It's good to see Agnetha from Abba making a comeback
19/07/84 (Peter Powell & Richard Skinner)
The Mighty Wah! – “Come Back” (28)
A big sound to get this live show underway and Come Back rose to a peak of number 20, but it was to be their final hit.
Prince – “When Doves Cry” (5) (video)
Went up one more place.
Billy Idol – “Eyes Without A Face” (33)
Entering the Top of the Pops gurning contest here is Billy Idol with his solo breakthrough hit which peaked at number 18.
The Kane Gang – “The Closest Thing To Heaven” (30)
Peaked at number 12, but edited out of tonight's 7.30 showing.
Blancmange – “The Day Before You Came” (39)
The fourth and final single from their top ten album, Mange Tout, this eastern flavoured cover peaked
at number 22, ten places higher than Abba's magnificent original managed less than two years earlier.
Divine – “You Think You’re A Man” (26)
This was movie cult figure Divine's biggest hit, peaking at number 16.
Thompson Twins – “Sister Of Mercy” (11) (video)
At its peak.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – “Two Tribes” (1)
The boys go all gun toting SAS for this week's performance, their sixth week of nine at number one.
Shannon – “Sweet Somebody” (25) (audience dancing/credits)
At its peak.
Ped and Nasher talk gunsWatch Ped and Nasher from @FGTH_Official recall this infamous #TOTP performance, when the band brandished (replica) firearms. pic.twitter.com/El55jQJTpd— BBC Four (@BBCFOUR) September 21, 2017
A largely excellent show this week, though PP seemed a bit subdued again in places, and there wasn't much chemistry in evidence with Dickie. In fairness, this may have been caused by Dickie's Bates-like unnecessary explanation at the start that the music was recorded, but the show was live.
ReplyDeleteThe now-Mighty Wah! up first, and while I don't care for Pete Wylie's hairdo I like this powerful, anthemic song a lot - it certainly knocks spots off The Story of the Blues. I'm not sure what Pete's cohorts were up to with those arm movements in this performance, but they looked a bit as if they were playing air violin! Billy Idol did some excellent solo work in the 80s in conjunction with Steve Stevens, and this atmospheric tune is one of his very best, giving him a well-deserved UK chart breakthrough. Billy's sub-Elvis posturing can get tiresome, but he certainly gives this performance his all.
Another excellent song to follow from The Kane Gang, which like Eyes Without a Face should have got into the Top 10. Given there are only three of them, they are not really much of a gang - they also seem rather unbalanced in terms of personnel, with two singers and just one poor soul to play all the instruments! The only eastern influence I could detect on this Blancmange cover were the Indian musicians, instruments and outfits present in this performance, the record itself sounding pretty similar to the original in its arrangement. I know a lot of ABBA fans tout this, the last thing they ever recorded together, as their finest hour, but it's always left me a bit cold. The clunky, overambitious lyrics have a lot to do with that, but Neil and Stephen do a respectable enough job here.
Even the best shows always seem to feature one turd, and Divine duly obliges here. He is horrible to look at and to listen to, but he was canny enough to jump on the high energy bandwagon and get himself a hit - the audience certainly appear to be enjoying this performance. An incomplete showing of the Thompson Twins' video to follow, perhaps because the first part of it features a murder scene, and then Frankie court more controversy as Paul Rutherford gets his pistol out in the studio and starts to wave it around. Doubtless Outraged of Tunbridge Wells was straight on to the Beeb to complain! Shannon brings proceedings to an anti-climactic halt, the only thing of note about the studio dancing being the chap in white, who also appeared earlier with The Kane Gang. He looks like he could be either a chef or a sailor, though most probably he was neither...
Never mind the Wylie clique's air violin - I used to play air vibraphone to The Kane Gang's 'Closest Thing To Heaven', which I bought around that time. I look forward to viewing the Geordies' performance on the extended version of TOTP later this week.
DeleteDivine's 'You Think You're A Man' - an early outing for the production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman - was actually penned by former Modern Romance frontman and TOTP regular Geoffrey Deane. Similarly, The Kane Gang's main singer Martin Brammer would subsequently become a successful behind-the-scenes songwriter for Lighthouse Family, James Morrison and Olly Murs among others.
I have to say that anyone who wrote hits for the Lighthouse Family has a lot to answer for!
Deletei had a musical project of my own in the early 90's that i called the lighthouse keepers. but when this lot (that were the very definition of bland - uurrgghh!) came along, i was seriously tempted to change the name for fear of being confused with them!
DeleteThere was a period in the late 90s when you couldn't turn a radio on without one of their uber-bland, feelgood tunes coming out of it - I hit the "off" switch very quickly whenever that happened!
DeleteGuys I have to take issue with you hear regarding the Lighthouse Family! The 'Postcards from Heaven' album is right up there as one of my frequently played albums. The only track on there that Bammer gets a credit for is 'Raincloud'. He appears to have had no part in the wonderful 'High'.
DeleteI don't have any other LF albums mind you....
A couple of extraordinary bleach blonde backing singers on this episode, starting with The Mighty Wah, before Pete decided on a name change. He may be a gobby Scouser, but he knows his way around an anthemic tune, and this is just great, sounds big and goes over like gangbusters.
ReplyDeleteA repeat of the Prince video next - was one of the doves crying because someone off-camera was flinging it through an open doorway at a drummer?
Lord Billiam Idol seriously overselling his moody ballad, it's not a punk song, Billy. But it is one of his best efforts, strong melody and ethereal harmonies, plus a decent guitar solo. Unlike a lot of songs named after movies we've seen here recently, this Eyes Without a Face has nothing to do with the classic horror movie, in fact I'm not sure why it's called this at all. Oh, and remarkable blonde #2.
The Kane Gang seem to have been excised because they're on the episode screened on BBC Four tomorrow. I won't bother seeking them out on YouTube, then.
Blancmange with a very similar-sounding cover to the original aside from the vocal, but it's a solid song that survives the adaptation. That trumpeter earned his money.
Divine is the last movie star I can imagine Peter Powell enjoying the work of, possibly the only pop star to be filmed eating dogshit - unless you know better?! What a laugh this is, camp as a row of tents but with a real aggressive edge. The man was a legend.
The Thompson Twins look and sound like weak tea after that, though to be fair we're not getting the full video, but it is morose.
Then a gun-toting Frankie still riding high, still with the rather basic mix you don't hear on the radio. Shannon to end on for the crowd to dance to, Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel passed over again! We can have all those songs about nuclear war but not an anti-drugs one?
hosts: pp seemed to go totally blank on the billy idol introduction - maybe the sneering one had intimidated him in the studio beforehand?
ReplyDeletemighty wah: maybe the shy and retiring mr wylie was inspired to keep tinkering with the name of his band (wah, wah heat) as he was a fan/mate of late 70's punk guy spizz who did likewise? i agree with john that this is far preferable to "the story of the blues" as his vocals are not so strained this time, but it's a still a bit retro-soul for my liking. there is an amusing bit where an duane eddy twang kicks in, but as pete has slung his guitar around his back the camera has to focus on the bass. and i don't know if the lady giving it all she's got (not!) was one of those dogs an the show a few weeks earlier with dead or alive, but certainly pete is prettier!
billy idol: he was on the show as a non-performing guest a couple of weeks earlier saying he'd returned to "rock n roll". but apart from the bit in the middle it sounds more like synth pop to me. as such it's not that bad, although the tune seems to get somewhat repetitive very quickly. by the way, paul anka did an excellent lounge version of this on his "rock swings" album a few years back
kane gang: the singers had the voices for the job, but visually it didn't help that one of them was a slaphead and the other a lookalike for the diminutive fantasist/mummy's boy frankie abbott from "please sir!". the music's quite decent as a piece of blue-eyed soul, but i preferred the harder "woo gary davies" - sorry, "small town creed". is this the first appearance of a melodica on the show since the hazy haysi fantayzee guy blew on one?
blancmange: hardly abba's finest moment. and as their ashes were barely cold, aren't neil and his chum jumping the gun a bit with regard to the postmodern revisionism? right at the end the ubiquitous dick cuthell suddenly pops up from nowhere with his trumpet (or was it a flugelhorn?) to inject a little bit of life into proceedings , but sadly it's too brief (in terms of length it makes the sax solo in "walk on the wild side" seem like the guitar solos in "free bird") and too late by then anyway
divine: this hi-nrg on autopilot was actually written by geoff deane, who was familar to viewers a couple of years earlier as the spivvy original singer of modern romance (i would have got there with this before julie had my internet connection not gone down!). and later he wrote the screenplay for the film "kinky boots", which suggests he may have had a fascination for transgenderism. sadly divine (previously best-known for supposedly eating actual dog shit in one of john waters' cult films) does that minority no favours whatsoever with a look that's somewhere between post-sex-kitten diana dors, clown and gross (and a voice that sounds not unlike arthur mullard). but despite his girth he quite daintily flicks away away a balloon at one point
It was indeed a trumpet that Dick Cuthell played during his cameo appearance; the flugelhorn has a wider bore, and a more mellow sound.
DeleteHot Chocolate's 'What Kinda Boy You're Looking For (Girl)' had featured a melodica the previous year.
I've just listened to Paul Anka's cover of 'Eyes Without A Face'. All I can say is: how the mighty lyricist of 'My Way' has fallen. Billy's original waxing was a sensible move into more melodic, thoughtful composition; like Paul Weller, The Clash and The Stranglers, the former Generation X leader became much more accessible in the post-punk era.
Ah, the flugelhorn. Donald Byrd. Nice!
DeleteI think Divine's last appearance in the charts was as a dialogue sample on The Avalanches' 1999 hit Frontier Psychiatrist. There's a bit at the start from Polyester.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know they'd sampled Divine, but why not they sampled literally everyone else. The writing credits for The Avalanches album takes up the whole of the inside cover of the CD.
DeleteThey spent almost two decades promising a follow-up, and when it finally arrived everyone had lost interest. Fickle public!
DeleteI don't know about that, I would suggest that the follow-up simply wasn't anywhere near as good. The first half has its moments, but it peters out very rapidly. The debut album, on the other hand, is one of my favourites to this day.
DeleteAh this show had something that I was really looking forward to….
ReplyDeleteMighty Wah! – Come back – Don’t remember this but it’s OK.
Prince – When Doves Cry – Still sounds good after all these years.
Billy Idol – Eyes without a Face – Billy never looks very happy with his sneering, delivery but the sound is much better than we’ve heard from him before. Had a preview of this on the JK slot a few weeks ago and it obviously helped.
Kane Gang – The closest thing to Heaven – Another one I don’t recall. Pleasant without setting things alight. Now I do really like ‘The closest thing to Crazy’…
Blancmange – The Day before you came – This is the one I’d been waiting for! Great song and great cover. So unexpected when it was released but they’ve really done it justice. Love the lead singer’s big grin at the end and the substitution of ‘Barbara Cartland’ for ‘Marilyn French’ in the lyrics. Blancmange were great.
Divine – You think you’re a man – Was this meant to be taken seriously? FF
Thompson Twins – Sister of Mercy – Shorn of its slow moody intro it’s probably even less appealing. Not their best video either.
Frankie – Two Tribes – Next
Shannon – Sweet somebody – FF
Quick ending for me then.
Blancmange were great, almost a blueprint for The Pet Shop Boys who stole their act. I love the fact that they weren't taking it too seriously, with Neil punching balloons away and camping it up at the end, This his deserved to be a bigger hit.
DeleteThe Kane Gang was for me the highlight of the show by a distance. It's not often you see a Geordie band in the music industry, and boy did they stand out from the rest this week with a song that was THE sound of the summer of '84, along with Two Tribes now 6 weeks at No.1.
ReplyDeleteThe Thompson Twins were a welcome addition to the show, and a pity that TOTP went straight into the second verse, and clipped out the start of the song. I'll have to watch the full video to see what I missed!
Spoiler alert, Dory. There's a five second clip of a stabbed chap with blood seeping out starting 1:45 into the video, way before which we've seen the hilarious sight of Alannah and Joe miming flutes to a synth part.
DeleteDickie and Hey Wow Powell lacked chemistry, and the mugshots lacked a Bluebell.
ReplyDeleteBest song for starters. The Mighty Wah! were shouty, soulful and superb. The stick thin female vocalist was both cool and hard, but the bassist needed a wedgie for arseing about too much.
Prince. Hmm. If you want a proper song about birds, I recommend John Shuttleworth’s “Pigeons in Flight”.
Did Pete forget Billy Idol’s song title? This was “Song Without A Chorus” with an incredibly slappable singer.
Here comes Kitchenware Records’ biggest artistes after Prefab Sprout. That’s it, big yourself up, Dickie! Did it include the second melodica on the show after The Mighty Wah! ? Why isn’t / wasn’t this lovely slab of mellow deservedly played on Magic, Heart etc.?
One of Abba’s worst songs in my opinion, not aided by Blancmange’s efforts.
Divine? Do you really think so? That Mari Wilson’s put some weight on!
It’s the kinky Milk Tray Men at number one. Nice handcuffs, Paul!
I used to think that Billy Idol was singing "How's About A Fish?" instead of "Eyes Without A Face"
ReplyDeleteperhaps echo & the bunnymen were listening to billy's record and heard it the same way?
DeleteThis was one of the best shows for ages with a lot of brilliant songs and a great live atmosphere. Even PP seemed less annoying than usual. And a lot of long songs as well, Billy Idol being the longest at over 4 minutes.
ReplyDeleteThe Mighty Wah, great to finally see them on the show proper. A fine performance beautifully mimed and I loved the strings being mimed as well. Nice to see ex-Teardrop Explodes drummer Gary Dwyer earing a crust again.
Prince - the video we all remember and love and in Lenny Henry's case took the piss out of. I liked this a lot at the time although never got round to seeing Purples Rain until it was on TV much later.
Billy Idol is so bad it's good, not the song which is brilliant, but the performance. Billy can't mime for toffee but has has inherited Cliff's lip curl big time, has his own ice cool blonde female backing vocalist (like Pete did in Wah), and his own freaky guitarist (like Bowie did with Mick Ronson).
The Kane Gang were nothing to look at but what a song. One of my fave singles of the year. I also bought the album and enjoyed the singles on it and the final track Crease In His Hat. There's a great video for Closest Thing To Heaven as well with the band performing intercut with a young couple at a funfair.
I quite liked the ABBA version of The Day Before You Came but liked the Blancmange cover even more and particularly because the first time I heard this it was the day I met my partner on 17 July 1984 (two days before this show) and we've been together ever since. So I have a soft spot for this song.
I first heard Divine sing (okay, shout) on a 12 inch called Love Reaction which had a backing nicked from Blue Monday (or was it the other way round?), this is still very funny to see all these years later and it's a good song with a memorable message. And I never thought we'd see Divine in the flesh but there she was. Giving it large (literally).
The Thompson Twins song is a bit disappointing compared to previous singles but not bad, and great to see the video or at least the bit they decided to show.
Frankie offer another new performance this time with the band dressed as extras from a James Bond movie and with the shooters to prove it.
Play out with Shannon, nothing special compared to her previous hits, but an okay dance track as the cheerleaders prove.
Just watched the video of The Kane Gang, as it wasn't shown on TOTP in favour of two studio performances, and it was nice to see the lonely boy and lonely girl finally getting together on the joyride at the funfair at the end of the video.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qTPj-pDmQ
I have never seen this video before, and I'm sure it wasn't shown on tv at the time, as The Kane Gang took up every opportunity to appear on the BBC & ITV shows as required.
Interesting that the lead singer wore the same cap/hat on the video and in the studio performances. It begs the question of was this another Elton John style of being embarrassed of being bald and had to conceal it somehow, in the days before you could put a new head of hair on permanently without anyone noticing it.
Divine's erstwhile co-star Edith Massey (the Egg Lady from Pink Flamingos) released a record too, her single was called Punks, Get Off the Grass. If anything, she was an even worse singer than Divine, but she made up for it in enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to say, I loved the way Pete Wylie doffed his hat lyrically to two number one songs emanating from his beloved Liverpool - the "yeah yeah yeah" lift from "She Loves You" and a namecheck for Gerry and the Pacemakers' "You'll Never Walk Alone".
ReplyDeleteThis one was a mostly good effort, certainly the first half featured nothing that needed skipping.
ReplyDeleteMighty Wah! - A very under-rated tune for sure, but those of us who've been around since the start may recall a discussion when Carl Douglas appeared doing the rather brilliant 'Run Back' about how similar the melody is to this. At the time we no doubt never expected to still be watching these repeats!
Billy Idol - I thought the gurning was hilarious, and was quite disappointed that his mugshot picture was comparatively restrained. A really good song that I didn't know at the time as I'd pretty much given up on music at this point....
The Kane Gang - Which meant that I also missed out on this rather fine tune. Unlike many of their more famous 80s peers, the band are very active on Twitter and often like & retweet posts that mention them.
Blancmange - They've definitely speeded up the backing for the studio performance, presumably in an effort to get as much of it on as possible. I rather like both versions, and this is a fun performance by the duo.
Divine - Amusing for about a minute, then that was enough for me.
I refreshed my memory for Run Back on YT just there, expecting to be a little sceptical - but nope, they are very similar, in the chorus anyway. Both great records, nevertheless.
DeleteNow this this was more like it. Almost every track a corker. :-)
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, weaklest track was Billy Idol. I thought I knew the song very well, but was disappointed how lack lustre it was.
Abba's Day Before You Came is one of my favourite later tracks - i like the way it kind of meanders - and I enjoyed the Blancmange rendition.
I loved the old high energy songs. I had a lodger who used to go to the gay clubs, and would introduce me to many a good track. Some like this, made it mainstream, others never did (Take a step forward "Don't Talk To Strangers"...)