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

Because, the first one (tonight) is 1976, where we get :

01/04/1976
With Abba, the Brotherhood of Man, the Beatles, Fox, John Miles, Diana Ross and Sailor. (R).

Then after that they are on Thursday night, 7:30pm, and basically are running weekly, each
episode being from (exactly) 35 years ago (near enough)..

Until BBC4 sack it.

Brilliant idea. I can relive my childhood. My earliest musical memories (from pre-school days) are stuff like Abba, The Wurzels, Showaddywaddy and Hot Chocolate.

This docu that's on now makes grim viewing.

The docu made some interesting points, and for all that I'd have loved if they'd started in 1964 (or whenever), 1976 is a good year to kickoff from.

The big point made was that the charts had become a 'variety' show source, as opposed to the 'teen hit parade' of the sixties. So, loads of Mathis, Roussos, BroMan, Abba and Radio DJs having comedy send-up hits.

It'll be like this for a while, but one I do remember being somewhat of a life changing moment was when Eddie and the Hot Rods did "Get out of Denver",and I went straight out and bought the (expensive) ep the next day.

I know, thesedays peopple decry the rods as being "not as seminal as Dr Feelgood", but I saw a repeat on TOTP2 and it was as good as I remembered. So, soon come, that show which showed the juxtaposition of this band against the other acts on that night.

(also, it means that the quality of dodgy Punk TOTP compilation DVDs are going to shoot up. If they get that far, of course)

What tickled me most was the former TOTP producer saying that they didn't get the Pistols on for "Anarchy In The UK" (which peaked at #38) because it didn't chart high enough, very important that we always stuck by the rules etc etc... followed by an April 1976 show featuring two (useless) acts which never charted at all.

The Hot Rods did well to get a TOTP appearance for "Get Out Of Denver", as a) the Live At The Marquee EP peaked at #43 and b) it was the lead track on the B-side.

It was track 2 on the a-side, but yeah.

Also, the funny was having Dave Bartram saying "yeah, a TOTP appearance guaranteed you a top 10 hit" and demonstrating this with a screening of their massive top (fillinasecond) hit "Trocadero"...

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xpost - Aaargh, so it was!

The big point made was that the charts had become a 'variety' show source, as opposed to the 'teen hit parade' of the sixties. So, loads of Mathis, Roussos, BroMan, Abba and Radio DJs having comedy send-up hits.

Am I misunderstanding? cos the 60s had big hits for Ken Dodd, Englebert Humperdinck, the Barron Knights etc etc

Oh sure, but the theory being that those were in the minority, show-content wise.

oh on the show. yeah probly fair enough. chartwise it was variety a-go-go

Yeah, I don't think the point was that the charts had become (more) like a variety show, but that TOTP had.

fuck Noel Edmonds and his 'comedy' links

fuck Noel Edmonds and his 'comedy' links

I know, what a dick. Still we had the Four Seasons doing "Silver Star" this week. Also Eric Carmen's "interview" with Noel Edmonds, where you couldn't hear a word he was saying, don't be shy Eric!

Interviews on TOTP? that's a rarity...

"Inteview" not really the word.

"You wrote a song for Dana didn't you?"
"Mumble mumble mumble"
"What's the best song you've ever written?"
"Mumble mumble mumble All By Myself"
"Well all the best with the new single"
"Mumble"

Don't know what song he wrote for Dana

Oh and Noel was saying what a good album "Eric Carmen" was: a rare display of good taste from Edmonds there!

Noel had to say he liked it cos he didn't want to blow a raspberry.

My god that it horribly formed.

*is*

OK so Google tells me Dana covered "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" from the aforementioned "Eric Carmen" album

Is Dana the one who did some religious kids programme called 'Wake Up Sunday'?

Sounds likely

10CC, "Mandy Fly Me" was on too. Fantastic!

NEdmonds always had his love of singer-songwriters, to be fair.

Big fan of Harry Chapin, yer Edmonds.

Balderdash certainly describes droll Noel's career.

This was easily the most WTF song on this week's show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iISUroWbu2U

I watched last night's 1976 episode, it was amazingly and compellingly bad. Lots of odd-looking folks I've never heard of awkwardly performing novelty songs, and one of Pan's People doing some remarkably gratuitous ass-shaking in the direction of the camera. I need more.

70s was the golden age for ugly blokes, you could still end up in a band on TOTP with groupies galore. Rubettes' (sans caps) song sounded more like the Beatles than the Rutles!

I'm watching this now. LOL at the male members of the Vagabonds miming the female backing vocals. Something massively depressing about second tier disco groups though, like they're trapped in time, it's as if they're composed entirely of all the bits of late 70's disco that don't influence music today.

Shoeless and carrying a walking stick with a bicycle bell on it? Fucking hell, Harpo could teach Lady gaga a thing or two.

Sheer Elegance one of the most misnamed bands ever judging by what they were wearing, the uglyness of the Rubettes & their overcocky drummer, the utter WTFness of Harpo. mandatory viewing from now on!

I'm sure Punk would never of happened if Sky+ would of been available in 1976...ended up fast forwarding most of last night's show...bring back Noosha Fox...become a little obsessed with s-s-single bed...

^^^ same goes for watching it on iPlayer. I don't know if 'compellingly bad' is the term, or just 'bad'.

the uglyness of the Rubettes & their overcocky drummer

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx-aH0oBscw

definitely 'compellingly bad' for me. and Fox lady really reminded me of Alison Goldfrapp which is a Good Thing.

Noosha F missing link between Clare Grogan and Goldfrapp. Love that record.

Ah, been catching up via good old iplayer on the wii.

Old enough to remember these episodes quite clearly in some cases.

Sad that they haven't gone back far enough in time to have Sparks on.

Still, don't recall that Gilbert O'Sullivan song though I must have heard it then.

Oh, last I heard, they are definitely doing this run for a year.

After that? Who knows...

Still, don't recall that Gilbert O'Sullivan song though I must have heard it then.

He was long gone as commercial proposition by 1976. That song sounded like a demo, did artists have to re-record tracks? I know they had to re-record vocals, hence the ubiquity of the Ladybirds. But then other acts obviously just mimed to the record.

They did 'have' to.

A lot of them switched the tapes post-session, apparently.

ooooooo-oooooooooooooh Vienna it's Slik

It's Midge Uuuurrrr...

And Paul knickerless

Jesus Christ, superstar?

DLT looks like Badly Drawn Boy.

This is sooooo much better than last weeks....

Only one novelty act so far.

Shit Brotherhood Of Man are still number one...

...and it honestly could have stopped a minute later.

I'm honestly not nostalgic for the late 90s at all.

Christmas 2002 on now. Better, but cut from the same cloth. The presenting style has gone from 'CBBC street' to 'early evening BBC1 street'. Liberty X clearly not making much of an effort here.

missed 98 but 2002 looked like tiktok, seemed to be about dance routines more than anything. and the blokes looked like they were all from the pages of Lisa Simpson's "non-threatening boys" magazine.

"this was originally a hit for blondie", er, no.

This year's Christmas programme is on now, and is even more tiktok/insta. It's a bad sign when you need to have Clara Amfo and Jordan North talking over the top of the songs telling you why you should give two shits about any of it.

The 2002 edition reminded me what an incredible time for pop music it was, although the Girls Aloud performance showed they took a bit of time to become the force they were.

This year's edition just showed me they can only persuade a limited amount of stage-school performers onto the show.

An incredible time with possibly the worst configuration of TOTP. The enormous wide stage with the video wall in the back, the backing dancers there to fill in the gaps, everything overlit, the weird backstage 'diner' or whatever it was supposed to be, the terrible presenters.

So for whatever reason this year's New Year Special was on BBC1 at 4:15pm, while 2014's New Year's Eve programme is being repeated tonight on BBC4 at 7pm. I'll watch the latter - it'll be the most recent TOTP repeat I'll have seen. How much difference between 2014 and today? Not much, I predict.

in our house we have a Becky Hill sweepstake, how long into the episode will it be before she appears this time?

Not much, I predict.

haha first act is Ed Sheeran

second act - Jess Glynne, who used a transphobic slur on the radio earlier this year
third act - The Vamps (yeah I don't remember either) with a song that uses the chorus of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Cecilia' but substitutes it's own crap verse lyrics
fourth act - Professor Green in the TV studio with the music career no-one cares about in 2021

Remember when seemingly all white UK rappers sounded like this? I honestly didn't think Green looked like that, but that goatee and hair combo makes him look like a weasel.

And now a recap of stuff your local commercial radio station probably still plays on a loop, unless they've been taken over by the Greatest Hits RAdio behemoth.

La Roux dressed as a disinterested David Bowie impersonator by way of Sheena Easton, demonstrating my main problem with 2014 (and frankly a lot of other year's music as well) - I don't know what all this music is supposed to convey, what it represents, what the people behind it are trying to get across, or why I should care about any of it either at the time or seven years later.

It's all very safe and sanitised. There's nothing here that makes me say "what the FUCK is this?!" as my eyes bug out, the way new music should make a 40 year old (as I was at the time) react

Now this is more like it - Carter USM performing 'Rubbish'.

"Blue Pearl are going to melt your boots" - was that actually a phrase people said? I don't recall ever hearing.

Oh look it's Britain's top MAneskin tribute band Queen. In all seriousness, RIP Freddie, the main reason I gave a shit about this band. According to Mick Rock, "Freddie remained a gentleman to the end". BoRhap sums up my feelings about Queen - when they energy, enthusiasm, intelligence, and humour into their music, they were amazing. Without those ingredients, the same band produced songs that were empty scaffolding.

Best episode for ages! Surprisingly early and extremely Bjorky Bjork appearance, Carter being much better than I registered at the time, a glimpse of propa hardcore Prodigy, and a couple of decent dance tunes I have no recollection of. The Blue Pearl thing's pretty naff, but in a fun way.

Senseless Things - not my fave, but early 90s Indy was sooo much better than what it became a few years later.

The hosts remain complete fucking joy vacuums.

Nice to see the current live vocal policy embraced by notorious acoustic folk purists 2 Unlimited.

Shakespeare's Sister to Curtis Steiger - I'm sure that there have been more boner killing transitions in history, but also sure that they can be counted on one (ahem) hand.

When I had long hair it looked like Curtis Steiger's (not by design)

they seem to have gone back to studio vocals though, and they are lower on the mix than usual, or something, harder to make out.

and that must be a re-release of Bohemian Rhapsody, off the back of something? there was something else from Bill and Ted as well

Charity re-issue after Freddie’s death. Also a hit in the US (bigger than in ‘75) later in ‘92 off the back of Wayne’s World.

Solid first episode this week, second not so much. Seem to recall Curtis Stigers LP being released same day as In Ribbons and Everything’s Alright Forever; MM scribe teasing Pale Saints and Boo Radleys in feature about adding CS to their co-headline tour to bring in the punters.

probably a bigger draw than papa sprain

(who, if I remember correctly, were a no-show at the Astoria gig)

boner killing transitions

retro 90s new laddism for the '92 episodes?

Thought these were the most interesting episodes for quite a while. Perhaps the '90s run will be better than I thought.

I went to the Pale Saints & Boo Radleys gig at The Astoria, fwiw. A glum affair - the venue felt half empty (or at least that's how I remember it) and both groups seemed to be on the way out, plus it was the evening after John Major's Tories had unexpectedly won the election so everyone was miserable. And then we left the gig to find the IRA had blown up The City and there were no trains home.

retro 90s new laddism for the '92 episodes?

Yeah sorry, nostalgia and whiskey is a potent combination.

Tonight’s episode is peak ponytail & bomber jacket rave PA era. Love the MSP going all out with the explosions as well.

Best episode for ages! Surprisingly early and extremely Bjorky Bjork appearance

I say ouch! This really hurts

That Manics appearance seemed to mark a negative turning point in home grown guitar music, a self-regarding consciousness of their relationship to the canon or whatever as opposed to playful embracing new trends and sounds, as Carter and Senseless Things were doing mere episodes earlier.

Ride were far and away my favourite group back then, so it was nice to finally see the (extremely abbreviated) performance of Leave Them All Behind (featuring Andy Bell not even vaguely pretending to play his guitar). I'm pretty sure I didn't see it at the time as I was at university without a TV, but I have a vague memory of seeing The Wedding Present (Blue Eyes) and The Beautiful South (Old Red Eyes Is Back) on TOTP in someone else's room around this time. I've just been googling this to see if it was true, and it was one of the ones they aren't showing (16th January). They also didn't show this one with Bobby Gillespie's one-legged dance routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olvh7x3PtsA

Why not? Surely all the paedos went by then? I've been waiting for The Hit Parade year damnit.

one of the presenters has opted out, was mentioned upthread.

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

Right. Thanks. That's disappointing.

Some of those will be on Youtube I imagine? Has anyone made a playlist of them?

I actually like Crowded House's 'Weather With You', but coming straight after KLF's 'What Time Is Love?' it's complete mood whiplash.

opus 3 twice. twice too often.

Xpost "it's grim down south!" though!

curious, vaguely, about the bananarama split that led to Shakespeare's sister. musical differences? because there's a dichotomy in ss itself by the sound, it's very much a song of two halves

(can't remember a single other ss track tbh)

You’re History was the earlier hit? But post-Stay, I can’t remember anything.

four lps and 5 (five) compilation lps

(lots of remixes)

Underworld remix of Black Sky is an all-time banger

One of the last things that Billy Mackenzie did was a song with Shakespeare's Sister, can't remember what it's called though