The Rolling "Top of the Pops" BBC4 Revival thread.

the 1983 show, chock full of quietly brilliant records.

Was gearing up to proclaim that there's an amazing happy hardcore remix of Always, but just listened to it for the first time since 1998 and it's total shite.

I get Always mixed up with all those Aerosmith ones.

who wore it better, Debbie Harry or David Sylvian?

David Sylvian, in that show anyway.

The first 1994 show tonight was one of the dullest in ages, only Whigfield at the end to cheer things up. Second show was a bit better, unfortunately Sting and Take That at the end were both a bit of a damp squib.

Punt and Dennis demonstrating how not funny they are.

The more I think about them the more I realise they're a bit crap. They were the weakest part of The Mary Whitehouse Experience (both the radio series and the TV show), their early evening BBC1 comedy sketch show was crap (Newman & Baddiel In Pieces was far superior), their sitcom was crap (like 'Jim Davison Up The Elephant And Round THe Castle' crap), and their radio show is crap (from the few bits I've heard it's obvious 'oh Boris is a bit of a clown' observations).

Their radio show has been going on for, what, a quarter of a century now? And has never been either funny or insightful.

To be in the worse half of a comedy quartet in which the better half contains David Baddiel takes some doing.

That's you that is

Rob Newman does a lot of heavy lifting.

that boyband with the 9 year old looking kid singing about what kind of girl he wants, I know this is technically no different from the Jackson Five but it felt pretty grotesque

Both of Friday's episodes were great, especially the first.

This week's episodes have a higher than usual number of acts whose subsequent singles don't quite match their earlier ones: Sophie B. Hawkins, Whigfield, PJ & Duncan (sounding like two lads from the Sales team at the company wide Christmas talent show).

I was out last Friday, might go and check them out after these finish.

As an aside this guy's YT channel has a mess of old British telly programs, seemingly in very good quality including a mess of music-related stuff like The Tube, OGWT, TOTP and things like this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C882xK4bcLc

Christmas 1994 episode GO! (I don't remember a thing about it)

If I had watched it at the time, I would certainly have remembered Take That being extremely annoying.

Robbie especially - yeah this is TT's Imperial phase but stop acting like a prize twonk ffs.

hope this means they aren't playing

There was a brief snippet of one of their songs from earlier in the year but otherwise I hope not. Meanwhile Marti Pellow clearly fancies himself here.

This is utterly bizarre - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gZMRB4Aqcg

Amazing find yeah.

winner takes it all video actually a hard watch, given the background

(not exactly a hot take, sorry, but the first time I've seen it in a while)

Does anyone have any idea when the 1995 shows start again?

I'm guessing after the Proms?

there are 4 episodes listed for next friday ('95, '95, '89, '85)

(the non-95 ones are almost certainly better then the 95 ones)

Well maybe. But also much more interesting for me at least.

I mean the 95 ones are more interesting

Bizarre staging decision to have The Human League stand in a line like that.

Green Day - possibly the worst debut TOTP appearance ever? The sound quality is so bad, the soundtrack to you walking away through the crowd to go to the bar for another beer.

This totally unnecessary cover of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' is like being held hostage on a cruise ship.

LEAVE DAME NICKI ALONE 👑

Elton John with the video shoot that he stormed out of in 'Tantrums and Tiaras'.

xps Green Day debuted in Oct or Nov 94 with Welcome to Paradise

Perfecto Allstarz was an honest highlight tonight, I forgot how much I love hearing it. No it's not better than the original but it has favela drums and dancing skeletons

I’m a a week behind, but this 19/1/95 show is almost total wall-to-wall bangers.

Gah, spoke to soon - needed to skip the number one!

It's easy to criticise that particular song, but it's at least interesting to think about. For example, if it hadn't been at number one I suspect you would have been married a long time ago.

It really does make you think now you put it that way :D

I’m now on the most recent show, and in retrospect Alex Party is a top-tier banger. I’ve just read that the production duo were also in Livin' Joy so they had form.

One of 95's many great no. 2s

catching up with the last four episodes and this is getting into serious nostalgia for me - this is the sound of Now 30 aka my first compilation, also the point where I started taping songs off the radio.

- that Deuce song is an absolute banger, they might have been a manufactured pop band but if you'd dressed it up differently it could have passed for something Paul Oakenfold would have done in his peak, and what a strange voice that lead singer has for a pop band. The other girl went on to be a very acclaimed make-up artist and was married to Ant until his life fell apart.

- DAME NICKI. I love that she's made a career last thirty years out of turning up, singing a donked-up version of someone else's song and looking like the divorce hasn't gone too well - a real gay icon.

- I would be very interested to find out if "Geordie In Wonderland" sold anything outside of five miles of Newcastle, what a dreadful song.

- The Human League did "Tell Me When" on loads of shows in that weird one-line staging.There's this video of them doing it on Live & Kicking, which even then must have felt odd. "Dad, why is your favourite band from old times on my Saturday morning kids show?"

- "Hoochie Booty" seems so out of order now. Some pre-teens singing about bums.

- MN8 feel just a little too late and the performances are uncomfortably sexual for a British boyband in way that Americans could have pulled off differently, but the song has two choruses and I'm never sad to hear it.

- Elastica were so fucking cool, both then and now.

- that Vanessa Mae version is not something I can remember from the time and when we were watching it this weekend both me and my boyfriend's eyes nearly fell out our heads at its absurdity.

- fun fact! One of the travesti ballerinas in that Annie Lennox live ("live") performance is also in the video for Alex Party's "Don't Give Me Your Life" - he went on to play a janitor in Benidorm. Why does my mind recognise these people and remember these things? That Alex Party song is a banger. Lennox' version of "No More I Love Yous" is what I would hear at my own torture camp, such a smug and irritating delivery.

- Kylie looked PHENOMENAL in that red PVC dress.

weren't elastica on recently with a different lineup or did i imagine that? male guitar and bass, later replaced by annie and donna.

um, youtube suggests i am wrong. must be thinking of another band.

I was surprised how much I liked the MN8 song now, at the time I don’t think I thought about it at all. You are right that it felt like something from a few years perviously, however what I also got from it was that it was like a rougher proto verison of the sounds that someone Backstreet Boys or N-Sync were using in a few years.

I spent years thinking MN8 were American and that their song was a hit in the US. On Now 31 it appears next to Montell Jordan's This Is How We Do It, which feels correct.

It's actually those two songs that always come to my mind when people talk about what a break from the norm e.g. Pony would be a year later.