Time for walkies....
21/06/84 (Simon Bates & Gary Davies)
Gary Glitter – “Dance Me Up” (48)
One of his many come backs, this one quite successful compared to many others, peaking at number 25.
OMD – “Talking Loud & Clear” (23) (video)
Despite the minor video malfunction this made it to number 11.
Bronski Beat – “Smalltown Boy” (3) (rpt from 07/06/84)
At its peak.
Cyndi Lauper – “Time After Time” (36) (video)
Our blog title song makes its debut, and it looks like we won't ever get to see it on BBC4, the only other show its on is fronted by Jimmy Savile and Mike Smith!
Associates – “Those First Impressions” (44)
No hit for two years, and this one went up just one more place.
Ollie & Jerry – “Breakin’…There’s No Stopping Us” (35) (video)
With their only top 50 hit, which peaked at number 5.
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – “Perfect Skin” (40)
The first of six top 40 hits, this debut peaking at number 26.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions – “I Wanna Be Loved” (29)
Peaked at number 25.
The Pointer Sisters – “Jump (For My Love)” (24) (video)
Hugh Grant would be dancing to this nearly twenty years later, but for now it peaked at number 6, and was the sisters' final top ten hit.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – “Two Tribes” (1)
Second of nine weeks at the top.
Change – “Change Of Heart” (19) (audience dancing/credits)
Their first hit for four years was also their final top 30 peaking at number 17.
June 28th is next.
Gary Glitter - had just turned 40 about a month before this 1984 edition of TOTP. I don't know whether to call this performance funny or a little menacing, as now that we know what his persona entailed, he does come across as trying too hard and somewhat intimidating in this performance. Apparently he has been sentenced to 16 years in prison up until the age of 87, however, in the world of 1984 those girls on the TOTP stage seemed to love performing with him.
ReplyDeleteOMD - wow, one of my favourites of theirs, and just loved the video at the time, especially the surprise of going from a summer afternoon picnic with friends, to the same field in the winter, with the same friends playing with a scarecrow in the snow.
Cyndi Lauper - I must admit that it was a little surprising to see Cyndi with this type of sound, after her hugely successful wacky dance debut hit with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, being denied the no.1 spot in February by Frankie Goes To Hollywood with Relax. Unfortunately for Cyndi, this follow up Time After Time was timed parallel with Frankie's own follow up to Relax, which stayed at No.1 for nine weeks, and once again thwarting Lauper of a possible No.1 with this one.
Good Lord, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions being followed by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. They just needed Kid Creole & The Coconuts and Elbow Bones & The Racketeers, and then it would have been a perfect show!
That sounds like a perfect show to me Dory!
DeleteThanks Neil B - a really odd mixture of quality and rubbish on this one, with (unfortunately for BBC4 viewers) some lesser seen songs. Lots from the lower reaches of the chart, seemingly because they'd played most of the big hits going up the week before!
ReplyDeleteI will pass on the opening act, presumably getting the prime slot through being a 'friend of the programme'. I still don't understand how they couldn't just have edited this out and gone straight to Bates introducing..
OMD - Unlike Dory, I think this video is terribly cheap looking and hasn't aged well at all. As for the song, better than 'Locomotion' but still not one of their very best.
Cyndi Lauper - Less irritating than the previous song, actually rather good really. Still overplayed though.
The Associates - Extremely lucky to get on given their chart position. Extremely unlucky to be on a Yewtreed show yet again. It's not the best of their offerings, I can see why it didn't make the Top 40 even with this potential boost.
Ollie & Jerry - Not particularly great.
Lloyd Cole - Such a shame to miss out on this one as it's a brilliant song. In the days when I regularly interviewed up and coming acts, most of which never had hits, I was lucky enough to meet him. I'm pleased to say that he was charming, extremely sardonic and a lovely man to chat to. I treasure the CD single he signed for me that day!
Elvis Costello - What a weird song this is. I can't work out what it's trying to be. Another one to add to the cod reggae list perhaps?
Pointer Sisters - Chalk another one up on the 'Housewife Classics released in 84' list.
Change - I thought they were never going to feature this! Great track, as with almost all of their singles.
It's a pity that Jump was to be the last top ten hit for The Pointer Sisters. Just when they had got their career going again, and after the brilliant Automatic with two weeks at No.2, this one Jump only got to No.6, despite being just as good on the dance floors. The video is great too.
DeleteSorry Dory, I'm not keen on 'Jump'. And 'I'm So Excited' is a housewife classic par excellence, so I hate it.
DeleteI much prefer Jump to Automatic, way more exciting, great build up. Ironically despite the title I'm not as excited by I'm So Excited, it's ok but it feels too much like it's trying to be like the title. Jump has a less rushed and more classy excitement for me.
DeleteThe way I see it is like this in my order of preference:
DeleteSlow Hand (1981)
Automatic (1984)
Jump (1984)
I'm So Excited (1984)
I would say that Slow Hand marginally edges Automatic & Jump, just for its sexy 'come to me' ballad type of lyrics. Automatic is just pure dance floor genius, and Jump is also but to a slightly lesser extent.
Yes We Can Can was their best song for me but of their 80s hits it would have to be Automatic simply because it bought back so many memories of 1984 and the people I knew at the time.
DeleteYes We Can Can is much more an r&b type song, not enough energy for me but ok.
DeleteThanks Neil for making this available so promptly, though why the hell BBC4 aren't showing this one is a mystery. They edited GG out the last time he appeared in 1981, when he was also the first act on the show, so why not this time? Does this mean we will also lose the 13/12/84 show, in which he also appears? Total madness...
ReplyDeleteMaster Bates opens and closes the show with gratuitous timechecks, but is otherwise tolerable. Gazza, by now much more comfortable in front of the camera than in his early appearances, seems to tolerate the headmaster fairly well, and does a solid job. I actually quite like this GG song, which is somewhat reminiscent of his early 70s heyday and has a very catchy chorus. Knowing what we do now, I agree with Dory that the staging is rather unfortunate, but at least all the girls appearing with Mr Gadd appear to be overage...
OMD picnic in a studio-bound rural paradise, but given that the seasons need to change I can forgive them for that. This is a pleasant enough song, but is conspicuously lacking in the power and passion of their best work, and Paul is now sporting a very nasty mullet indeed. Shame we miss the beginning of the promo, where Andy and Paul are both disguised as scarecrows. Cyndi is back with her best song; the video perhaps tries a little too hard to tug at the heartstrings, but it is effective enough. Apparently the mother and boyfriend are her real mother and (then) lover, and her brother also made an appearance.
Good to see the Associates return for their last-ever TOTP appearance, but it was disappointing that the statuesque Martha was not present, replaced by some boring bloke! I quite liked this song; it doesn't grab you immediately, but it gradually wormed its understated way into my affections. The breaking craze was evidently still going strong at this point, as Ollie & Jerry (whoever they may be) offer us another variation on the same theme, with many now-familiar moves cropping up in the video. The proto-Pop Idol judging panel at the end seemed very crowded! Better to follow from Lloyd Cole, armed with a teardrop guitar and another pleasingly understated but effective little tune, with some nice lyrics too.
The latest offering from Mr McManus seems to be a somewhat bizarre venture into lover's rock, but I actually think it works fairly well, particularly in the chorus. Quite why the camera had to focus in so closely on his ugly mug at one point I don't know! I remember this Pointer Sisters track vividly from the time, as I was on holiday with my family in Dorset in June 1984 and this was constantly on the radio. I really liked it back then, but it sounds a little lightweight now compared to the mighty Automatic. It's still a decent enough slice of dance-pop, though once again the video is very basic; the shots of athletes doing their thing do however serve as a reminder that the LA Olympics were just a few weeks away.
A new Frankie performance for their second week at number 1, with Holly less sweaty this time and taking a snap of the audience for his album. The crowd then get on down to a Change record which sounds typical of its era, with no distinguishing features whatsoever.
g*ry gl*tter: i've mentioned before a problem i have whereby artists who recorded some excellent music at the start/peak of their careers have since turned into tossers in some way or other, and thus i can no longer listen to said recordings as a result. however mr g is not one of those - probably because big brother is doing its best to airbrush him out of pop history without caring about my opinion of him. which irks me, and so i refuse to conform accordingly. but i don't have any such moral dilemma in this case anyway, due to this (which i have no recollection of whatsoever) being like everything else he did after his 2-year purple patch of glam classics i.e. utter shite. and just what does "dance me up" mean exactly, anyway?
ReplyDeleteomd: another one new to me. quite a nice kraftwerk-style feel about it, but boy does it take a while for the vocal to start. and when it does it can't match the music. despite having appeared regularly on totp over the last few years, it seems drummer malcolm and the other keyboard guy are still not officially part of the band when it comes to making videos. but then again they were probably relieved they didn't have to get involved in the weird wurzel gummidge thing going on
cyndi lauper: like the omd video we get another bit of dramatic preamble, which (no doubt thanks to "thriller") was obviously the vogue at the time. but if it was a real golden age of hollywood movie she was watching, shouldn't it have been in black & white? although this isn't annoying in the way her previous effort was, it's hardly something to get excited about. and i still think it was a rubbish choice for this year's blog title!
associates: the third track on one show i can't recall. how ironic that billy mckenzie was now actually performing without any of his (ex) associates alan rankine, michael dempsey and of course the lovely martha ladly. it seems like they took whatever was good about the act with them when they departed, so no surprise this struggled. i do remember liking another later track of his (sorry, theirs) called "waiting for the love boat" back then, but even that sounds a bit lo-fi synth-cheesy now
ollie & jerry: i had a vague memory of this, and the chorus was familar to me. but despite targeting the dance scene, it's far too poppy for my liking
I also much prefer Time and Time to her earlier hit.
DeleteAnd Talking Loud and Clear was familiar at the time to me, but it was eclipsed rather by Tesla Girls. But now I like it a lot, and still like Tesla Girls.
I prefer Tesla cars, but I'll have Tesla girls too.
DeleteRe OMD, "the others" did appear on the early videos (Electricity, Messages, Enola Gay), and do crop up again in some of the later ones.
Deletept ii (for the first time in 1984, which indicates the way the music's going...):
ReplyDeletelloyd cole: thanks to the smiths and their jangly-guitar reaction to synth-pop, mr cole was one beneficiary who slipped through to fame in their wake. however he never did anything for me, as he seemed more concerned about intoning in a ridiculously affected vocal somewhere between lou reed and bryan ferry than writing any decent tunes. although i was surprised several years on to hear an excellent track from his debut album (thanks again to annie nightingale i think!) in the shape of "wanna take you down". by the way, bassist lawrence donegan went on to forge a career of note as a journalist after the band broke up
elvis costello: and just when i thought it couldn't get much worse on the annoying vocals front! yet another one i have no memory of it, and in this case i'm quite happy to leave it that way
pointer sisters: this is much more uptempo than "automatic", and yet they're still like two peas in a pod as in pretty decent electro-dance-rock crossovers. but still knocked into a cocked hat by...
change: after a few failed follow-ups to their early hits their co-creator jacques fred petrus handed production duties over to the already-in-demand team of jam & lewis, who applied their own distinctive veneer to the the act's sophisticated dance sound. i've got over 300 tracks in my 80's dance mp3 collection, but if i had to choose just one of them to listen to for the rest of my life then this would be a serious contender - it's that good. i just wish i'd had a pound for every time i've listened to it! there are several other excellent if-not-quite-as-good tracks on the parent album, and although not produced by jam & lewis the next LP released the following year had some gems on it too
I guess the TOTP repeats scissors-wielder is on holiday this week? Anyway, Gary "Up The" Glitter will never be rehabilitated, which means we will never hear this on the radio ever again. Mind you, it was never heard outside of that month in 1984 either. As it is, shouty pop that I was surprised to remember, but won't be too sad to forget.
ReplyDeleteOMD getting around the problem of ants at the picnic by shooting this in the studio. The song is oddly muted and restrained, nice enough for a summer's day but it's autumn now.
Cyndi Lauper, yes, it's soppy and overplayed during "Quiet Storm" radio shows, but I do like it, it's a charming tune and better than her other try at tugging the heartstrings True Colors from later on. She still looks daft in her videos, though.
No recollection of this Associates track, it keeps threatening to break out into a killer tune then decides not to. Back to the whippets, Billy.
No idea who Ollie and Jerry were, but Breakin' (or Breakdance as it was called over here) is a hugely evocative film, and one of the few Cannon movies that is worth a look for its sheer fun and exuberance and not because you see a ton of stuntmen getting shot or blown up. The highlight was the solo dance to Kraftwerk, but this was good too - lead dancer Lucinda Dickey (soon to be in the legendary Ninja III: The Domination, the only ninja exorcist aerobics movie ever made) couldn't actually breakdance, which explains her moves in this clip compilation video. Yes, this does make me nostalgic, can you tell? Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo you can keep, however.
Lloyd Cole and his Commotions make their debut with this fast paced little number, always found his lyrics awfully arch, but that was his distinctive style I suppose. One of his better ditties.
Elvis Costello trying to be... Sade?! No wonder I don't recall this, it doesn't sound right at all, really clunky with a chorus that doesn't fit the rest of it.
The Pointer Sisters obviously viewed their previous video and realised they looked pretty rough, so a makeover and some actual camera moves were in order. Good time tune, anyway, even the Girls Aloud version wasn't so bad (their covers were usually terrible), and full marks to anyone who can identify the athletes.
Frankie with the same mix as before, Holly quite the shutterbug. Get used to this one.
Change to end on, one of their typically classy singles, would have liked to hear this featured more prominently in the main body of the show, but it was not to be, alas.
i had to look up "shutterbug" to find out what it was! as they say, you learn something new every day...
DeleteRe the Girls Aloud version, ISTR Rolf Harris having a Itv special for some reason & the Girls performing around him while he played with his sticks!
DeleteJon Culshaw was on there doing his Rolf impression as well.
It's weird, Rolf was arguably more a part of pop culture than Glitter, and now he's disgraced he's left a void that nobody else could fill because he was so unique.
DeleteI went to see Rolf's stage show as a birthday treat when I was a kid, and could count it among my few unironic happy memories - then he went and ruined that. I know he says he's innocent, but it's too late, his legacy has been tarnished, if he even has a legacy now.
Can't enjoy the Goodies episode with all the Rolfs now, either! I know there are more serious implications, but still.
The BBC still play Gary Glitter even if they don't realise it - the other day Radio 6 played KLF's Doctoring The Tardis which of course samples Rock and Roll (Part 2).
DeleteIndeed, and he turned up on an 88 TOTP performance of that song. So that's another one for the chop!
DeleteJive Bunny and the Masturbators also sampled Gaz's Rock 'n' Roll Christmas, which turns up whenever their festive hit is on Pick of the Pops or some nostalgia channel at Yuletide.
DeleteOne of Lloyd Cole's better tunes is Jennnifer She Said from 1988.
DeleteI see Walter Becker has passed away. I'm a bit young to have got into Steely Dan in the 70s, but you still hear them on the radio and they're probably the finest exemplars of US FM rock. He was a superb guitarist, though a troubled man. RIP.
ReplyDeletewhilst walter was not without talent, as a massive fan of steely dan my belief is that donald fagen is/was the true musical visionary of the pair - the fact that his solo albums sound like dan ones (whilst becker's solitary one didn't) is testament to that
Deletebut even if it were the don's time to depart i would still just say "sorry to hear that, and thanks for all you've done", rather than get all hysterical in the manner millions did with bowie (who was a peer of theirs) a year or two back...
Walter also produced China Crisis in the 80s, among other bands. I think he had more than one solo album, didn't he? He was also "the nice one" out of Steely Dan, because Donald could frequently be so arsey. I suppose genius doesn't mean you have to be nice.
DeleteYes, the over the top nature of reactions to a star dying from people who didn't know them personally can irk. And if they had a long and fullfilling life even less reason to mourn.
DeleteI dunno, if the artist's work meant a lot to you and was a big part of your life, it's natural to feel sad and grateful, therefore expressing those emotions is fair enough.
DeleteI do think Princess Di spoiled the respect element that used to come with public grief at a celeb's demise, however, it cheapened it somehow, through little fault of her own, of course.
Completely agree. The ridiculous, over the top reaction to Lady Di's death was completely out of the British character. There were shades of that last year when loads of slebs died.
DeleteWorryingly appropriate that we've reached Two Tribes in the repeats in light of an apparently impending nuclear war 33 years later.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem's a two-fold one here. The opening link features both Simon Bates and Gary Davies. The only thing Davies says is to directly introduce Gary Glitter, so not only would Davies' handover to Glitter have to be chopped, but Bates' handover to Davies. So then you're left with an opening link where Gary Davies is in vision but says nothing.
ReplyDeleteIf that can be done cleanly, not easy as one line runs into another, then the back-announcing of the opening song has to be cut, it's possible to do the rest of the link as a voiceover on top of the video, which then glitches.
I imagine an edit probably was done (or at least attempted) this way, but it probably didn't work and was reluctantly binned.
If the repeats are on, then take it as red that BBC Four want to show as many as possible. The Saville situation is obvious, but other matters have needed "wisdom of Solomon"-type judgements they could never have anticipated in advance.
It's a pity the revival didn't start with 25-year anniversaries a decade ago.
Are you any relation to Paul E Dangerously who was a manager in WCW Wrestling in the early 90s, who currently goes under the name Paul Heyman in WWE Wrestling present day?
DeleteWhile it would be nice to achieve the perfect edit, I don't think myself that people are going to care to much if that can't be done. If it's too difficult, then just dump the first two links and go straight into the OMD video! As you say Dan, it's a shame these repeats didn't start 10 years earlier, but such is life.
DeleteYes, we would then have the JS, DLT, Mike Smith shows, with JK, Glitter kept in, and nothing would ever have been edited out of any the shows!
DeleteNot sure we would have got Glitter even then! (or Jonathan King for that matter)
DeleteAnd of course, the scissors would still have been in use for most of the film clips....
I do recall that BBC4 did show 'It takes all night long'....unless my mind is playing tricks on me.
DeleteYou're correct sct. That was in 1977/2012, just before Yewtree erupted and GG found himself back in the dock. If JK hadn't been rearrested, it is just possible that BBC4 would have shown his US segments, as the former D-G had promised him that he would not be edited out of TOTP history, and for a short while his appearances were left in.
DeletePeople wonder who Ollie and Jerry are, well they are these two people who are seen here in performance (miming). One on drums and one who starts on the keyboard here and then sings.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-X2-gftUQM
I always liked this song for the energy and vocals, catchy.
I prefer it to Change, though I am much less familiar with that. I just feel that one has less of a tune and could have done with some more atmosphere to smooth the arrangement a bit more.
I never liked Perfect Skin, and Lloyd Cole's album of this year doesn't appeal to me either. Somehow I just don't feel it, either the soul or the mood. He puts on a soulful vocal style from the US like so many others (Elton John etc) but somehow I'm less convinced. And the backing is alright, guitar is ok, but it's still nothing that seems that remarkable to me.
For a second I thought you were going to tell us Ollie and Jerry were actually Lennie and Jerry...
Deletei remember the lennie & jerry double act of the late 70's - they were obviously trying to cash in on the popularity of that type of comedy routine (morecambe & wise, little & large, et al) at the time, but their partnership didn't last long. of course lennie bennett went on to have a substantial career as a general-purpose entertainer, but whatever happened to jerry stevens?
DeleteAny fans of Stan & Ollie will be pleased to know the Talking Pictures channel on Sky TV is, since last Friday, showing a Laurel & Hardy feature length film every weekday evening. So far they have shown Blockheads and Pardon Us, and the rest of the films to come this week and next.
DeleteI'm old enough to remember that Laurel and Hardy almost made number one in 1975 and 1976 with their single Trail Of The lonesome Pine from their 1937 comedy film Way Out West, but were held off the top spot by Queen.
DeletePleased to say that the whole 1937 film Way Out West will be shown tomorrow (Monday 11th Sep) at 2pm on Talking Pictures TV (Freeview channel 81, or Sky Channel 343) which will of course include the big no.2 single (video) from Christmas 1975 Trail Of The Lonesome Pine which can be seen in full!
DeleteHas anyone got the 28th June edition? Although BBC4 is going to show it this week, it will have the JK slot left out, so if anyone on here can oblige with the full untampered show, that would be great.
ReplyDeleteI’ll critique this properly later in the week, as it’s now quarter past 11 and I need to get ready for work but a few snippets while I’m here.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute f#cking sacrilege that a superb edition couldn’t have the offending part chopped out neatly. Looking at the line-up and (most of) the songs, easily one of the shows of the year in my estimation.
The Associates had another fine underachieving single called “Breakfast”.
Have any of you heard Rolf Harris’s version of Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself”? I heard 30 seconds once and felt ill afterwards, and that was way before he was found guilty.
I’m not overkeen on Elvis Costello’s tune (which came from arguably his worst ever album, “Goodbye Cruel World”) but I bought the single for the killer B-side which should have been flipped, “Turning The Town Red”. It was the theme tune to a very, very black comedy by Alan Bleasdale on Channel 4 called “Scully” (sounding very similar to the Scouse world “scally” meaning “chav”), about a football-mad Liverpool tearaway. Elvis Costello played his imbecile model railway fixated brother.
i never watched "scully" (as a southern softie, i wasn't that keen on the scouse grittiness of "boys from the black stuff" et al that was being pushed in everyone's faces in the 80's and 90's), but i remember the opening titles where the titular character runs onto the pitch at anfield as liverpool fc's no. 7 (replacing "king of the kop" kenny dalglish)
DeleteI think I may remember 'Scully' as well - was Reece Dinsdale playing the title character?
DeleteI certainly remember 'Breakfast' by The Associates - a brilliant song that deserved to be a hit. So many people I know have heard of it, so it must have got a fair bit of airplay!
No, the lead actor in "Scully" was a chap called Andrew Schofield. The cast also included Mark McGann, Jean Boht, Sam Kelly and Tony Haygarth.
DeleteThanks Neil B for letting us see what I really cannot fathom out as to why we couldn’t see it without the first act on BBC4…
ReplyDeleteGG – Dance me up – Forgetting the artist, this really isn’t bad at all. In fact I still rate ‘Rock n’Roll Part 2’ as one of the great 70s glam records and still recall the first ever TOTP performance in 1972 as it made such an impression on me.
OMD – Talking loud and clear – Reminds me of some of the sequences in ‘Mary Poppins’. Seasons change in OMDs world however and they’re left looking quite chilly at the end.
Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy – next
Cyndi Lauper – Time after time – Ah yes. I remarked on this superb single being in the lower chart regions back in March/April 1984 when it managed 69 – 59 – 54 – 57 – out. Now the good old UK record buying public have woken up to what a fabulous song this is and its soaring up again. I have heard it (pardon the pun) time after time but it’s still a great song and I’ll admit to not having seen the video before. Like the early Human League hits, Cyndi is being denied a BBC4 showing again due to factors outside her control! The film ‘Strictly Ballroom’ in 1992 featured this heavily too, proving a good song will endure.
Associates – Those first impressions – Not heard this before and made little impression.
Olie & Jerry – Breakin – Next
Lloyd Cole – Perfect Skin – Unlike his namesake ‘Nat King’, Lloyd had no top 10 hits at all, not a sausage, bugger all. Now I’ve got the Monty Python quote off my chest, I’ll say that despite this, the song isn’t bad and is probably worthy of being a bigger hit. Rather this than Ollie & Jerry anyway.
Elvis Costello – I wanna be loved – Completely nondescript. 1984 was not a good year for Elvis.
Pointer Sisters – Jump (for my love) – Wow, they were great weren’t they? First we had the wonderful ‘Slowhand’, then ‘Automatic’ and now this irresistible piece of dance pop (Dory – you’re spot on with your Pointer Sisters list as well!). It’s a toss-up for me which ‘Jump’ single I like best – this or Van Halen. They’re both great.
Frankie goes to Hollywood – Two Tribes – next
Change – Change of heart – Almost a band namecheck hit, but not quite. Otherwise, nothing to say about it.
Random but sad news for anyone on this forum who remembers one of the great "WTF" performances from very early on in the re-run... Can bassist Holger Czukay (he of the Zapata moustache, double bass and mustard yellow trousers) has passed away. Sadly, the group's classic TOTP performance of "I Want more" (complete with madcap ringer guitarist) is no longer available on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteSad to hear that. I spent many an hour listening to his 1979 Movies album featuring the single Cool In The Pool and the stupendous Persian Love which is you have never heard you must check out on YouTube:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjZHN1CX77Q
hmm - i gave this a listen on bama's recommendation, but it's not for me. does it fall into the "cod-reggae" category?
Deletei probably mentioned this at the time it was on the totp re-reuns, but if so i'll say it again anyway: my experience of can was that having both liked "i want more" when we saw the original broadcast, a mate of mine then managed to pick up the "ege bamyasi" album for next-to-nothing (it now goes for silly money) in the hope of us getting more of the same. but what we got instead was bewildering self-indulgent noise!
Gary Glitter was having his third bite of the cherry here and clearly thought that if Slade could get back in the chart then so could he and it worked. A shame bacause 33 years later, because of his presence, we don't get to see the other acts on BBC including Lloyd Cole, The Associates and Cyndi Lauper.
ReplyDeleteOMD bounce back with a lesser song than their last but it's not bad. Good to see the video that is clearly influenced by The Wizard Of Oz even if it isn't obvious what's going on. But I feel a bit sorry for the rest of the bad who have been replaced by two actresses and a scarecrow.
A welcome repeat of Bronski Beat although it would be nice to have seen the video.
It's hard to believe that Time After Time wasn't a hit when it was first released. Loved the song to bits at the time with its melancholy tone and simple chorus. I remember the video well with the ghost, the tartan trousers and the Airstream caravan. Cyndi does look a bit like Stevie Nicks in that first get up, or maybe it was the other way round.
Nice to see The Associates back even if they were in a revised form. This was a lot better than I remembered it being although sadly not as good as their two big hits. Billy seems to have a more confident air here although the lack of interaction with other band members shows.
Ollie and Jerry were another act I had no memory of and I can see why as they don't appear in the video (or do they?). It's standard electro break dance material and the video is taken from the film Breakin' which I never saw. Their follow up single Electric Boogaloo go name checked in an episode of Little Britain.
I must admit I loved Perfect Skin and got really into Lloyd Cole for a while, great words and clever arrangements. In fact I got the Rattlesnakes album and there's not a dud track on it. What I hated most about TOTP at the time though was the way they used the same similarly attired cheerleaders/dancers for all the acts on the show regardless of whether it looked right or not (a sort-of one size fits all). And here it doesn't look right. Lloyd Cole requires shy shoe gazers in 1960s clothing looking cool and refined, not permed ponces in pleated shorts and crop tops. The same is true of The Smiths and other similar acts but they all get the same rent-a-moron treatment.
Already a big fan of Elvis Costello, although I didn't admit it to myself at the time I didn't really like this single or the album it came from very much. I found out later than he and the band were going through a crisis at the time and were soon to break up and it sort of shows. What's bizarre is that were other (much) better Costello singles that should have made the Top 30, eg Let Them All Talk, Party Party and Head To Toe but it was this so-so dirge that made it. Maybe the video helped which showed Elvis in a photo booth being kissed by an assortment of people or maybe it was because of the singles B-side which featured the theme to the C4 comedy Scully (Turning The Town Red).
Superb Pointer Sisters single, not quite as good as Automatic but a greatly improved video where they look less like The Golden Girls and more like sassy soul singers.
Frankie do their second performance of Two Tribes which is perhaps not as good as the first one but it's still nice to see it again. I spy Jeff "Reg Hollis" Stewart cavorting around in the background here in shorts which is slightly disturbing.
Playout with Change which is sung very much in the style of early Chic although minus the strings.
Thanks to Neil B for this edition, the first ever 4shared link which opened up immediately on my PC.
ReplyDeleteAn enjoyable show overall, but laced with difficulties – not just the OMD video scramble, but some awful playback noise when Gary Davies was introducing Bronski Beat, and not forgetting Gary introducing the video for Ollie and Jelly!
Just our luck the paedo one got on the show with a track not even in the top 40, and dreadful work by the BBC for not cutting round him. Bastards, the lot of them.
I have OMD’s lovely, mellow single on wallpaper style picture disc. Andy, you lazy arse, help clear up that picnic!
No no NO, Slimes, Cyndi Lauper only made number 2 over here with her last epic, not number one. I love “Time After Time”, easily her best in my opinion, and the chorus harmonies are sumptuous, though I had trouble working out the plot in that video. Still, nice touch to get her mum and her beau in on the act.
The Associates are back! Well, at least Billy is, portraying a waif-like Paddy McGuinness, with a lovely song which was probably just too delicate for bigger and better things.
Lloyd Cole was a bit too knowing and slappable for my taste, but I love the Cosmopolitan line in the lyrics.
Here comes my idol, Elvis Costello. No guitar, no angry young man, no glasses for a while, plus no hair on Steve Nieve’s head! Was that Sade’s mate Gary Barnacle on sax? I know he appeared on Elvis’s top 71 smash “The Only Game In Town” which also featured Daryl Hall on harmonies.
I don’t know one Pointer Sister’s name from the other, but the enigmatic lead vocalist’s inadvertently sneery top lip and slightly gappy front teeth made her a shoe-in for a Noo Yoik pund band if you ask me.
Those Frankie lads with instruments beavered away, considering they most likely weren’t on the record.
“Change Of Heart”? please make that change of presenter. I’m sick of Speccy Clipboard’s time checks. If Tom Jones hadn’t been nicknamed the Talking Cock, Slimes would have been made for that moniker.
Admittedly Lloyd Cole's hamster cheeks were very slappable but the music was good.
DeleteAttraction keyboardist Steve Nieve was dubbed Maurice Worm at this point no doubt because of his grub-like appearence with a shaved head.
Deletethis has nothing to do with this particular show, but is relevent as it was memtioned/discussed earlier this year:
ReplyDeletei was bemoaning the fact that the dvd release of the late 70's adventure serial "the aphrodite inheritance" (that i watched when originally broadcast, but had never seen since) was stiffly-priced, but one of you recommended i purchase it regardless of that. so i eventually managed to get a copy for about half the going rate off ebay, and i'm glad i did. although it was far-fetched to put it mildly, the intriguing "what the hell's going on" storyline plus the stunning cypriot location shots made it pretty compulsive viewing. plus the beautiful alexandra bastedo and larger-than-life brian blessed were particularly mesmeric as two mysterious locals who both help and hinder an innocent abroad who is trying to get to the bottom of his brother's untimely death on the island. so a big thanks to whoever it was that urged me to get it!
wilberforce; I confess it was me!
DeleteI am so glad that my recommendation proved enjoyable for you.
Wilby, I had the DVDs of both series of The Aphrodite Inheritance but I found them a bit too slow going and sold them on eBay.
DeleteNetwork released a great 1978 series called Scorpion Tales which is a sort of precursor to Tales Of The Unexpected and some of them are pretty good. My fave was Killing starring Jack Shepherd. Also Network's Village Hall and Red Letter Day series were pretty good.
bama to my knowledge "the aphrodite inheritance" was a stand-alone serial with no sequel. perhaps you are thinking of one of the other michael j bird serials that were set in the greek islands ("the lotus eaters", "who pays the ferryman")? the fact that stefan gryff (not to be confused with stephen greif who played travis in "blake's 7") was in all of them in some role or other may be throwing you...?
Deletei have watched several of the 70's crime and suspense anthology series released on dvd by netwerk ("thriller", "armchair thriller", "armchair cinema") lately, but "the scorpion tales" is one that's new to me - so thanks for that!
Speaking of 'Thriller'...I am still ploughing my way through the entire series boxset ( episodes) and what a rewarding experience that is! Favourite episode?
DeleteHmmmm...
Lots, but I was always severely spooked by 'Come out, come out, wherever you are' with 'A Coffin fo the Bride' (featuring a superb early performance by Helen Mirren) a close second.
That was meant to say 44 episodes in the brackets above.
Deleteblimey sct that's a tough one! i certainly preferred the straight crime episodes to the supernatural ones though. i also have to say that any choice would be influenced by the performances rather than the plots. but although the series was dominated by american actors in the hope that it would sell to the american market, it was our own thesps that put in the best work. therefore the shortlist would probably be those featuring the aforementioned helen mirren, norman eshley (as a psychopath that benefits from a case of mistaken identity), michael jayston (as an evil butler who acquires his employers' estates by slowly poisoning them) and dinsdale lansden (as the flamboyant and eccentric private eye matthew earp - the only character to appear in more than one episode, but sadly despite some consideration he never got a series of his own)
DeleteYep Wilberforce, the Jayston episode you describe ('Ring once for Death') was great. I remember seeing that one when it was first shown and agonising over the sheer helplessness of the main character. Michael Jayston was also in the Helen Mirren story and great in that as well.
DeleteSorry anyone else reading this; we're miles off topic now!