richard bout his retirement
ReplyDeletehost: richard skinner was always one of my preferred radio 1 DJ's, both in his persona and his musical taste (he tended to host the evening shows where the dreaded playlists were relaxed). but he looks a lot younger here than i remember him, and less greyer - at least hair-wise, although he makes up for that with his shirt and (very uncool) v-neck jumper. rather disappointingly for one of the more knowledgable jocks he misprounounces bowie's surname in the chart rundown (it rhymes with bow-tie - NOT take a bow!)
ReplyDeleteadam & the ants: i have to admit i did quite enjoy this even though i still find their sound a bit too thin and basic for my taste. the crowd did too in a rare event of a totp audience actually dancing with abandon
madness: (air) trumpeter chas smash either left his red tartan jacket at home, or (more likely) didn't want to conform to the singer-wears-different-outfit-to-the-rest-of-the-band look. maybe that's why tommo is so unusually introverted as well? bedders does what was the trendy thing at that point and uses an upright bass, even though i very much doubt he played one on the recording
quo: one i can't remember at all, but i can see why. richard refers to their sound as "boogie" but i always think of that term being associated with disco music rather than rhythm and blues. but if it is boogie, then it's very much of the lite variety
matchbox: another upright bass player, but again even though the music is much more appropriate for playing such an instrument i'm pretty sure it's an electric bass used in the recording. everyone knows the chorus to this hoary old standard, but i bet most wouldn't be able to sing the verses if pressed - i wouldn't!
police: not one of their better efforts by their standards, but (as arthur has also noticed) perhaps the first if not only time a song with the word "rapes" in it has made the charts? a word that still causes some consternation even in today's anything-goes world - i remember reading that football manager alan pardew once used said word to describe a tackle when a guest on "match of the day"... and never got invited back on the show again as a result!
queen: i've never heard the soundtrack album or watched the film (the image of a bellowing brian blessed in a winged helmet immediately comes to mind!), so i have no idea how good or bad it is in relation to its purpose. but if this is anything to go by then probably the latter, as it falls between the two stools of soundtracking and the standard queen pop sound (all i ever remembered about it was the "flash! aaa-aaa!" thing repeated over and over, and some woman shouting "i love you flash, but we've only got 24 hours to save the world!" - and it turned out i even remembered that wrongly). having tried his hand at soundtrack work, i always assumed that brian may went on and did more on his own for films including the mad max series. but that turned out to be a different brian may (shouldn't they have rules about musicians with the same name, as they do for actors?)
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DeleteMy best memory over the years of Flash by Queen, is the line "Gordon's alive!"... "What do you mean Gordon's alive? Open fire, hold weapons, dispatch war rocket Ajax to bring back his body."
DeleteAlthough this Brian May did record the theme to Starfleet
DeleteThe other Brian May is the Aussie who did the music for Mad Max among other Ozploitation.
DeleteIn the sitcom The Good Life Tom Good (Richard Briers) was always whistling the verse part of Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
DeleteAdam and the Ants with their statement of intent, kind of their "Hey, hey we're the Monkees!" When I was a kid I had a badge collection, and my Adam and the Ants one had their logo with the motto "Antmusic for sex people" written on it, which I thought was very rude. Speaking of which, does some girl take their top off and lasso it around their head at the end of this performance? Have a look, left hand side of the screen.
ReplyDeleteShowaddywaddy: Dave's bought that suit and he's bloody well going to get some wear out of it!
Madness with their hitherto unnoticed Scottish inclination. A more restrained performance as befitting the song, which still sounds top notch.
Status Quo with their song again. And their video again. This really sounds like something else (non-Quo) but I'll be darned if I can remember what it is, especially those verses, it was bugging me throughout.
Matchbox, about to announce the meat raffle there. Was this pub singer's version of the Judy Garland standard the best they could do to follow up their biggest hit? I know the movie is always on at Christmas, but who would rather hear this instead of Judy? At least I know why I got Mr Matchbox mixed up with Alvin Stardust as a kid.
The Police, never mind the raped by logic line, once you notice Sting looks like Jeffrey Archer you can't unsee it. Note the underlying tension in the horseplay.
Queen, ah, I absolutely love Flash Gordon and this is by far my favourite thing this band ever did, the soundtrack to this is the only Queen record I own, or will ever own, it's fantastic. This theme song is bombastic and even weird, they should have done more like this. The movie is the closest the 80s got to another Barbarella (which also has a great soundtrack) and the music matched that camp magnificence.
Stray Cats: a lot of product in Brian's hair, there.
Then after ABBA's final week at number one, the bad news. Not sure why they thought that clip of Lennon performing a half-arsed and surly version of Imagine was remembering him at his best, and the backing band was creepy. Maybe it's all they had to hand? I remember watching Help! the night the news came through and thoroughly enjoying it, but not being sure which one of the Beatles was now dead. I certainly learned over the following few days.
Anyway, guests, happy birthday Jermaine, he'll have turned 60 recently I suppose. He was one of the non-intervening housemates in the notorious Jade Goody Celebrity Big Brother debacle of last decade. I'm sure that's how he'd like to be celebrated.
And Gary Numan, not being very sure why he was giving up touring (or reluctant to admit to his stage fright). Richard Skinner was a better interviewer than some we've seen on this show recently, give him that.
It's interesting to note that Status Quo seemed to use the same formula for all their videos between 1974-1981, I guess in case that for any single they were not invited to the TOTP studio, they had a backup to send to the show.
DeleteThe videos always seem to be in the same smoke-filled basement of some sort with the classic big black speakers of heavy metal or rock bands.
Talk about a cheap way of making videos, in a time just before the 'pop video' concept became mandatory, and it seems from 1982 onwards when this came about, only then did they step out on the street for the more conventional 80's video in the outdoors.
Jermaine Jackson wasn't "non-intervening" in the notorious Big Brother episode, he called Jade goody "white trash". I remember being shocked at the time how racist so many of the house mates were being including him.
DeleteI'd forgotten about Jermaine's slur, but it seemed the blokes just let the women get on with the dreadful behaviour and sulked (much like the producers). S Club Jo was the real unpleasant surprise, though.
DeleteYes it did all spoil celeb BB for me and I haven't watched it since.
DeleteI watched all the Celeb BBs on Channel 4, but gave up after Vinnie Jones threatened to sue someone for taking the piss out of him.
Deletein a similar circumstance i used to avidly watch "they think it's all over", where the sports personalities such as gary lineker, david gower and david seaman were quite happy to be the butt of the comedians' jokes. then they made the fatal error of getting ian "wrighty" wright in as a captain, and the first thing he did was to tell the comics not to take the piss out of him! which was the whole point really, so it was the shark-jumping moment for me...
DeleteApart from playing football, Ian Wright has been appalling at anything he's ever done. How he still gets jobs on TV I'll never know (see about 75% of other footballers also)
Delete... and even his footballing feats were not as great as imagined: he couldn't buy a goal when he played for england, and i once read that the vast majority he scored at club level were against mediocre teams in the lower half of the league tables!
DeleteOne of the best shows of the year, this one, which when added to the past two editions means ToTP is ending 1980 on a fairly decent high.
ReplyDeleteOn mic duties this week is the effortlessly easy-going Richard Skinner and, as events in New York unfolded, perhaps its just as well. Can't imagine the sad relating of Lennon's death in the hands of Saville or DLT, or Peter Powell.
Adam & The Ants kick us off with their finest hour. Twin drummers, burundi beat, hook laden chorus, and another starring role up front for Adam. 1980's coolest band.
Other highlights this week - Madness, Stray Cats, The Police on vid. Abba's final ever week at number 1, and St Winifred's restricted to just five seconds.
Back in 1980, on that December Tuesday I was with some friends in a Liverpool city centre pub around the corner from Matthew Street playing pool. The jukebox was playing Lennon songs most of the night and the mood was pretty sombre. Walking back to our car I spied a Liverpool Echo newspaper seller's 'spot' still had the 'John Lennon Dead' sheet in place so I snaffled it thinking that one day it would be worth something. And I'm sure it would have - had I not misplaced it sometime later.
Scores on the doors.The show cops for an 8 - signs now that (despite Quo and Showaddywaddy) the new acts were forcing their way onto the show more frequently.
Dickie Skinner scores 7. A pretty decent fist of handling the Lennon story and his 'news' section and interviews were better than most others. He also refused to have any interraction with the audience, which is also a good thing. It was just some of his links that let him down,being a touch clumsy.
Still, all-in-all, a fine show.
I'm not a robot.
During the play out on the previous edition, there are two people in the background, one wearing green jacket, the other a red jacket and sunglasses. i suspected that these were two members of madness,but as they were not on the show was not convinced. Comparing their outfits with what suggs and co were wearing on this latest edition it would appear that this performance was actually recorded the week before. The studio audience at this show would therefore have seen only two bands in the studio, adam and matchbox.
ReplyDelete... unless of course there were also other acts in the studio who got shown on the telly the next week or some other future time? whenever i read this kind of thing i wonder just how many acts turned up to put in a performance, only to be not shown due to being dropped from the schedule that week and/or then dropping down the charts the next? and also if any such footage exists, is it in the bbc archives?
Delete... and also were there acts ever filmed more than once, and if so then would unused takes be binned? or would those also be in the archives?
DeleteI remember when Dave Levy (weddingsuit, Brendon's bassist) joined us on the forum for a while after we / I took the mickey out of his mate, who he stills records with to my knowledge. Dave was superb and he sent in a number of gold dust TOTP rehearsing / running order scripts, one of which definitely listed a Three Degrees performance for a single which never got shown on the programme.
DeleteMy brother is a TV producer of mainly quiz shows and all manner of odd things go on behind the scenes, most of which I can't pass on for legals reasons.
DeleteFrom memory I'm pretty sure Lee Garrett recorded two performances of You're My Everything when he visited the studio in 1976. The first had an audience present but the second one didn't which suggests it was recorded after the first and slotted in two weeks later..
But the faces in the crowd are always a good way of spotting when things are filmed or broadcast out of sequence, I think it happens quite often.
There were essentially two contests on this weeks show:
ReplyDelete1. Best fancy dress costume between Adam & The Ants and Madness. I give Adam & The Ants a slight edge, due to creativity and colour co-ordination between red, white, pink and black, and spots.
2. Showaddywaddy, Matchbox and Stray Cats for best Doo-Wop sound, as this was probably the last appearance of the Waddys in the TOTP studio, especially as they were about to leave the scene just before the video era became the norm, and they never did make any videos, so they departed just before they would have to start doing them.
The 'Waddy came back twice more to TOTP in 1981 and 1982 to take their total number of studio appearances to 38.
Deletei hadn't realised that there were in fact three acts on the show that were 50's throwbacks... which is a bit perterbing given we are now entering the age of synth-pop!
DeleteTHX.. was it Devil Gate Drive that came to mind when listening to the Quo? It certainly did for me
ReplyDeleteNo, thanks for the suggestion (and now you mention it, yeah, that too!) but what I had in mind was something more frivolous.
DeleteSomething of a landmark show, what with Lennon's death, ABBA's last-ever week at number 1 and the performance that really turned Adam & the Ants into full-blown pop stars. Antmusic is by far and away the best thing Mr Goddard ever did, a call-to-arms manifesto for his unique sound, and it's a shame "events" stopped this from hitting the top, as it surely would have done in normal circumstances.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, the musical quality of this edition was decidedly mixed. Yet again the Waddys are inflicted upon us, even though Blue Moon had failed to make the Top 30. I assume Barry Manilow didn't have a video available, as surely he should have been on the show; the absence of Legs also meant there couldn't be a dance to his record. Madness return to the studio and, no doubt to Michael Hurll's relief, put in a restrained performance that befits the song.
The next four songs all range from mediocre to terrible. Quo were past their best by now, in all honesty, and Lies is a by-the-numbers offering from them. As has already been noted, their videos all tend to look the same, and it looks like there was always a wind machine in the studio to blow their lustrous locks around! Matchbox's attempt at covering a standard is truly terrible, the singer's strained high-pitched vocal completely failing to catch the emotion of the song; he also looks decidedly creepy in this performance. You would be forgiven for thinking, from their frequent appearances on the show during 1980, that they were one of the biggest bands of the year - I suspect this single helped kill their chart career.
The Police next, and they fail to raise the spirits with their worst-ever single. The video at least has some novelty in that Stewart Copeland is not trying to drum on nearby objects, as he is too busy being an amateur cameraman instead; I suspect Sting was itching to send him tumbling down the slope! I have never seen Flash Gordon, but the clips featured in this otherwise austere Queen video make it look really tacky and naff. The song itself is pretty dull - you assume it will go somewhere after the "Flash!" bit but it never really does. Incidentally, for those who don't know, none other than future Chief Scout Peter Duncan had a small role in the film shortly before he joined Blue Peter...
Richard Skinner did a good job overall on his solo debut, though he did seem to succumb to nerves in a couple of places and started speaking too quickly, particularly when interviewing Jermaine Jackson. I thought he handled a somewhat wild-eyed and taciturn Gary Numan pretty well - I loved Numan's face when Skinner asked him what he thought about Matchbox!
I think it was fortuitous that Skinner was presenting this particular edition, as he was the man who brought word to Macca of Lennon's demise, and he handled the subject here with a gravitas which I don't think any other TOTP host of the time could have matched. Just a shame that they then had to show a performance of Imagine in which Lennon comes over as thoroughly arrogant and unpleasant, though from everything I have read about him he was not a particularly nice person. I have never cared for the song either, as the sentiments of the lyrics have always struck me as overly naïve and simplistic, and Lennon's pious hypocrisy sticks in my gullet. Sadly, we'll be hearing a lot more of it in the weeks to come...
it must have been the constant use of the wind machine in the quo videos that did for francis rossi's hair in the end!
DeleteThe cast of Flash Gordon is incredible, you have a Blue Peter presenter, Brian Blessed, Ingmar Bergman's favourite actor, one of the Angry Young Men of 1950s theatre, James Bond, the star of Fiddler on the Roof, Lina Wertmuller's actress of choice, Jason King, Manimal's girlfriend, R2-D2... what a movie.
Deletedespite all the above it looks like a real budget job to me, featuring mainly loads of jobbing english thesps (i bet peter wyngarde aka jason king was grateful for the opportunity, having been blackballed for most of the preceding decade due to being caught importuning) and a token american in the lead role who no-one had heard of before, and who hasn't done much since!
Deleteanyway, i'm surprised no one has yet mentioned "flesh gordon" - i remember older kids going on about watching it at the local fleapit when i was at school in the 70's, but sadly it had been and gone by the time i was old enough to get in (although i did get to see some late night soft porn movies on the big screen after i left school... including an "erotic" version of "alice in wonderland"!)
Peter Wyngarde is a brilliant actor and should be on our screens more. I'm surprised he hasn't turned up as a villain in Dr Who or Sherlock.
Deletei agree that wyngarde is/was a fine if somewhat stereotype actor - in two of the few things he appeared in post-flash gordon, he played upper-class toff-types (a low-budget fim featuring a pre "legend" ray winstone called "tank malling", and an episode of "sherlock holmes"). but being caught up to no-good by plod in the gents appeared to be the kiss of death professionally back in the 70's. unlike 20 years later when the same thing happened to george michael!
Deletepersonally, i think george's "incident" was staged, both as a publicity stunt and a ruse to get him out of the closet without having to come out of his own accord. but whatever the reason, if anything he was even more successful afterwards... unlike poor old mr jason king!
Peter Wyngarde did appear in Dr Who back in 1984, in the Peter Davison story Planet of Fire. He played a character from an alien planet who wore Arab-style dress, but he wasn't a villain.
DeleteFlash Gordon wasn't cheap at all, in fact it was so expensive it lost money I believe, but it looks wondrously tacky. Apparently everyone except super-producer Dino De Horrendous treated it like a comedy, which is why it's so much fun. Dino thought it was deadly serious - the joke was on him!
DeleteI meant Wyngarde should be the modern incarnation of Dr Who.
DeleteBTW I knew George Michael was gay when he and Wham appeared in a gay club in 1983 promoting Young Guns and he tried to chat me up.
Last thing I saw Wyngarde on was that It Was Alright in 60s where he was called on to defend blacking up for a role. His reply was five seconds long and that's the only time he appeared. What a waste, that man must be a goldmine of anecdotes, they could have done a whole programme on his solo album alone.
Deletedon't forget that bizarre album he made as a result of his jason king character catching the public's imagination - despite that you couldn't give it away at the time, but now it's worth hundreds of pounds! in a (quite appropriate) moment of synchronicity i note it has a track on it called "rape", that proves that sting wasn't the first to make use of that word in pop music...
Deleteeven as a pin-up in wham, i think it was an open secret within the pop industry that george michael was gay (i seem to remember some other guy once telling me that george hit on him in a club). but that still didn't prevent the "scum" from offering a bounty on his head (i think it may have been as much as a million quid!) for someone spilling the beans on his sexuality. no one ever did, so presumably either he was very well-liked...or his management were very persuasive a la jimmy savile!
DeleteWyngarde's hymn to rape is worse than the title suggests, as the lyrics tell of how various countries go about the illegal act in terms of cultural stereotypes.
DeleteHow much more of Matchbox are we going to get after 1980?
ReplyDeleteThe more I watch them on these re-runs, the more I find an uncanny resemblance of the lead singer to Russ Abbott, especially on this week's show with Over The Rainbow, where Matchbox are trying to appeal to Christmas single buyers for a possible Xmas No.1, considering that it goes nicely with the annual showing at Xmas time of The Wizard of Oz.
The Matchbox single is actually a medley of Over The Rainbow and You Belong To Me
DeleteWe get a re-run of Matchbox's ear-piercing single in January, and one showing in April for the follow-up, "Babes in The Wood" (surely this should have been released prior to pantomime time?) which had already charted at its peak of number 46 a fortnight previously!
DeleteThis week Andy Peebles - the last person to interview John Lennon - finally spilled the beans about him and Yoko. It doesn't make pleasant reading:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3337924/The-dark-truth-Yoko-Ono-revealed-BBC-DJ-Andy-Peebles.html
maybe chapman should have shot yoko instead? although if so he would probably have been at least 10 years too late as far as beatles fans are concerned...
Deletelegend has it that when yoko was screaming after lennon was shot, passers-by took no notice... as they assumed she was just recording some vocals for her latest album!
DeleteWell it certainly doesn't show Yoko in a good light! They were an odd couple for sure, but you have to take anything published by the Daily Mail with a large pinch of salt :-)
DeleteTo be fair to the Daily Mail (didn't think I'd ever write those words) Peebles has a book coming out which they're quoting chunks from.
DeleteTo be fair to Yoko John Lennon can't have been an easy person to live with.
Jarvis Cocker just played Yoko's Walking On Thin Ice on the radio, and it sounded pretty good to me.
DeleteSome very astute comments about Richard Skinner in this edition. Bearing in mind he'd been a Radio One newscaster for a couple of years previously, I wonder if the powers that be had another presenter scheduled but plumped correctly for Skinner's gravitas after the turn of events?
ReplyDeleteSome belated thoughts on some of the content from me:-
ReplyDeleteAdam & the Ants – Takes me back to when you just couldn’t get away from them. Still can’t get what all the fuss was about.
Madness – Great song and performance. A couple of years later they would score a hit with ‘Driving in my car’….
….Status Quo – nobody has pointed out that ‘Lies’ was a double A side with ‘Don’t drive my car’, so what a strange coincidence that they were back to back with Madness on this show! I don’t think anyone ever played ‘Don’t drive my car’ mind you. Btw yes ‘Lies’ does hark back to another song but what???
Matchbox – I think Gary Numan’s nonplussed reaction to this one sums it up!
Dire Straits and Jon Anderson were touring says Richard Skinner. Well Dire Straits had just hit the big time releasing ‘Making Movies’ and would feature on TOTP next year with the excellent ‘Romeo and Juliet’ whilst Jon Anderson had just left Yes (along with Rick Wakeman) and been replaced by the Buggles. Jon was touring promoting his solo album ‘Song of Seven’ and had just released the excellent (but ignored) single ‘Take your time’ from it, but would soon feature again with Vangelis in 1981.
Police – Well, well, larking around in the snow and not taking themselves too seriously to reflect the serious title of their single. Still one of only four decent tracks on ‘Zenyatta Mondatta’ for me though.
Queen – Brian Blessed is still asked to say “Gordon’s alive!” to this day. One of cinema’s immortal lines. The album version of ‘Flash’ is really boring as it doesn’t feature any of the dialogue, and hey, we’re still allowed to see the film clips on BBC4 without a ‘Watership’ chop!
Stray Cats – Tattoos were quite a novelty in those days weren’t they?
Abba – Holding off that School Choir for one more week. If only sales could have continued to be that strong!
John Lennon – Never released as a single in 1971, released in 1975 and made the top 10 and now about to hit the top for the saddest reasons possible.
i see there is an incarnation of yes currently touring, and (as is the way these days) are performing a couple of their albums in their entirety. not surprisingly one is "fragile", but somewhat bizarrely they are also performing the much-maligned "drama" which featured the buggles. former buggle geoff downes is actually back with yes again after a 30 year gap, but it still seems a strange choice for the faithful - the mind buggles! (ho ho)
Deletemost police albums had at least one excellent non-single track on them - in the case of "zenyatta" it was "voices inside my head". sadly however they also usually featured at least a couple of duffers, as a result of summers and copeland asserting their seniority and insisting that their inferior songs be used!
DeleteI recall Trevor Horn delivering an anecdote about his Yes days where he remembered concertgoers telling him to, er, go away in rather blunt language during the quiet bits of the set.
DeleteI have my ticket for Yes next May. Sadly, founder member, bassist Chris Squire passed away earlier this year. RIP Chris. Incidentally, the 'Drama' album is pretty good, so I am looking forward to hearing this played live for the first time, as Jon Anderson would never allow this material to be performed during his long spells as lead singer.
DeleteWelcome to “Oh Boy”… er, a 1950’s styled “Top Of The Pops” where this week’s instrument of choice is the double bass. A couple of great new performances and an excellent re-run, and a fine debut by Richard Skinner but, sadly, I kept thinking “Dear oh dear” or worse in this show. The reasons?
ReplyDelete- Celebrating Christmas at the start but a funereal end to the show
- Poor camera work for Marco Pirroni’s solo
- a re-showing of The ‘Waddy’s latest flop, complete with Buddy Gask’s two pairs of shades
- no Legs & Co and no chance of staying tuned on BBC4 to see them in those festive shows
- Quo by numbers, even more so than usual
- Alvin Matchbox with an even worse cover than The ‘Waddy’s
- Fast forward needed for those efforts by The Police and Queen
But wait! Following an unusual audience intro with a non-mugshot tune, complete with a pun title link by a heavily prepared Richard, it’s the debut of the all-new karaoke version Toppatron, accompanying the best performance of the night by Adam and the Ants! But why watch the screen instead of some great showmanship in front of you? And why was there a huge gap between the audience as seen near the end of the song? Had someone farted violently?
Nice “Countdown”-style link between the chart positions of Adam and The ‘Waddy by Richard, though I’d have preferred Carol Vorderman or Rachel Riley to give us that info. Nurse!
No expense spared for the candle on Jermaine’s cake, or indeed on the jackets for the Bay City Redcoats…well, most of Madness, anyway. I loved Lee Thompson trying not to laugh during his solo. I found out this week Madness have their own brewing company, with the ales’ names linked to some of their hits, e.g. “Lovestruck”.
Did The Quo always film their videos on a hillside? They were always very windy and foggy – and repetitive.
Gary Numan should really have been in Pilot. Boom boom tish! He seemed quite shy and at odds (maybe as in real life) with his stage persona, though his glazed expression at the mention of Matchbox was a picture. Talking of which, someone please give Graham Fenton a ladder to reach those high notes! Another sitcom link to this medley is that Fletcher used to sing the first verse of “You Belong To Me” in “Porridge”.
Surprised nobody's mentioned Gaz was soon to be more famous for crashing his plane than flying it, ironic in light of this interview. It's OK, he was fine.
DeleteCostume conspiracy theory number 47...
ReplyDeleteMatchbox singer Graham Fenton had the same surname as Alvin Stardust's first hit persona, and Matchbox were on Alvin's old record label, Alvin apparently released no singles between 1978 and 1980 before moving to Stiff - maybe Graham was using an old Alvin outfit he never got to wear on telly for one of his latter Magnet Records 'stiffs'?
If anyone is desperate to watch the 18th December show before Thursday, it is available on YouTube, albeit split into 11 parts for some reason!
ReplyDeleteI quite like Richard Skinner but was a bit suspicious of him at the time because up until 1980 he was known primarily as a news journalist on Radio 1's Newsbeat, he didn't look like disc jockey material. But really he paved the way for people like Jeremy Vine and others who crossed over.
ReplyDeleteA touch of Robert Palmer to kick things off and then into Ant Music. Although this was very catchy and has hit written all over it, to me the lyrics never made sense because if we did indeed "unplug the jukebox" as Adam urged us to then we wouldn't be able to hear HIS music in pubs and bars. Hasn't thought it through has he. I always had a soft spot for guitarist Marco Pirroni who was often overlooked in the Adam Ant story but was the creative force behind a lot of what they did.
Richard Skinner is not only dressed like a school teacher but he's teaching us maths as well: "if you double 16 you come to 32".
Musically Showaddywaddy's version of Blue Moon is faultless, as good as the Marcel's version, but there is something about their performance that really does look embarrassing by 1980s standards. I don't care for the guitarist's nasty beard and permed hair combination and the way they try and jazz up their tired look with wacky sunglassses. But did the three guys on the left always only ever dance (badly) out of step with each other or did sometimes they play instruments? I forget now.
A faultless performance by Madness - easily the best thing on show in my opinion. I had a flat top in the early 1980s but could never get my hair to look as good as Suggs's.
Re the jackets (and I've done a bit of research here, so bear with me) Suggs is wearing one with the Black Watch tartan which as a McPherson he may be entitled to wear. The rest of the band are wearing the Royal Stuart tartan which they are not supposed to wear without permission of the Queen (maybe that's why they did the Buckingham Palace gig to make up for it). Not sure why Chas is wearing the Buchanan tartan, perhaps that's the only one they had left in his size.
I have no particular recollection of this Quo song but it's actually not bad although as has been said above the video is rather boring. The "lies in your eyes" line was nicked from The Sweet of course. Maybe Legs and Co were originally going to do this as there are lots of lyrics they could easily interpret in dance.
Richard's interview with Gary Newman is quite strange mainly because Gary looks startled throughout and it doesn't help when his joke about having two engines on his plane falls flat. And that last shot of his petrified face is priceless.
Sadly Matchbox's version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow highlights the limits of the lead singers vocal abilities and why the hell is he dressed like Gene Vincent? Gene was a rocker not a smoocher.
It was been suggested that Sting nicked the construction and sound of De Do Do Do from XTC's Making Plans For Nigel and I suppose there is a similarity. He always got upset that no one took the song seriously because of the title and that actually it was a serious critique of politicians. In 1986 they remixed it but it was a disaster and they released a remix of Don't Stand So Close instead. In the video Stuart Copeland is shown with a hand held video camera and there really was film in it - the footage can be seen in the documentary Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out.
I never got Flash at the time and I still don't. It's s not a proper song and it's just a thumping bass line with clips of dialogue from the movie and why the hell is Brian playing keyboard and not guitar? The line "What do you mean Flash Gordon is approaching?" used to really annoy me. What did she think they meant?
The Stray Cats was a repeat from two weeks earlier but I have only just noticed the crowd sitting motionless at the back, how they can sit like that next to a band playing just an uplifting, terrific song is beyond me. Do they not like music?
Come to think of it, 'De Do Do Do' does sound rather like 'Nigel' in the verse - it uses a similar chord progression! In terms of rhythm and melody, though, it is quite different.
Deleteone of the three guys on the left was malcolm allured (in the shades) who sometimes played drums when romeo challenger did his mr bass man thing (note that romeo was never prepared to make himself look a bit of a pillock by doing the dancing!). another was (i think) trevor oakes who normally played guitars when they appeared on totp. i always get the third guy mixed up with one of the others who also normally does the dancing thing, but this time he was relegated to bass duties at the back...
DeleteSecond bit:
ReplyDeleteIt just struck me that The Tide Is High and Super Trouper both reference "number one" in their lyrics which is a bit odd.
An ABBA video runs behind the end credits for the first time since Dancing Queen in 1977. Then Richard offers the BBC's somewhat lame tribute to John Lennon by showing his last live performance from 1975 (from the US TV show A Salute to Sir Lew Grade: The Master Showman ). Lennon looks dreadful here and had just (unsuccessfully) sued Lew Grade and ATV Music over ownership of his songwriting royalities, so the meaning of the song is somewhat ironic. That really was THE END.
Great research on those madness tartans, Bama! Through Scottish ancestors three generations back, I'm apparently entitled to wear the McEwan and Johnstone tartans, the latter I acquired in tam o' shanter souvenir form when on honeymoon in Edinburgh six years ago.
DeleteAs for those three side order Waddy vocalists, bespectacled Malcolm Allured used to play drums in one of the two bands which merged to form the octet and, indeed, we've seen him behind the kit way back in this run, the lad who looks like Russ Abbot (Russ Field?) was a guitarist, and raven haired Al James (real name Geoff Betts) was a bassist.
Russ Field was the tall one playing the blue moon-shaped guitar; the other guitarist, who I agree resembles Russ Abbot, is Trevor Oakes.
Deletehey, looks like we're all (finally) getting very familiar with the boys from showaddywaddy... ironically just as they are about to wave us goodbye!
DeleteRegarding the No.1 running behind the end credits, it also happened for Pussycat with Missisippi in 1976, just before Dancing Queen.
DeleteAnd so here this week, we get the third and final week at No.1 for Abba, which was incidentally also their last ever No.1, and what is my personal favourite of their catalogue of hits.
ReplyDeleteIt brings to an end a series of 9 No.1's for Abba stretching back to 1974 with Waterloo, that started things off for them in the big time, and suffice to say that they brought with them mostly fun in their lyrics across this stretch of No.1's over the 7 year stretch to 1980.
When the emotional strife lyrics from 1981 onwards took over from the mostly fun lyrics up to 1980, this was their undoing, as most No.1's get there for the happy and positive and upbeat lyrics, leaving behind the downbeat ones which on the whole don't make it to No.1.
Somehow 35 years has now passed since John Lennon's murder, almost his entire lifetime.
ReplyDeleteHe only made it in person to the Top of the Pops studio twice. Once with the Beatles in 1966 to perform both Paperback Writer and Rain (wiped!) and then again in 1970 to perform Instant Karma. I thought that only black and white footage existed but here is not only a full colour link, but also apparently an alternative take ~
https://youtu.be/4f5P5nQXlgw
And here's the version that actually broadcast ~
Deletehttps://youtu.be/k69ERAHUnaM
Latest news on Dave Lee Travis from Sky News today is that he has lost an appeal against his conviction for indecent assault, having been found guilty last year of groping a researcher on a TV show in 1995 and given a three-month suspended sentence, according to the Sky News channel.
ReplyDelete20 years later in 2015, we are still being blocked from seeing his TOTP shows by BBC4, and at this rate there does not look to be any sunlight over the horizon, just more darkness and more Yewtreed shows to come it seems.
Sadly, I think we just have to accept that the BBC is never going to show any of the DLT shows ever again - it is so much easier for them to airbrush him out of TOTP history. The only crumb of comfort is that, if the repeats continue beyond 1981 (which, given the apparent reprieve BBC4 has just been given from the axe, is now looking a more hopeful prospect), appearances by both DLT and JS start to diminish significantly, so the number of Yewtreed shows will go down.
Deletetragically dlt and/or js host what i consider two of the greatest totp moments: "club country" by the associates in 1982 (yes, the same song but two different performances)
DeleteI won't go on about my dislike for Richard Skinner again, as that is purely based on his completely terrible turn on the chart show, and he is OK on TV. I suspect, as someone (bama?) suggested above, that there must have originally been an intention to pair him up with someone. Most likely Savile.
ReplyDeleteAs for Lennon, well....I just do not get the hero worship for him. Unlike Sir Wacky Macca Thumbs Aloft, he didn't seem like a very nice person at all to me. Unfortunately, those who really adore him tend to act like cult members and can see no wrong in him whatsoever.
As a child, I remember being totally bemused by it all as I had no idea who he was!
I was much more interested in Adam Ant, as it was around the time of 'Antmusic' being in the charts that I became a huge fan. No doubt that it would've been Number 1 but for the forthcoming Lennon takeover.
The Madness song is also good, but it goes downhill from there musically. The Quo song is average, the Matchbox one execrable.
As Alan Partridge would say, 'here's The Police with their gibberish classic!'. I wouldn't go that far myself, it's another OK one.
Unfortunately I got put off 'Flash Gordon' totally as a friend of mine was so obsessed with the soundtrack that I had to listen to it over and over again. It was many years later before I saw the actual movie, which is good fun.