When you hire a cameraman who is only three foot tall ....
19/01/84 (Simon Bates & Peter Powell)
Whitesnake – “Give Me More Time” (29)
Getting the show off to an energetic start are Whitesnake, but this song got no higher in the charts.
Big Country – “Wonderland” (13) (video)
With a snowy video for the winter jumper season, Wonderland became the band's third of four top ten hits when it peaked at number 8.
Fiction Factory – “(Feels Like) Heaven” (28)
Making their debut with what would be their only top ten hit, indeed their only top 60 hit! But if you're only going to have one, make it a good 'un, and this was certainly a good 'un, peaking at number 6.
China Crisis – “Wishful Thinking” (16)
Performing what would be their biggest and only top ten hit when it peaked at number 9.
Gloria Gaynor – “I Am What I Am” (24)
A studio performance from Gloria and what a great vocal. Such a familiar song now but at the time it was brand new, from the 1983 broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles. A 90's remix of I Will Survive aside, this was Gloria's final top 30 hit and it peaked at number 13.
John Lennon – “Nobody Told Me” (11) (video)
Three years had already passed since John's death, but there were still a few tracks he recorded in 1980 to be released, and this one reached number 6 in the chart, and not a bad video either all things considered, taken from the top three album Milk and Honey.
Paul McCartney – “Pipes Of Peace” (1) (video)
The two main Beatles on the same show, this time Paul with his second and final week at number one. Could John be the one to replace him next week?
The Police – “King Of Pain” (17) (audience dancing/credits)
Essentially, this single marked the end of the Police, aside from a few re-mixes and live recordings, and number 17 was its peak.
Madonna was also making her studio debut tonight
Next up should be January 26th 1984 featuring that debut of Madonna (and Cyndi Lauper) but sadly Mike Smith was one of the hosts, so BBC4 will skip along to February 2nd instead.
It's nice that the relentless avalanche of shows has eased off somewhat over the last few weeks, as it makes viewing them when they do come round that bit more enjoyable. I thought this was a pretty good edition overall, and both PP and the ever-loquacious Master "watch my words" Bates were on solid form, though PP still seems a bit of a shadow of his former self. Interesting that Madonna and Cyndi Lauper both made their UK Top 40 debuts in the same week, and intriguing as well that no songs got cut out of the early showing this week, as I was convinced that a couple of the links had been edited - I think the final link definitely got cut down, presumably because a mention was made of Smitty hosting the following week.
ReplyDeleteWhitesnake provide a nicely muscular slice of hard rock to open proceedings, with a pleasing dual guitar solo, but the song isn't distinctive enough to really leave a mark, and Coverdale and co would have to wait another three years before they really hit the big time. Incidentally, I thought the keyboardist here looked rather like Chas Hodges! Off to the snowy Highlands next for a scenic Big Country video, though Stuart's jumper didn't look chunky enough to keep out the cold. Musically this sounded a bit messy, and came over as a rehash of earlier hits rather than breaking any new ground.
Another Scottish band to follow, as the Fiction Factory provide the best song of the night. It's astonishing that they only managed one other chart entry, given the quality of this song, but perhaps their unprepossessing image didn't help. Singer Kevin Patterson looks particularly untelegenic here, thanks to his very pale features and scruffy tracksuit-type outfit; according to Wikipedia, he now works in the University of Dundee's IT department. China Crisis seem to have doubled their number of members since we last saw them, but curiously not one of them is playing the synth that can be heard very clearly on the record. Wishful Thinking is a far better song than Christian, but even so there is still something a bit wimpy about the vocals that puts me off a little.
Another posthumous Lennon hit, and this is one of his better solo releases, perhaps because in structure it is not wholly dissimilar to Instant Karma. The video is the usual John & Yoko love-in, and it looks from the quality of some of the film as if Yoko utilised her home video collection for part of it. The Police end the show with their final original single, a decent enough effort but not one of the first rank. The studio crowd get very much overshadowed in the dancing stakes here by the two ladies towering over them...
I've just realised I forgot Gloria Gaynor, but that might be because this rendition of the famous gay anthem didn't quite catch alight for me. Still, nice to see her in the studio (for the first time on TOTP in 9 years), and doing a song that isn't I Will Survive...
DeleteI really liked Nobody Told Me at the time. It, and the less succeesful follow up Borrowed Time, were the highlights of Milk & Honey.
DeleteGood to see Feels Like Heaven and Wishful Thinking, two of my favourite songs of 84.
Whilst Bates was his usual smarmy self PP was positively suicidal. Was he upset at wardrobe supplying him with dodgy knitwear or at being paired with Bates again?
John, interesting that you say that the Whitesnake keyboardist with the sunglasses looks like Chas Hodges from Chas 'n' Dave, but
DeleteI think he is actually the keyboardist from Toto, as you can see from the very start of this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htgr3pvBr-I
What do you think?
The Toto keyboardist I'm referring to and who was for me the face of Toto through the years, is David Paich. I had a look on Wikipedia, and although he did some side projects, it doesn't mention Whitesnake, but I could be sure it is him on the Whitesnake keyboards this week.
DeleteJohn - there was another Brits video sequence which got cut and it seemed like there was a cut before China Crisis, maybe it was edited like that originally?
DeleteSteve - I've just watched the full-length version and the video sequence comes just before China Crisis - the cut after Whitesnake was a small one involving Bates mentioning that they were going to do the video sequence later. Re your earlier remarks on PP, he seems to have been pretty subdued since about mid-'83, whether Bates is his partner or not. I assume he wasn't fed up of TOTP yet, as he hosted it up until 1988, but I do wonder if there was something eating away at him personally at the time.
DeleteDory - I've just looked at Wikipedia and it seems the Whitesnake keyboardist at this point in time was Deep Purple's Jon Lord, though the guy in the studio doesn't look much like him to me. That Toto keyboardist does look quite similar.
Thanks John. Perhaps PP was mellowing with age. I seem to recall Mark Goodier being less hyper when he was on TOTP in thr mid nineties compared to his eighties appearances.
Deletei thought it looked like jon lord (long black hair / shades / droopy tache). but whoever it was, they might as well not have bothered as the recording seemed to be keyboard-free!
DeleteWhat a vintage year '84 was for classy new wave, starting with Fiction Factory and China Crisis. The former band deserved far more success than they were afforded, while the latter's use of the oboe would have made Roxy's Andy Mackay proud.
ReplyDeleteEurythmics were in the chart with 'Here Comes The Rain Again' - reportedly one of singer Annie Lennox's favourite recordings by the duo - while Police's 'King of Pain' found Sting at his poetic peak. The power trio worked with several producers, but it was the technologically ingenious Hugh Padgham who brought out the best in them, 'Synchronicity' proving to be their most successful album.
The year also saw deserved Top 10 success for the joint leaders of The Most Important Band Of All. While not widely regarded as classics nowadays, both 'Nobody Told Me' and 'Pipes of Peace' still have that 'extra stamp' that most record buyers would expect from such legends of the industry. John Lennon's posthumous release reminds me somewhat of 'I Can Help' hitmaker Billy Swan - whom Lennon admired - while Sir Paul's use of the phrase 'burn, baby, burn' refers not to The Trammps' 'Disco Inferno', nor to Hudson-Ford's ecologically conscious Top 20 hit, but to the Watts riots that took place in Los Angeles in '65. He may have his detractors, but Sir James Paul McCartney has had many moments of brilliance since leaving The Fab Four - and 'Pipes of Peace' is one of them.
He has and the next time we see him on TOTP will be with perhaps his best single of the 80s.
DeleteIt's actually 30 years since Macca last graced the top 10 (if you discount collaborations and charity singles). Since 'Once Upon A Long Ago' in 1987 none of his singles have got higher than #18.
what gets me about macca's efforts over the last 30 years or so is that they are always greeted with the same kind of fanfare i.e. his best work since the beatles. and yet nothing he has produced in that timespan has ever been fondly remembered in remotely the same way. that is if remembered at all!
DeleteThe last Macca album that I recall getting a really big fanfare, with lots of airplay for single releases, was 1997's Flaming Pie. That came out in the afterglow of Britpop and the Beatles Anthology, so benefited from a wave of Fabs nostalgia, but I haven't heard anything from it on the radio for years now! Subsequent efforts have garnered quite a bit of critical praise, but have been largely ignored by the media and public at large.
DeleteActually John I picked Young Boy from Flaming Pie to play on my radio show today (albeit to a small part of Leicestershire!)
DeleteI'm a big Macca fan and buy any new release as a matter of course, but Flaming Pie was the last genuinely consistent album he produced. Memory Almost Full from 2007 and his most recent one new both have their moments but I've rarely played them since release.
I seem to recall Chaos & Creation getting rave reviews at the time but with the exception of Jenny Wren I thought it was pretty poor and my copy went to the charity shop.
the same thing happened to bowie of course - latter releases like "heathen" and "reality" (that were banal mainstream rock efforts in my opinion) were trumpeted as some kind of return to form, but who plays anything off them now? and i wonder exactly how many people are still listening to stuff from "black star" (in preference to say something from "station to station, "low" or ""heroes"") now that it's been around for the last 18 months or so?
Deleteat the risk of ruffling some feathers here, i have to say that i think it's a bit pathetic when fans continue to buy their heroes' product simply through misplaced loyalty, long after it's become painfully obvious they're past their creative peak - it's a bit like diehard (and deluded) football fans who continue to support a team like leeds united, that were once one of the greatest in the land but have now been in the doldrums for much of the last 30 years!
Deletemy own personal hero donald fagen lasted longer than most in that respect in my opinion (probably largely due to taking a lot of time and care before releasing something he was satisfied with), but even his last-but-one solo album "morph the cat" showed worrying signs of running on empty. which is why i have yet to listen to his latest one "sunken condos" for fear of being bitterly disappointed at how the mighty have fallen... even though a chum recently gave me the tracks on mp3!
It's a fair point Wilberforce although as I present a weekly Beatles show I have to show an interest in any related new releases. It's a long time though since I rushed out to buy one of Macca's albums in the week of release!
DeleteI'm a bit embarrassed to say that, having loved the first half dozen, I bought all The Smiths' singles out of band loyalty, though I didn't like some at all and only played them once, and I got asked "Girlfriend In A Coma?" with a withering, head-nodding look by the forty-ish shop assistant when I tried to buy that single... and quite rightly.
Deletei have a friend who is older than me who through sheer habit used to carry on buying the NME for many years, long past the point where they featured anything in it that was of interest to him. when i (somewhat sneeringly) pointed that out to him, he rather lamely tried to justify his reasons in that he felt he needed to kept informed of what the latest trends in pop music were - even if he didn't actually listen to any of it any more!
DeleteI still buy the Meat Loaf new albums for the sake of completeness. I mean his last ever album (with Jim Steinman) was released last year in Sep 2016, called Braver Than We Are, which is almost as good as Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. Still making new music at the age of 69, and born in the same decade as Jeff Lynne, Paul McCartney and Cliff Richard!
DeleteUntil the start of this year I still bought Music Week out of habit having started buying it in 1991 when Record Mirror was merged with it. I justified it by wanting to see the charts and new releases - which of course you can get for free elsewhere.
Deleteas an adjunct to my story of my NME-addicted chum, he only stopped buying it when they stopped selling it! what did make me laugh about it when i saw (but didn't read!) some of the final issues in his office was that instead of just focusing on contemporary crap as they had done before, they had to resort to doing features on the good old stuff as well in a desperate attempt to stop flagging sales. but even that couldn't save them, and nowadays it's only published on an occasional basis as a free magazine and distributed in towns and cities that have a large student population... as presumably they're the only people interested in the rubbish that is released nowadays?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThe NME is still published weekly and is made available in independent record shops as well as student areas. It doesn't just cover music these days, not that it makes much difference to me as I never liked it as a music paper.
Deletesorry steve! i was misinformed as to how often it gets published nowadays, although i remember seeing it on display at my local tesco only the one time - which also led to that presumption. but i am pretty sure about it being free these days?
Deleteas a tie-in with what's going on "now": the NME was perhaps at its peak (certainly in influence if not sales) by around 1984, featuring among its journalists danny baker, stewart maconie and paul morley - all of whom would go on to achieve a much greater fame. in fact the latter had just left the magazine in order to join forces with mr and mrs trevor horn in a new record company venture. their first success? frankie goes to hollywood!
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNo worries I read an article about it going free around the time it happened (and it's definitely still free!) I liked Record Mirror as it had a lot more on the charts - their chart correspondent Alan Jones still writes for Music Week.
Deleteis that the same alan jones that wrote a book about disco music called "saturday night forever - the story of disco"?
Deletewith regard to the old music "inkies" of the 70's and 80's, my order was preference was:
1 - record mirror (primarily due to their coverage of disco music, which the others not surprisingly barely bothered with)
2 - sounds
3 - NME
4 - melody maker
of course all those eventually got the elbow in favour of the likes of "smash hits" and "No.1" as the 80's synth-pop scene developed. i also bought "new sounds, new styles", but never "the face" as it was a: too expensive, and b: too boring due to all the fashion coverage! i think that lasted until the late 80's when i started reading "Q" magazine (and its competitors, most of which failed to last the course), and gave up on that (and music magazines in general) in the late 90's when i didn't recognise the very ordinary-looking guy on the front cover (who i later learned was mr coldplay)!
It could well be the same Alan Jones as he compiled the Cool Cuts dance chart in Record Mirror and was very much into dance music during the magazine's later years. It's a shame Record Mirror was shut down - on the same day as Sounds - as they'd found their niche towards the end as a dance specialist. James Hamilton's dance record reviews were always very entertaining.
DeleteMy choices were RM, Q and for a while Vox. These days I still get Q and Classic Pop which is good for 80s/90s acts that get ignored by what's left of the rest of the music press.
I still have pretty much every Record Mirror from 87-91 and a lot of the RM update supplements that appeared in Music Week in the loft somewhere. I wish I'd kept my other music mags too from the 80s and 90s bit they were sold to a second hand shop in Leicester when I was a skint student!
Deletei managed to cart some of my music magazines/papers collection around with me wherever i moved to for several years after i had bought them. but at one point i was living in an nhs-owned property and had no storage space for them in my room, so stashed them in a communal storage room. then i was notified that the flat would be redecorated by contractors... and i arrived home that day to find they had rooted them out of the storage room on the assumption that they didn't belong to anyone, and had used them to cover the floor with while they painted - the bastards! as you can imagine, i was not too happy about that...
DeleteI'm not surprised!
DeleteI always found NME & Melody Maker pretentious in the extreme and never bothered with them. Sounds was just about tolerable.
DeleteMy magazine of choice when I was a student in the early 90s was Select - for a while that was brilliant until it disappeared up its own backside. Rage was also good too, that had more of a youth / dance focus.
at one point i was buying "Q", "vox" and "select" magazines simultaneously - i obviously had too much disposable income at that point! despite that, i failed to notice that a guy i had once played in a band with appeared as a front cover star on either "vox" or "select" with his latest band that were darlings of the music press at the time (another guy in said band told me about it later)
DeleteAs has been noted, it is getting a shade Attack of the 50ft Woman in the TOTP studio with this episode.
ReplyDeleteAnd who's this lovely lady with her flowing locks - oh, it's David Coverdale with a tune that starts out sounding like an AC/DC clone before evolving (?) into 80s hair metal. Nice header of that balloon, Dave.
Big Country, this was a fair-sized hit but it's difficult to hear why in hindsight, it's nowhere near as good as the other cuts off that album, and the unplugged instruments/freezing their arses off video doesn't enhance it.
Two slices of classy pop in a row, now, with only the video awards to break them up (do you think this was for British videos then? Simes should have mentioned it). Fiction Factory doomed by Pete's praise, or maybe because of the lead singer's unattractive jumper that made him look as if he was sweating profusely under the arms. The song survives, the piano riff is a good one.
Then China Crisis with their laidback, mellow ditty that sounds like a summer record even if it was a hit during the winter. The oboist looks a bit of a lemon when he has to dance, which is too often for his liking.
Gloria Gaynor's other gay anthem, I'd rather hear this than I Will Survive again for the millionth time. Strong vocal, but the studio is lacking in atmosphere, maybe because her backing track is too low in volume. Incidentally, isn't La Cage aux Folles a disappointing film? For a comedy it's very laboured, there's barely one laugh in it. Could be the stage show was better.
John Lennon, I liked this a lot at the time, possibly because of the line about UFOs (I was into those as a child). Also thought he was singing "Nobody told me that you did like me" for some reason. A bit jaded lyrically, musically too, but it succeeds.
Macca, happy birthday for last Sunday, and the bit at the start and the end is rather Flying Pickets with the sampled vocals.
King of Pain is one of my favourite Police singles, we'll never know what they would have produced if they'd stayed together, but this had a killer chorus in among all the "too depressed to commit suicide" mournfulness.
thx if you think the original french film of "la cage aux folles" is bad, then try watching the american remake "the birdcage"!
DeleteThis was indeed the last time the Police graced the charts and the TOTP line up, before they split up to make way for Sting's solo career. As we say a gracious goodbye to one of the best British acts in the history of pop music, the curtain comes down in a very graceful way, even with this rather mediocre song.
DeleteI did like the playout though, with some nice upskirt camera work on the black girl with the white minidress on the podium. The late night repeat showed the playout in full which was not likely to have been shown in its entirety back by BBC1 then in January 1984, so well done BBC4 in 2017.
Not even tempted! Man, Gene Hackman made some odd career choices late on, didn't he?
DeleteMy Gene Hackman comment above was about The Birdcage, not wishing to put an image in in your minds about looking up a skirt he was wearing (!).
DeleteIt wasn't quite the end for The Police in the Top 40, we still had their slowed down version of Don't Stand So Close To Me to come, one of the worst demolitions by a popular band of their hit ever.
what was the most absurd thing about that redundant re-hash of "don't stand so close to me" was that stewart copeland broke his arm or something immediately prior to the planned recording session, but tragically even that didn't stop them from carrying on regardless... and using a drum machine instead!
DeleteAn average edition for me, though I wasn't quite as pissed off with it as Peter Powell looked throughout.
ReplyDeleteWhitesnake - Entirely nondescript rock.
Big Country - Another song that sounds like all the others barring 'Chance'. Next!
Fiction Factory - This is better, one of the best songs of 84 for sure. I didn't realise the band looked so unappealing though. Follow-up 'Ghost Of Love' is miles better than its chart position suggests.
China Crisis - Also good, and doesn't get much airplay these days either, which is a shame.
Gloria Gaynor - It might be John Barrowman's all-time favourite song, but it's not mine. However, like THX above, I'd rather hear this than 'I Will Survive' for the millionth time...
John Lennon - Why was this released - because Macca had a big song out? I wouldn't be surprised as the Lennon Sainthood Industry had already begun. The song is OK but nothing to get excited about really.
Then the most talented Beatle (he is, whatever that dopey bint Yoko would have you believe) and The Police to play out. Presumably they were already past the point where they wanted to perform it in the studio.
'(Feels Like) Heaven' and 'Wishful Thinking' are two songs which I have always associated with each other. Funny, then, how they were consecutive performances on TOTP.
ReplyDeleteAdd to those two the Icicle works, and I associate all three with each other.
DeleteBlimey, yes me too. Throw in the echo and the bunny men tune out at the same time (the killing moon) and we have 4 very closely related songs. In my mind at least.
Deletehosts: pp shows us the sign of the times with his jumper tucked into his trousers. not surprisingly slimy just looks the same as ever. apart from perhaps thinking that his "partner" is a supercilious git with no interest in popular music, pp might also have been a bit phased as a result of being dwarfed by the man?
ReplyDeletewhitesnake: what year is this? 1984? it might as well be 1974 as far as this lot are concerned - both aurally and visually. surely they only managed to get on the show as a result of a last-minute cancellation?
big country: their finest moment by (400) miles in my opinion, even if it's not quite at the level of what u2 were doing at the time (oh, why couldn't bono have hung himself instead of turning into a king-sized prat?)
fiction factory: i didn't think too much of this back then, and i can't say hearing it again for the first time for many years has made any difference. their chances of sustaining success weren't helped by the singer looking like a more-piggy-eyed version of art garfunkel (if only the bassist had been the frontman). i was slightly amused by the bit where the keyboardist mimes the simple synth melody in the chorus, and then looks pleased as punch with himself as if he's pulled off a note-perfect rendition of something by rachmaninoff!
china crisis: this week's liverpool act (i'm still waiting for a dorset one to appear on the show, although i should think myself lucky that the police's andy summers came from bournemouth!), and in my view this piece is musically the cream of the crop. but it does puzzle me why this wasn't held back three of four months, when its lush and balmy sound might have been more in keeping with the weather?
gloria gaynor: i'm not keen on anything from musicals post-rodgers & hammerstein, so this was definitely a case of fast-forward for me. apart from gloria clambering on the gay/hi energy bandwagon that was taking off in this year, i noticed that eartha kitt was also in the charts as a result of being re-invented as a gay icon - and quite bizarrely by chance i was watching her only last night as the catwoman in the "batman" tv series (adam west r.i.p. by the way)!
john lennon: i had vague memories of this, but was scratching my head thinking "what possible excuse do they have to put this out now, given he died three years earlier?". a bit of digging has discovered that it's a leftover from his "double fantasy" sessions, but as the singles from that album left me cold then this was never going to do anything different
Wilberforce, I counted at least four Liverpool acts in this week's top 20, with the No.1 and No.2 coming from Liverpool, i.e., Paul McCartney and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and then John Lennon not far away at No.11, with China Crisis thrown it at 16 for good measure. Have I missed out any others, and when was the last time Liverpool held the top 2 positions in the charts? Hmm...
DeleteWith regard to Dorset, Howard Jones at No.3 is from Southampton, so does that count?
Eartha Kitt made a record with Bronski Beat too, didn't she?
DeleteIncidentally, I can recommend The Lego Batman Movie if you like your Batman with jokes. Funniest Bat-movie since the 1966 one!
Southampton is in Hampshire, not Dorset.
Deletei thought howard jones actually came from high wycombe. but whatever, that's not in dorset either. bournemouth did actually used to be in hampshire (and no doubt even now there are many superannuated residents who delude themselves it still is), but it was moved into the far-more rural and poorer dorset as a result of the national county boundary changes in 1974 (presumably due to previously sharing a border with poole that is joined to bournemouth with no rural area inbetween? had they "moved" poole into hampshire for that reason then dorset would have looked even more insignificant, with the largest town having a population of only 50,000!)
DeleteI had a lot of summer holidays at a Highcliffe caravan park when I was growing up, and I remember being fascinated by old newspaper clippings framed on the wall of the clubhouse stating that Highcliffe was in Hampshire, when by that time Dorset had claimed it. Mind you, a very short stroll eastward along the beach would put you back into Hampshire...
DeleteTHX - she did, Cha Cha Heels which I think came out in 1985.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWell strike me, its 1984 and we have, back to back on ToTP, John Lennon and Paul McCartney!! Some gems on this show however.
ReplyDeleteWhitesnake – Give me more time. Shouldn’t that be ‘Give me just a little more time’? Or were they trying to avoid confusion with Chairman of the Board with their 1970 hit of the same name? Either way, Coverdale and his pals sound pretty good on this and it’s surprising it got no higher than no29. Regarding the ‘Is it David Paich or not debate’; my view is that it is Coverdale’s old Deep Purple mate Jon Lord as he is billed as keyboard player on the parent album ‘Slide it in’ (criticised for its double entendre lyrics not unsurprisingly!). That’s Cozy Powell on drums as well.
Big Country – Wonderland – Is it just me or is this just a little boring? Both musically and visually? Reminds me of the Police and their’ De do do do’ video in the snow.
Fiction Factory – Feels like Heaven – Aha! A lost gem. Fiction Factory were essentially one hit wonders with this as their previous single ‘Ghost of Love’ only just snuck into the charts on the back of this. However, this song is a mellow delight.
China Crisis – Wishful thinking – Spawned one of my catchphrases; “in the words of China Crisis, Wishful thinking”. Seriously though, I love this mellow lilting song topped off by oboe playing. The video is full of joie de vivre also, even when the cross country runner trips into some mud!
Gloria Gaynor – I am what I am – Greyhound anyone? FF
John Lennon – Nobody told me – I thought there were no more unreleased Lennon songs after the ‘Double Fantasy’ album but then up popped ‘Milk and Honey’ which had this as probably the best track (although I did like ‘Borrowed Time’). Usual J & Y love-in on the video (as noted by John G above!).
Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace – A much better song than ‘Nobody told me’ sure, but not quite in the ‘Imagine’ league. Rather this than next week’s no1 though.
The Police – King of Pain – I don’t think this final single from the ‘Synchronicity’ album had a proper video (just some cobbled together thing) which is a shame as it didn’t get the exposure it deserved, and the broadcast playout was probably considerably shorter than the full edition shown here. The single had a stonking live version of ‘Tea in the Sahara’ on the B Side which was recorded by Eddie Offord who was associated with Yes and ELP for a number of years.
I wonder if we’ll see who won the video competition? I’m still leaning towards ‘Visions in Blue’ although this time all the videos had Phil Lynott’s ‘Yellow Pearl’ as a soundtrack which was bizarre!
i remember seeing a video for "king of pain" on "the tube", which was essentially cut and paste live footage (and like their video for "wrapped around your finger, i think a lot of slo-mo was involved). it was rather unfortunate that it was the fourth single off what was a best-selling album as it was certainly better than the one that preceded it. although as i've said before, i found it unbelievable that the infectious "synchronicity i" never came out on 45!
Deleteoh yes, and in my opinion the plodding "every breath you take" should have remained as an album track rather than been chosen as the first single!
DeleteIndeed sct353, it was striking to see John Lennon and Paul McCartney played back to back as late as 1984, with Lennon at No.11 and then McCartney at the end of the top ten chart rundown. Good Lord, what a feat 20 years after the Beatles were regulars in the charts!
DeleteWith regard to the Whitesnake keyboardist, if we are to finally conclude it is Jon Lord of Deep Purple, then I can say a big GOOD LORD here, as Deep Purple never appeared on TOTP, so does this count as a rare appearance on TOTP by anything to do with Deep Purple?
Deletepurple did appear on totp doing "black night" - one of the few things the beeb managed to not contrive to lose/wipe from that era:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCSxXLIvtQ
in addition to that, whitesnake have appeared on the show before (with purple drummer ian paice, as well as coverdale and lord i think). and at one point ian gillan was practically living in the caravan in the car park next door, so frequently were his appearances with his eponymously-named band. plus throw in ritchie blackmore and roger glover on video with rainbow as well, and it's quite clear that the show is hardly a purple-free zone!
The follow up to 'Black Night' was 'Strange kind of Woman' which reached no8. After that was 'Fireball' which reached no15 (nice Jon Lord keyboard solo on that). I wonder if Deep Purple appeared on ToTP to promote those songs and the performances have been wiped?
DeleteYou're right about Gillan wilberforce. Show after show they seemed to be on, especially with three appearances for 'New Orleans' I believe. We've moved on from that era now as well as the incessant hits medleys that were a feature of the show in 1981.
Gillan split at the end of 1982, and by the point in time that the reruns have now reached Rainbow were on the verge of dissolution too. April 1984 would see the Gillan/Glover/Blackmore/Paice/Lord line-up of Deep Purple reunite, prompting Lord's departure from Whitesnake.
Deletegillan's keyboard player colin towns had already been moonlighting as a soundtrack composer during his stint with them. but as a result of the split it became his full-time job, that he continues to do to this day...
DeletePete was very subdued, wasn’t he? And what had Slimes done to his hair? He looked like Frank Sidebottom.
ReplyDeleteHad FGTH really gone up five places to number 2, Slimes? I thought they were at 6 the previous week. Still, good to see Shaky got his apostrophe back in the mugshots.
Great facial intro into Whitesnake by Pete. The song itself was a strange mishmash, like a one-song EP, with the first halves of the verses, the second halves, and the choruses sounding like three separate songs bolted together.
Not much love here for “Wonderland” but I thought it was wonderful, as did the chap who shouted “Yeah!” beforehand. Hard man, that Stuart, no coat. Marked him out as the leader. Lovely scenery but the unplugged instruments looked a bit daft.
Here come Perth’s finest, Fiction Factory, arguably the only band whose name comprised two bespoke indie labels (and they were signed to CBS!) with a simply sublime and timeless track. Feels like Heaven, sounds like Heaven, lead singer looks like Purgatory. The second standing drummer in a row, there, fact fans.
I remember seeing China Crisis at one of those Here And Now nostalgia gigs way back, and one of them introduced the band by saying “We’re from f#cking Liverpool”! Curious lack of a keyboardist, and we needed a white oboe there for complete instrument colour co-ordination, but a lovely, dreamy and mellow song.
The only Gloria Gaynor track I like at all (love, actually) is “Never Can Say Goodbye”. This was an FF job for me.
With singles this far after his untimely passing, you could say nobody told me John Lennon wasn’t still here. I’m sure I’m not the only one who could tell who wrote which Lennon / McCartney attributed track – Macca’s were the “I love you, you love me, doo be doo, doo be dee” ones, while John Winston wrote the angsty, caustic numbers.
I’ve just returned from my first hol of the year which reminded me of Macca and you lovely folk, as it involved me and ‘the old girl’ (my jokey phrase for her as she’s seven years younger) driving down the M3 which cuts a swathe through Chobham Common, where the video for “Pipes Of Peace “was filmed. Sentimental? Me? Cuh!
On the hols, I heard a DJ play “Disco Lady” by Johnnie Taylor, the very act whose string vest mugshot pose resulted in my first proper entry on this blog. I was much quieter then.
And we finish with King Of Pain On My Eardrums. Not my fave Police track as you can guess.
the guy singing with china crisis on this show has aged really badly and looks like a real bruiser these days, so i'm guessing it was him who greeted the here and now audience in such a crude way?
Deletealso, i agree with arthur regarding gloria gaynor - with its extended instrumental section, "never can say goodbye" was ground-breaking in that it was one of the first tracks arranged specifically for people to dance to in discos rather than listen to on the radio. and the album it came from was another landmark in that all three tracks on side one (including that one) were sequed together with no gap inbetween. but sadly despite all that it still gets ignored in favour of "i will survive"!
Macca may have started out with the silly love songs (hey!) but he grew more experimental as the Beatles went on. Well, they all did except Ringo, but Macca's evolution was particularly fascinating, and echoed his interest in the avant garde. I love it when something left field influences the mainstream, and his work with the band is a perfect example.
Deletewith lyrics like "i'd like to be, under the sea", how could ringo's opus "octopus's garden" not be seen as experimental?
DeleteThe dream team of Master 'Frank Sidebottom' Bates and PP are on again this Friday according to my TV guide, so we'll have an early opportunity to see if PP has cheered up.
Deletefurther to athur's comment regarding gloria gayor: i recommend this track that quite amazingly came from the same album as "i will survive":
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kh42uryb0M
Has anyone got the 26.01.84 show with Mike Smith, as BBC4 will not be showing this one and will go straight to Feb '84 this Thursday? It is the show with the first ever appearance of Madonna and Cyndi Lauper on British TV.
ReplyDeleteThe bulk of that show is on YouTube, scattered across various videos, but it would be nice to see the whole thing in one place. It's rather surprising that nobody has made it available as yet.
DeleteI don't think t was ever shown on UK Gold or repeated ever since its original broadcast, so I guess we will need to rely on someone's own recording as usual. In any case, I hope it comes up on here today or tomorrow, as I don't like the thought of having to go through 4 shows this weekend, as 3 is a better number which is unavoidable as BBC4 will also be missing another episode with DLT, in between the two Feb '84 shows to come this week.
DeleteNeil uploaded totp 26th january 1984.Is here www.4shared.com/video/phCyxdHQei/TOTP_1984-01-26.html
ReplyDeleteThanks Gia. Neil has also made it available at WeTransfer:
Deletehttps://we.tl/G6yGBk0a3p
Nice one :-)
DeleteThanks John!
ReplyDeleteBack after a break and I'm 5 shows behind - damn.
ReplyDeleteI could never get that excited about Whitesnake, not really my kind of thing, and can only remember some of their songs, this is one I had thankfully forgotten about. My dad used to work with their (and Deep purple's) manager at a design studio in the early 1970s. The problem was my dad had/has zero interest in rock music and only told me this many years later by which time it was far too late to gain from it.
Loved all of the Big Country output at the time including this one which doesn't get played as much as the obvious hits. Stuart looks decidedly unbothered about the snow in the video walking around in a thin pullover and espadrilles as you do. This video could also be used for the early single In A Big County as it's filmed "on a mountainside".
I never bought the Fiction Factory single but hearing it now its pretty good. Not sure I care much for the band's image which is possibly what put me off at the time. Pleated high waister trousers and mullet haircuts were never my thing.
"Wishful Thinking" is where my love of China Crisis began. I admired it a lot at the time and went on to the buy the Working with Fire and Steel album and quite a few of their later albums which just got better and better.
Never really cared for this Gloria Gaynor song much but the cover by Danny LaRue is quite funny, Danny Baker used to play it a lot.
Nice to see John Lennon and Macca in the chart again at the same time. Lennon's is one of those numerous videos made up of old clips after he died but this is one of the better ones and its a good song.
Playout with the Police track which was one of their better later efforts and is surprisingly danceable apart from the pauses but the crowd do their best.