We Three Kings
25/12/85 (Radio 1 DJs)
King – “Love & Pride”
Sister Sledge – “Frankie” (video clip)
Madonna – “Into The Groove” (video clip)
Colonel Abrams – “Trapped”
Phyllis Nelson – “Move Closer” (clip from 04/04/85)
Midge Ure – “If I Was” (video clip)
Alison Moyet – “That Ole Devil Called Love”
Eurythmics – “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)” (video clip)
Paul Hardcastle – “19” (remix - video clip)
Dead Or Alive – “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)”
Philip Bailey & Phil Collins – “Easy Lover” (video clip)
David Bowie & Mick Jagger – “Dancing In The Street” (video clip)
Baltimora – “Tarzan Boy”
The Crowd – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (video clip)
USA For Africa – “We Are The World” (video clip)
Band Aid – “Do They Know It’s Christmas” (video clip)
Billy Ocean – “Suddenly”
Foreigner – “I Want To Know What Love Is” (video clip)
UB40 & Chrissie Hynde – “I Got You Babe” (video clip)
Feargal Sharkey – “A Good Heart”
Jonathan King – US chart rundown
Madonna – “Crazy For You” (video clip)
Tears For Fears – “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” (video clip)
George Michael – “Careless Whisper” (video clip)
Paul Young – “Everytime You Go Away”
Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson – “I Know Him So Well” (video clip)
Jennifer Rush – “The Power Of Love” (video clip)
Wham! – “I’m Your Man” (video)
Whitney Houston – “Saving All My Love For You” (video)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – “Welcome To The Pleasure Dome” (audience dancing/credits)
Following The Story of 1986, and 1986 Biggest Hits, next up is the edition from 2nd January 1986.
this end-of-year compendium features several turkeys (see below) and plenty more near-misses in that regard. but sadly (and perhaps inevitably) no crackers
ReplyDelete1985 crackers: ("this is not america" by bowie & the pat metheny group would have been in there, had it not been criminally ignored by the show's producers)
bryan adams - run to you
go west - we close our eyes
godley & creme - cry
scritti politti - the word girl
tears for fears - head over heels
jaki graham - round and around
princess - say i'm your number one
bryan ferry - don't stop the dance
grace jones - slave to the rhythm
level 42 - something about you
turkeys:
king - love and pride
ashford & simpson - solid
usa for africa - we are the world
billy ocean - suddenly
sister sledge - frankie
kool & the gang - cherish
denise la salle - my toot toot
jennifer rush - the power of love
eurythmics & aretha franklin - sisters are doin' it for themselves
doug e fresh - the show
The only one of the crackers you have above that I actually like is Head Over Heels by Tears For Fears. However, two turkeys from your list I would actually put in as crackers i.e. Ashford & Simpson, and USA For Africa.
DeleteIn other words, from your 20 tunes above, only 3 crackers, and 17 turkeys! I'll shortly add another 7 crackers for my full list.
OK, here is my top 10 crackers of 1985, in no particular order though:
DeleteHead Over Heels - Tears For Fears
Solid - Ashford & Simpson (rock-solid video)
We Are The World - USA For Africa
Into The Groove - Madonna (awesome video)
You'll Never Walk Alone - The Crowd
Move Closer - Phyllis Nelson
Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Frankie GTH
A Good Heart - Feargal Sharkey
Separate Lives - Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin
Alive & Kicking - Simple Minds
My Top 10 favourites of the year, in no particular order:
DeleteOut in the Fields - Moore/Lynott
Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears
Crazy For You - Madge
Cry - Godley and Creme
Something About You - Level 42
A Good Heart - Feargal Sharkey
You Spin Me Round - Dead or Alive
A View to a Kill - Duran Duran
Slave to the Rhythm - Grace Jones
White Wedding - Billy Idol (though it is 1982, really)
i remember reading giles smith's brilliant autobiography "lost in music" where he said in he didn't like a certain track because somebody he didn't like liked it. i'm thinking along similar lines here in that i'm tempted to remove "head over heels" from my (personal) crackers list, for the singular reason that dory likes it!
Delete1985 Crackers for me in no order:-
Delete1) A good Heart – Feargal Sharkey
2) The Power of Love – Jennifer Rush
3) I know him so well – Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson
4) I want to know what love is – Foreigner
5) Take on me – A-Ha
6) Easy Lover – Phil Collins and Phil Bailey
7) Crazy for you – Madonna
8) Everybody wants to rule the World – Tears for Fears
9) Kayleigh – Marillion
10) Nikita – Elton John
Plenty of turkeys, but I particularly disliked:-
1) Saving all my love for you – Whitney Houston
2) 19 – Paul Hardcastle
3) I got you babe – UB40 & Chrissie Hynde
4) We are the World – USA for Africa
5) There must be an Angel – Eurythmics
6) We don’t need another Hero – Tina Turner
7) My Toot Toot – Denis Lasalle
8) The Show – Doug E Fresh
9) Sisters are doing it for themselves – Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin
10) Body and Soul – Mai Tai
Do we not get the Xmas number one on the Xmas TOTP?
ReplyDeleteNo, we didn't - how strange.
DeleteI did read elsewhere that this show was recorded in November, for some reason, which would explain why Wham and Whitney were introduced vaguely by Janice as the later number 1s of the year, and their duration at the summit was not recorded in the captions. I don't think Shaky formally ascended to the top until Christmas Eve, so too late for the final edit.
DeleteNothing to do with this programme, but Number one record this week had 64,000 downloads. Three Lions had 450,000 downloads and is 24 in the charts due to old songs having a weighting against them. I call that ageism!
ReplyDeleteAn awful lot of videos on the Christmas show, I FF'ed through much of it but got the gist and was impressed at how well it was de-JK-ed so we more or less got the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteBetter than that was The Story of 1986, these docs really are terrific, funny and insightful, so we are in for a year (or 6 months) of novelty records, covers and songs from movies and TV spin-offs. Thought Paul Heaton was v. funny, as was "Doctor", and Corinne Drewery has obviously found her style and stuck with it. Wouldn't have recognised Sarah Jane Morris, though. Loads of great clips here. Sinitta seemed oddly heroic! Never knew Amii Stewart was her auntie. Check it out.
Talking of Corinne Drewery, she and her bloke aka Swing Out Sister released a jazz tinged album last month which certain Jazz FM DJs rate highly.
Deletei got into swing out sister as a result of an acquaintance urging me to go and see a certain ratio perform several times in london in 86/87 - the keyboard player was a member at the time with SOS his sideline project before leaving to focus on that, and ms drewery appeared in their then-latest album guesting on backing vocals. with the possible exception of abc they were the first major synth pop act to look back to a bygone age for inspiration, using john barry and in particular jimmy webb as role models. i thought (and still do to some extent) that much of their debut album "it's better to travel" was excellent, and a shining beacon amongst the mediocrity of late 80's pop - although ms drewery's singing and songwriting style was somewhat one-dimensional a la sade... which makes it quite amazing that they're still active 30 years later (apparently they are big in the far east)
DeleteThe trouble with sticking to her style is that Corinne Drewery is making herself look older than she needs to - perhaps she feels the hair is just too much of a trademark to lose.
Deletei agree john - in my opinion that bob style needs the right kind of face to go with it to make it work i.e. a young, unlined one. but you are probably right in that she feels the professional need to keep it, despite it no longer doing her any favours. i suppose mick jagger, ronnie wood and brian may fall into the same category, but i can't think of any other female pop stars who retain the defining hairstyle from their youth that now looks rather ridiculous perched atop their ageing faces
DeleteThis show was too video-heavy, but at least the studio performances we did get were for some of the better tunes of the year. Generally good presentation too, with Janice & John top of the pile, but Gazza and Dixie both respectable too, the latter earning bonus points for correctly predicting the durability of the Band Aid single; unsurprisingly Santa Wrighty was the weak link, but he didn't appear much. Have to say as well that BBC4 did a good job of editing out JK, despite the Stalinist overtones of it all, particularly in that final link when they cropped the picture to remove most of him from the shot. I notice they still left his name in the credits, though!
ReplyDeleteThe performances themselves didn't particularly stand out, though Paul Young's Country & Western outfit was a bit OTT; Frankie were also a good choice of playout, if not especially Christmassy. Thanks as ever to Angelo for guiding us through another year, and onward to 1986!
Here's a link to the full show, with the JK bits included, thanks to Robert Thompson ~
ReplyDeletehttps://we.tl/kIF3lgrg2P
Brilliant stuff, thanks, I just watched this Channel 5 repeat by the looks of it. Anyway, interesting to note that BBC4 omitted some heavy chunks of the show.
DeleteI also spotted that BBC4 chopped off the last still of The Crowd with You'll Never Walk Alone. On the original 1985 TOTP Xmas show on Robert Thompson's clip, you can see the now disgraced Rolf Harris among the crowd, which now seems to explain why BBC4 only showed 40 seconds of the whole video earlier this year when the June 1985 shows were repeated, and we all thought it was because of the DLT footage, but it seemed to be more because of Rolf Harris!
The other point to note is that BBC4 chopped off the first part of the Frankie GTH playout straight after the intro as you can feel an awkward edit, as well as chopping off the last minute of the playout, so any FGTH fans, best to watch the above edition kindly provided by Angelo.
Thanks to Robert for the unedited version - this should be the last we see of JK, but still plenty more Smitty episode to be skipped over before he finally quits in 1988.
DeleteSo there was another clip of Mike Smith on the Story of ...
ReplyDeleteThe Beeb seem keen to underline that he's not on the banned list like some other djs. But it must be a bit confusing to some viewers who may wonder why his editions never seem to be shown.
surely they are breaking the terms of shitty's contract by showing clips of him in these totp documentaries? in the unlikely event sarah green is reading this: as such i would think you've got every right to sue the arse off the beeb!
DeleteNo, because the contract only applies to repeats of whole shows he was in, not extracts in the news or documentaries.
Deleteif that's the case then it's a bummer. surely they could at least be accused of false representation? in the bits he's in, they should put a disclaimer underneath saying "please note that due to contractual reasons, no shows featuring mike smith will actually be broadcast"
DeleteAngelo may well be correct re the Beeb's motivation for including Smitty clips in each of these docs, but it does feel like they are taunting the viewers a bit each time they do so...
Deleteand what makes it worse is that the shitty no-show is a mess of their own making! but then again, what do you expect when you employ someone because they are your own flesh and blood rather than any good at what they do?
Deletetalking of which: i noticed in the credits that one of those responsible for putting the doc together was called perry bellisario. might he possibly be related to donald of that name, who has churned out loads of american tv crime/adventure series such as "ncis" over the last few decades?
Perry might be a distant relative, but even so it's hard to believe he'd be an editor on BBC 4 music shows rather than an executive producer on some high concept 100 episode USTV behemoth if they were related.
Deletei know it sounds like sour grapes (and it is!) but it always seems far more likely you'll be fortunate enough to work in showbiz if you have a relative already there - i looked him up on wiki, and donald bellisario is a good case in point as no less than five of his seven childen (of which perry is not one btw) somwehow managed to gain employment in various tv series made by bellisarius productions!
DeleteI don't see it as any different from a family business of plumbers where the kids take over from dad (or mum!).
Deletei don't know about you, but i'd much rather be a tv show producer than a plumber any day of the week - even if the last 10 generations of my family were plumbers! i really do despite nepotism in any shape or form - to the point where i think that relatives should be actually banned from following in their forebears' footsteps job-wise, and thus be forced to find their own way (and success or failure accordingly) in life instead. just think: if that was the case, then president trump (whose dad was also a property mogul) almost certainly wouldn't have happened!
Deleteangelo i've just spotted your myrrh-ful caption for this edition (ho ho), and i'd also like to say thanks for hosting the blog for yet another year's worth of totp's
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas wilberforce, and Happy New Year! :-)
DeleteI've now watched The Story of 1986 and Big Hits. The former was wide-ranging and interesting, though the emphasis on it being a bad year for British pop was overdone, particularly by Pete Waterman, who appeared keen to establish a narrative of the native pop scene being a desolate wasteland that SAW would rescue come 1987. Admittedly there may not have been that many exciting new acts around in '86, but there were plenty of veterans (Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Eurythmics) doing very well indeed, and Bananarama (admittedly SAW-produced) managed to score an American number 1! Big Hits was generally a decent representation of the year, but why include The Real Thing when we have already heard that song plenty of times early in this repeat run?
ReplyDeleteEchoing the thanks to Angelo for this fabulous blog.
ReplyDeleteTop Ten songs of the year.. Tough one.
Got down to 20 quite easily but after much deliberation
Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
The Commodores - Night Shift
Katrina and the Waves - Walking On Sunshine
Jennifer Rush - The Power Of Love
Starship - We Built This City
Animotion - Obsesssion
Propaganda - Duel
A-ha - Take In Me
Fergal Sharkey - A Good Heart
Just missing out :
Tears For Fears - Shout, Paul Young - Every Time You Go Away, Phil Collins - Sussudio, Madonna - Into The Groove, Paul Hardcastle - 19, UB40 - Don't Break My Heart, Jagger/Bowie - Dancing In The Street, Red Box - Lean On Me, The Cure - Close To Me, Talking Heads - Road To Nowhere, Bailey/Collins - Easy Lover
And finally my playlist from 1985 via Spotify. Great for a long commuting week on a replacement bus service..
https://open.spotify.com/user/themorg11/playlist/5WU0qMDstyr7ahIRxBGjPt?si=AyHBwOU-S1GhEwmj_ZbdJw
See you all in 1986
Belated comment on this Christmas show from me. I definitely watched it at the time. I’m not covering everything but here’s some thoughts:-
ReplyDeleteThe Crowd – So due to the fact that they’re showing clips they can get away with showing the opening verses of this with Gerry Marsden and the Nolans, plus the musical producer Graham Gouldman. It cuts to the Youessaye for Africa thing which I quickly skipped before bearded wonders who should not be seen appear (Rolf and DLT). Nice to get the start of the song however after the scissor job on the earlier BBC4 shows.
Feargal Sharkey – Damn this is a good record and another good studio showing.
Paul Young – Every time you go away – Despite being a massive hit, this didn’t appear much on the show to my recollection and this is a nice long airing of this great Daryl Hall song. Pino Palladino, whose bass sound dominates the track sadly remains in the shadows throughout.
Jennifer Rush – For the biggest seller of the year we get a very brief clip, but at last they show us the video with the original mix as the soundtrack which to my ears is much better than the heavy drummed remix.
this is nothing to do with this episode, but i have just found out about the death of beefcake actor and singer tab hunter (whose closeted homosexuality was discussed on the blog a few months back, with relation to his film appearances with divine). by spooky coincidence i was watching him as a guest star in an episode of "ellery queen" on dvd only last night!
ReplyDeleteYes, the first show from 1986 airs on BBC4 tonight, a live TOTP with Janice and John on hosting duties, and unusual for a show to go out live with Brian Whitehouse in the director's chair.
ReplyDeleteBBC4HD restoration, with the following added back in from the Five broadcast:
ReplyDelete- The Crowd video restored as originally broadcast
- JK segment added back in
- final link included in full
https://we.tl/EZXJ2emzyq
I realise the Five broadcast was largely complete and therefore there was probably not that much need of a restoration here. But it did have slight edits for commercial breaks, and also the picture quality was slightly better on the recent repeat (at least on the BBC4HD version anyway) so overall it was worth the effort.
Also saw in this one a new BBC4 revisionist trick I haven't seen yet; the last link - apart from being truncated - was also cropped at the left on the section they did keep in, so that JK couldn't be seen (although his voice still spookily remains anyway when they yell "Merry Christmas!")