Let's hear it for my blue, er pink, er green, er, piano ...
23/06/83 (Simon Bates & Peter Powell)
Freeez – “IOU” (23)
Getting the show underway with what was obviously a re-recorded version of IOU, but it didn't stop it being a big hit and reaching number 2, though it was their final top ten hit. And I know the girls from Zoo were babes, but wearing nappies was taking it a bit too far!
Rod Stewart – “Baby Jane” (2) (video)
Appearing on video on Top of the Pops 'for the first time' Baby Jane became Rod's sixth and final number one hit.
Elton John – “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” (6)
A studio performance from Elton and the song went up one more place.
John Peel – European charts: Did the BBC think JK was doing this bit? Because it was all edited out of the 7.30 pm showing.
Dolly Dots – “Money Lover” (video clip + interview)
The Shorts – “Comment Ca Va” (video clip)
Geier Sturzflug - (video clip)
Robin Gibb – “Juliet” (video clip)
Daniel – “Julie” (video clip)
David Bowie – “Let’s Dance” (film of Amsterdam)
Shakatak – “Dark Is The Night” (15)
Another performance for this tune now at its peak. Simon then has a little chat to Aussie cricketer Dennis Lillee!
Mike Oldfield – “Moonlight Shadow” (19)
A rare studio performance from Mr Oldfield, as Maggie Reilly sings the excellent Moonlight Shadow which became Mike's first top ten hit for seven years, peaking at number 4.
H20 – “Dream To Sleep” (17)
At its peak.
The Police – “Every Breath You Take” (1) (video)
Final week at number one.
ELO – “Rock ‘N’ Roll Is King” (25) (audience dancing/credits)
From their top 4 album Secret Messages, this was ELO's final top 20 hit, peaking at number 13.
Tonight's BBC1 line up
Next up is June 30th 1983.
How come they applied a blue filter to The Police video?
ReplyDeleteA few months later, the Beeb did the same to the opening Hartnell clip on The Five Doctors with a brownish wash over the picture(if the original VHS release was the same! They took the brown wash off the 1995 Special Edition VHS!)
I was puzzled by that blue tint as well. Perhaps an attempt by the Beeb to make the video seem fresh, having been shown a couple of times already?
DeleteOr a response to the Tories winning the general election.
Deletehosts: the good news is the mike oldfield clip on yt also has footage of slimy's bizarre encounter with aussie cricket legend dennis lillee. apart from remaining one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time, the latter also gained some notoriety for once attempting to use a metal cricket bat in the field of play. but would that he had taken it to the studio with him to give slimy a whack! that reminds me of when a cricket-playing chum of mine was attacked by a mugger who was too stupid to notice my friend happened to have his bat with him... with which he smashed the guy around the head before running off!
ReplyDeletefreeez: an actually quite-good slice of 80's brit dance music. what is annoying though is slap-bassist peter maas is still inolved on the visual side... even though it;s plainly a synth (and maybe even an sequenced one at that) on the record. in that respect i always felt a bit sorry for verdine white of earth wind & fire, as by the early 80's his excellent bass guitar playing was often ditched in favour of synths on their recordings!
rod: continuing in the trying-to-get-hip synth-pop vein of a couple of years ago, this shuffle is listenable enough, even if rod's hoarse style of singing doesn't really fit with it. but i have to admit i can't remember it being a chart-topper, and that surprises me even now. visually he's like a scarecrow-headed version of mick jagger draping himself over his band's equivalent of keef and ron, "ron" being long-term associate jim cregan. but who was "keef"?
reg: so we've had phyllis, and now comes sharon - as the pair were allegedly dubbed by early mutual musical associate long john baldry. presumably rod was so-bestowed for his campness alone, as unlike long john and reg he's never apparently shown any inclination towards those of his own kind. as for reg/sharon's latest effort: next...
mike oldfield: billing this lightweight folky-type thing primarily under oldfield's name rather than (the disasterously dressed) singer maggie reilly really is putting the cart before the horse! and why is he posing with a strat, when it's plainly an acoustic guitar strumming away on the recording?
elo: perhaps appropriately in the wake of chuck berry's recent demise, we get something that might just as well have been penned by him as jeff lynne!
Although I couldn't remember what Freeez looked like, I was pretty sure they didn't look like that (!). Maybe they were going for the boys next door image? The rerecording does them no favours either. But this is still a great little tune which the effects and Essex boy talky bit only enhance.
ReplyDeleteRod dressed in primary colours for his rockin' (but not too hard) Baby Jane. I was never a fan of this, but didn't actively dislike it either, it's just one of those songs I always forget was a number one.
A bejewelled Elton John enjoying his biggest hit in a while, a sweeping piano ballad, it's what he was doing best by this stage.
Maybe the reason BBC Four edited out the European Chart was that it was almost entirely tat? I mean, you may want to support Europe but you have to draw the line somewhere. Peelie was droll enough, but you could tell they were questioning the wisdom of this section.
Shakatak again, battling against a deluge of glitter, I wouldn't have liked to be given the task of cleaning that piano. Then a trademark dreadful Simes interview: "Good luck in the World Cup!" "Well, we're out of it now..." Brilliant.
Cue jokes about Mike Oldfield having a high voice for a man. Nice little story song with a histrionic guitar solo, also Maggie looks like my Auntie, so there's that.
H20, the yoyo is back, but added are some interpretative dancers getting into what look like some particularly painful positions. That's some look the drummer is rocking.
The Police end their run at the top, with George Formby looking on. Then ELO with that rather drearily upbeat rock 'n' roller to finish.
I think you're right THX, in that the European charts with John Peel were so not with the times, and more like a mid-70s jaunt, that it was easier edit the whole section out, rather than two songs from the main line-up.
DeleteI couldn't find any song to like on it, and Peel's morbid character is more like the walking dead, and also not with the moving times of the 80s and the second Thatcher term, yet he seemed to be ever present on the show since early 1982 with no sign of him leaving just yet.
Yet another live show, with Master Bates and an oddly listless PP as our MCs - was this a reaction of the latter to being paired with the former? Bates is actually on decent form here, though Dennis Lillee pointing out to him that Australia were already eliminated from the World Cup was a priceless moment. Quite how Bates had established himself as the "go to" guy for TOTP interviews is a mystery to go with the fact he was ever allowed on the show in the first place...
ReplyDeleteFreeez reappear for the first time in a long time, with this really rather catchy and credible dance tune. Bates keeps telling us that John Rocca ("Johnny") has the flu, which perhaps explains the distinctly weak vocals on this version. This line-up of Freeez would soon dissolve, with only Peter Maas remaining in the new incarnation. Roderick tries desperately hard in his video to appear contemporary, but as usual just looks ridiculous. A decent song though, as with Elton just afterwards his best effort from this decade, and the first single of his I can remember listening to. In fact, as with Bowie I assumed at the time, being very young, that Rod and Elton were contemporary artists, and it came as a surprise later on to find out how long they had actually been around! Elt looks to be enjoying this studio performance, and that's not surprising given he was back in the Top 10 and Watford had just finished second in the league.
Michael Hurll persists with the Euro chart segment, this time despatching JP to Amsterdam. While Peel's links are as amusingly sardonic as always, and he even manages to get another dig in at Bates, this goes on far too long; I reckon two records from the UK chart could have been featured in this time. I have heard The Dolly Dots before on internet radio stations, and while they seem a nice bunch on the basis of their interview with JP, the song sounded as bad as the ones I caught on the radio! Most of the stuff featured here was godawful eurotrash, and sadly Robin Gibb's effort was not one of his best, sounding too synth-heavy with strangulated vocals.
Yet another outing for Shakatak in the studio, with singer Jill trying and failing to vamp up her image. The excellent Moonlight Shadow to follow, a song apparently inspired by the death of John Lennon. Maggie appears to be wearing a netball bib, and I'm not sure why she crouches at Mike's feet during the guitar solo, but even so this is one of the songs of the year for me - just a shame about that annoyingly tautologous "4am in the morning" line! PP gets the album title wrong in his outro, as it "Crises" rather than "Crisis." Mike used a couple of other guest vocalists on the album, Jon Anderson from Yes and Family's Roger Chapman.
H20 reappear, complete with saxophonist still doughtily yo-yoing, before The Police have their last ever week at number 1. Zoo then jive along entertainingly as Jeff Lynne once again gives vent to his Chuck Berry infatuation...
I though the Dolly Dots song sounded weirdly aggressive, but they came across well in the interview, and it was amusing how unimpressed they were with the Dutch number 1.
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DeleteFreeez seemed to be in their new line up compared to their 1981 line up with female lead which was now discarded it seemed for an all-male line up. However this live version of IOU was not as good as the record version, which is one of my favourite anthems of the 80s. So catchy and infectious a sound it is that I have the video in my iTunes collection, and really love it.
DeleteI have to disagree concerning the Dolly Dots having no decent songs. For instance their Dutch no1 in 84 is as good a retro Motown stomper as any in this period
Deletehttps://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2soj8h_dolly-dots-love-me-just-a-little-bit-more_music
I've just spent 15 minutes listening to the Dolly Dots, and Radio and the aforementioned Motown effort sounded not bad at all. That was about it for quality, though, there's one song where they basically sing different words over Chiquitita which is impressive only for its cheek.
DeleteDon't Give Up from 83 is decent as well. But the 84 one is the best I think, I've liked it for about 15 years, back in the early days of my time on the internet.
DeleteThe late Robin Gibb embraced synthpop/new wave in an attempt to prove that there was more to him (and his equally missed twin Maurice, who co-wrote and co-produced 'Juliet') than the overplayed disco hits of the Bee Gees' heyday. It worked - but only on the continent, the single reaching No.1 on the Eurochart but falling short of the British Top 75.
ReplyDeleteI remember my dear Mum accusing the Dolly Dots of copying Abba, after she'd heard their earlier single 'Radio' on BBC Radio Merseyside. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q-nhpkP2Lk
Yeah thanks for this Julie...uncanny! This did get a UK release in May 1980 and came in a poster sleeve! Didn't trouble the scorers though!
DeleteThough I think they did even better I think Radio is a catchy song.
DeleteI have managed all four of these shows this week, helped greatly by the first YT edition being put up earlier – thanks Angelo!
ReplyDeleteFreez – IOU – Never realised that this was rerecorded. Much better effort than the dreary ‘Southern Freez’ (who was talking about partial band titles in songs…?). A good way to kick off proceedings.
Rod Stewart – Baby Jane – Two future knights in a row; Rod with a typical 80s Rod video – boys and birds. Never realised that the song was at no1 for three weeks though, always incorrectly thought that it was just a single week.
Elton John- I guess that’s why they call it the blues - Elton enjoying this ToTP appearance more than he usually appeared to. Great song.
JP slot – Attention obviously sways towards the Dolly Dots here. The single ‘Money Lover (bite the dust)’ I have never heard before and looking on 45cat its not listed as a UK single unless it’s just a case that nobody has loaded it yet. DDs chart rundown springs one big surprise; Agnetha Falkskog at no2 with the wonderful ‘The Heat is on’ (no35 here) – good on you Dutch record buyers – I love it, and it’s B Side ‘Man’ penned by Agnetha. Also, the Robin Gibb song ‘Juliet’ (co-wrote with Maurice) I’ve never heard of despite its striking swash buckling video. Where did that one come from? Doesn’t sound like the Bee Gees though, unlike his no2 hit from the early 70s; ‘Saved by the Bell’.
Shakatak – Dark is the night – Another outing for this conveyor belt lounge music that was popular at the time. Simon’s chat touches on the Cricket World Cup with D K Lillee who was one of the game’s true greats. The greatest team at the time were West Indies who surprisingly lost in the final to India.
Mike Oldfield – Moonlight Shadow – “Tubular Balls” was the two word review in ‘Record Mirror’ at the time, but Mike and Maggie and co. had the last laugh as this record, one of my personal favourites of 1983, shot up the charts. I saw Mike’s ‘Tubular Bells 10th Anniversary Concert’ at Wembley Arena later that year and “one of the guys you might recognise” was drummer Simon Phillips who truly stole the show with his amazing drum solo on the ‘Crises’ title track. Mike and Maggie look like they’re thoroughly enjoying their ToTP appearance here and I remember this edition well, if only for this record.
H20 – Dream to sleep – Repeat of the snooze-inducing yo-yo performance.
The Police – Every breath you take – The famous video now tinted ‘Police’ blue to tie in with the ‘Police’ theme perhaps?
ELO – Rock n’ Roll is King – Wow! What a classy way to finish the show!. A real foot tapping, get dancing number from Jeff and the boys who, as ‘Record Mirror’ observed in their (four star) review of the parent album ‘Secret Messages’, “needed to pick themselves up from beside the swimming pool and head for the studio to top up those numbered Swiss bank accounts”. Well, I think it had more to do with the contract that they were signed up to as Jeff observed on his notes to the ‘Flashback’ box set that; “Because of that peculiar contract I was obligated to do three more albums which I didn’t really want to do”. Well, maybe, but the albums ‘Time’ and ‘Secret Messages’ in particular contain some classic ELOs tracks, even if in the case of this one Jeff didn’t include it in his recent tour sets. Jeff’s verdict – “This track went through many different changes before becoming this song. I had about five different melodies and four different sets of words”.
Couldn't agree more about this superb ELO comeback which was not shared by the public, as no further top ten hits were scored by ELO. This return to the charts with Rock 'n' Roll Is King has a superb video averrable for a mere £1.89 on iTunes which includes original Mickey Mouse cartoon footage interspersed with the main video footage, and comes off very well in my opinion, despite the band being away from the charts since the end of 1981 where they had the second ever Zoo routine on TOTP with Twilight.
DeleteAnyone who likes Agnetha's wonderful voice can checkout 'Man' here with the lady in the studio for some of the video...
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ALgn_H1J8
I'm in agreement with Angelo that the Zoo dancers being put on virtually every TOTP studio performance was now getting a bit silly to say the least, and was a throwback to the last months of Legs & Co who were given the same shoddy treatment to be interspersed with studio audience as sexy extras, and given less and less full song routines, except for Flash & The Pan and Michael Jackson on the last couple of shows, but these were getting fewer and far between, and their fate was gradually sliding towards the Legs & Co fate of two years earlier.
ReplyDeleteOne exception this week was the sexy black Zoo dancer on the podium in the red minidress in front of Shakatak and on the left of our screen. She appeared again standing behind Simon Bates and Dennis Lillee when Bates was interviewing the great cricketer, and then you can see her playing with Bates's hair as he moved from Lillee to introducing Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield. I quite liked her soft touch there, and was one of the highlights of the show for me, along with the new Freeze single and lineup, and the superb ELO comeback single.
It does beg the question though Dory - why would any person in their right mind want to play with Bates' hair?!
DeleteI know, I was thinking the same.
DeleteI'd rather look at Jeff Stewart in his vest but each to his own.
DeleteI sought out the whole of Robin Gibb's Juliet video, and as a song, it's a needy, weedy little number, but not the worst thing I've ever heard. In the video he sings while typing, which must be like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
ReplyDeleteA middling edition this time, musically and presentation wise, though at least Bates wasn't checking his watch every link this time.
ReplyDeleteFreeez - A great track in a less good re-recorded version here. As I've mentioned previously, Zoo are becoming a major distraction. If an act has turned up, I want to see them, not some dancing floozies at the front of the stage! (Especially not the unappealing one in the giant nappy)
The Rod & Elton songs are both above average but nothing to get excited about, being as they are quite familiar. Unlike....
European section - This was an education. And not necessarily in a good way! I do vaguely recall The Dolly Dots and it's good to see Peelie chatting to them. The other songs are mostly sub-Eurovision tat though I have a funny feeling that I've heard that 'Julie' song before. I didn't mind the Robin Gibb one, though it probably stands out more in this section than it would next to most of the UK Top 40!
Skipping Shakatak (and trust me, I did) we get to the excellent 'Moonlight Shadow' which I really love even if it does always make me think of Dave Angel, Eco Warrior from 'The Fast Show'!
H20 also had their appearance spoilt by Zoo being arranged to upstage them, then the No.1 and ELO with a pretty good song to play out.
"Julie" by Daniel was Yugoslavia's 1983 Eurovision entry - and it finished 4th!
DeleteI'm still nowhere near watching or writing about the shows due to circumstances, but we happened to catch the re-run from The Shorts onwards (that was a bizarre avant garde clip if ever there was one) and when Daniel appeared my Yugoslav-born wife threw her head back laughing at the crudness!
Thanks Arthur, that explains it as I would definitely have watched the 83 contest and that probably would have been...erm...quite memorable.
DeleteThe Julie song is a bit like Shaking Steven's Shirley. Even Peel pointed that out.
Deletebut was it anything like shakin' stevens song "julie"?
DeleteWhoever did the BBC1 write-ups had a touch of Peelie about them when describing that Tom Jones show.
ReplyDeleteSeeing a mention of Abbey National in the listing for "Question Time" makes me feel very, very old indeed.
Still can't work out why Maggie Reilly was dressed as a very poor St. Trinian's castoff. From memory Mike Oldfield released a virtual copy of this song called "Crime Of Passion" the following year, with Roger Chapman on lead vocals. It became a top 61 hit.
Arthur, yes 'Crime of Passion' was similar and got copious airplay on Radio 2. The vocalist was in fact Barry Palmer who featured with Maggie Riley on Mike's next album 'Discovery' (original album title eh?!).
DeleteIt may not have had an original title, but I think Discovery is probably the best of Mike's 80s albums. To France should have been a big hit here (it got to number 1 in France, funnily enough), but failed to make the UK Top 40. Although there are similarities between Moonlight Shadow and Crime of Passion, 1998's Man in the Rain is a much more obvious rewrite of the former. That featured on Tubular Bells 3, so Mike was clearly running out of inspiration at that point!
DeleteIncidentally, Roger Chapman featured on Shadow on the Wall, the follow-up single to Moonlight Shadow. It's a good song, but despite a mildly kinky video it could only manage the dizzy heights of 95 in our chart...
....which was one place lower than the UK chart summit for "Juliet" by Robin Gibb!
DeleteForgot to mention that there was also an extended 12 inch version of Shadow on the Wall, which is available here for anyone interested:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCXNn7Ya7Lo
Indeed, speaking 12" versions; the 'Moonlight Shadow' 12" came out some time after the original release and was quite different to the standard cut. Extended intro, no drums in the first couple of verses, extra bits near the end. I'm not sure if I prefer it or not...
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeEmsvTMkSA
Thanks for that - I've never heard this version before. It's OK, but lacks the directness and immediacy of the more familiar version for me.
DeleteChecking out our mates H²O – or should that be H²YoYo? – I’d forgotten their follow-up just scraped the top 40. They released a number of singles (the picture sleeves show that the drummer kept his distinguishable barnet for some while longer), split, reformed with some personnel changes and signed to a new label whereby, at some point, the record company thought they could get some mileage out of singer Ian Donaldson (despite a string of flops) and got him to release a solo version of that old chestnut “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shone Anymore”. Have a guess how it did.
ReplyDeletePowell and Bates, not the best combo in the world but sadly we're stuck with it. I spotted Jeff "Reg Hollis" Stewart in one or two shots this week, clearly he was becoming a fixture but a better one than Craig Whatsisname..
ReplyDeleteFreeeze and poor John Rocca really does sound like he has the flu and appears to be singing in a register too high for him, still full marks for him and the band for rerecording the song, they certainly faired a lot better than New Order with their "live" Blue Monday.
Great video for Baby Jane with a woman wrapped in polythene playing the sax, lots of video wipes and effects and Rod reminding us that it was he who first draped his arm round fellow band members shoulders, not Bowie.
From Phyl to his mate Shazzer with perhaps his best song in ages. Full marks to EJ he always took the trouble to turn up to promote his songs in those days. No sign of Stevie Wonder though.
According the Slimey we have a touch of "exotica" ie the Euro charts. Fun to hear the Dutch Top Ten read out by the Dolly Dots, it includes a later Stars Sound single Star Sisters and interesting that list the New order record as Blue Monday b/w The Beach. The latter being the instrumental flip which I always suspect was the song's original title. Horrible number one though from The Shorts who appear to be a tribe of pubescent boys in primary colours which makes The Birdie Song sound like heavy metal.
Shakatak back with another song with lyrics for the choruses but not the verses which still reminds me of those easy listening albums of the late sixties but quite pleasant in a best-heard-and-not-seen way.
While I liked Moonlight Shadow like others the line "4am in the morning" always annoyed me for obvious reasons. I had forgotten that this was as successful as it was. Singer Maggie appears to haver come dressed as cross between a Wimbledon umpire and a lampshade.
The H2O track sounds better the more times you hear it but there is something about the band that smacks of a poor man's Roxy Music. Nice yo-yoing by the sax player.
Good to hear Rock and Roll is King from the Secret Messages LP where it was kind of bunged on the end as an afterthought. Jeff Lynne name checks Roll Over Beethoven some ten years after it was a hit for the band. Bad dancing by the Zoo people slightly spoils this.
Since no one else has mentioned it yet, can I get some nerd points for spotting that Elton's chart rundown picture has been flipped? I know because he's wearing a Watford tracksuit top with a distinctive logo, and as a fellow Hornet who owned a similar top, it's immediately obvious that the club's name appears backwards on the photo.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm here, I'd like to argue against the blanket dismissal of the songs on Peelie's Euro charts section. Geier Sturzflug's 'Bruttosozialprodukt' stood out from the rest of the Europop dross for me, and I realised that I'd heard it before. I spent the academic year 1994-5 in Hamburg, and a German friend gave me a cassette of the best of the Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave); I reckon this must have been on it.
The thing about NDW was that, for the first time, German pop and rock groups used the styles of British and American pop music but sang in their own language about - well, whatever they wanted.
So 'Bruttosozialprodukt' ('Gross National Product') is a cheery-sounding satirical song about workers flogging themselves to death for the sake of the national economy. It's the same sort of thing Fun Boy Three were doing over here - though I realise that it's hard to glean this from a 30-second clip in German!
In that case, Tim, I take it you're also aware of a German punk / rock band called Die Toten Hosen (for the rest of you, that translates as 'dead trousers', apparently a German version of 'tits up') who a friend mine was into at the time. We saw them open for Terrorvision at The Forum in Autumn 1994 and both bands were superb.
DeleteI'm aware of them, Arthur, but I don't think I've ever heard any of their songs. I think they were more punk than NDW (though the boundaries were always a bit vague).
DeleteThe early 80s was the only period I can think of when German rock and pop made a serious impression on the British charts. On this run of TOTP, we've already had Kraftwerk's 'The model' and Trio's 'Da da da', and of course we've still got the full horror of Nena's underarm hair to come, along with Austrian rapping from the late lamented Falco.
Have I missed any?
Having lived in Watford for many years I should have noticed Elton's flipped tracksuit.
DeleteThe German band I remember from this era was Einstürzende Neubauten (which translates as "Collapsing New Buildings"). They used home made instruments constructed from old tools and scrap metal and were not an easy listen. I'd have liked to have seen Peel present them on TOTP!
they were antipodean rather than teutonic, but another band that came to some kind of prominence (and notoriety) at the time for their "industrial noise" sound was SPK. one of their members was graeme revell, who went on to become a prolific hollywood film composer
DeleteOkay, I'll have another go... a German band complete with exclamation mark in their name called Neu! (formed after a breakaway from Kraftwerk).
Deletekrautrock!
DeleteTim, we may be 'lucky' enough to get Austrian band Opus, with "Live Is Life" from 1985.
ReplyDeletePS - You may have conveniently forgotten the majesty of The Goombay Dance Band!