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

Still, the current entrant would dream of getting to 96 in the chart

I'd completely forgotten how awesome 'Meet El Presidente' is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6CLWV0JBU4

Tom Jones looking like Gene Simmons taking a dump.

Has any pop star in history had more bad haircuts than Howard Jones?

― Chequers Plays Pop (snoball), Friday, 23 November 2018 19:52 (two months ago)

Chris Waddle?

― the salacious inaudible (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Friday, 23 November 2018 22:50 (two months ago)

'Diamond Lights' is bad but still miles better than Robson & Fucking Jerome.

I bought Meet El Presidente. And Diamonds Lights, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit. Not that I've seen these yet - I'm still working my way through all the 1986 ones I recorded.

snoball hates Johnny Hates Jazz

...although child snoball liked 'Wishing I Was Lucky' by Wet Wet Wet so something something narcissism of small differences something something

Also I really liked Marillon's 'Incommunicado' but holy shit does Fish really look like someone I work with wearing a wig.

From Erasure with 'Victim Of Love' to Victim Of Fashion featuring Gary Davies in one of Jonathan Ross's cast-offs.

Breakdance on the street with Andy Warhol carrying your boombox.

Also "Star Trekkin'" is also the worst #1 for a while.

Soooooooooooo bad that I used 'also' twice in the same sentence. Also (cough) my father had a copy of The Firm's album on cassette. Wikipedia simply lists them as The Firm (novelty band). Even fucking Black Lace don't get called that.

Broken English, tho!

In addition to 'Diamond Lights', I also bought 'Star Trekkin'. I was on a bit of a roll in 1987.

OK so again it's the time where I roll out the story where I was so enamoured with PSB's 'It's A Sin' that I recorded it off the radio again and again until it filled up the entirety of one side of a C90 cassette.

Chris Lowe rocking the PPG Wave 2.3 and Emulator combo. Going from Bruce Willis murdering 'Under the Boardwalk' to this is the very definition of one extreme to the other quality-wise.

Past-their-prime Simple Minds now murdering 'Promised You a Miracle' ... what an awful version. Awful mullet, too.

Seriously now, who the fuck was buying Cliff Richard records in 1987?

"'I Want' from George Michael" ... HA!!

Pet Shop Boys and George Michael basically rescue an otherwise grim Top 10. As for the number one - it took three years to get from 'Relax' to this!?

WTF is with John Farnham's keyboard player?

I'm pretty sure I watched this episode when it was on, at least I remember seeing the Pet Shop Boys doing It's A Sin on TOTP. obviously I would've seen other TOTP before this but we're now getting to the time when I was actually paying attention to it (I was 10 when this first aired). really looking forward to 1988 tbh, house music was my favourite music when I was 12

I remember bits of this one from first time round as well, mainly because I had the 'Lookin' mag with Star Trekkin on the cover and then it was on telly. Super vivid memory considering I was 6.

Probably explains subliminally why I liked hard house for a bit at the end of the next decade too (for shame).

Ben Beret-Voluvent looking like a poor man's Bill Mackenzie, with only a fraction of the talent.

I keep saying this about various singers, but the singer of Black looks like someone I work with wearing a bad wig. Also all of Black's songs kind of sound the same - record company pressure to make every single sound like their first hit?

a-ha with a pretty good Bond theme - video is all edited up to bobbins though.

xxp Ben has that unfortunate thing some pop stars do of wearing the same clothes now that they used to wear when they first became famous.

After all that crap, I'm finding myself wanting to cheer at PSB knocking The Firm off #1...

eep saying this about various singers, but the singer of Black looks like someone I work with wearing a bad wig. Also all of Black's songs kind of sound the same - record company pressure to make every single sound like their first hit?

― just another country (snoball), Thursday, March 21, 2019 12:50 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

black is an artist name

TOTP director and camera operators clearly had no idea how to shoot t'Boys, who resolutely stood completely still rather than jump around all over the stage like basically everyone else.

xp I always thought Black were a band for some reason.
Also, Simon Bates interviewing Genesis is PEAK 1-9-8-7.

Ha, that Genesis interview. Phil looking cream-crackered but still capable of having a laugh, Tony looking as insufferable as ever.

I don't need to see past their prime Simple Minds... *click*...

Jim Kerr showing Bono how to really look and act like a pretentious cock on stage.

While murdering one of their classics! I wish they'd had an argument over musical differences circa Sparkle in the Rain and broke up then.

OK so they can say the full title of George Michael's 'I Want Your Sex' now that it's going down (unintentional pun) the charts?

The 'larking about backstage' video for 'Throwing It All Away' making me wish I was watching a contemporaneous Dire Straits video instead.

I've never heard this Boy George track before - I guess the reason for this is that it has no melody whatsoever...

SOLD! (Sold!)

Always believe in your... hey, wait!

I don't recall this Judy Boucher track. Number two???

Oh, a second hit. Its at no 35.

*groans* Kenny G in the chart rundown...

*cheers& Hue & Cry in the chart rundown...

Sam Fox with a song that's trying so hard to be Laura Brannigan's 'Self Control' but failing.

So lemme see... Hot Chocolate Errol at what must be the tail end of his chart career, Samantha Fox, some awful Marillion at the tail end of Fish's stint, and Shakey clinging on for dear life... happy days!

Ah, this Shaking Stevens song is written by Gary Glitter, let's put the Subtitles on and see what's it about..

... oh!

fucking hell that dance routine...

Holy shit, so it is! Surprised that it wasn't cut from broadcast, in that case. Maybe they were counting on nobody picking up on it, or maybe the BBC themselves didn't.

Anyway, a passable number one, although still not one of Madonna's finest.

A depressing episode, this. No wonder acid house, grunge and Britpop had to happen.

Can it hurry up please?

We had the Jesus and Mary Chain on recently, (or as my mother had it earlier today "That band you like,"Mary and Joseph", you know...") but.

The '80s really was a decade of two halves, wasn't it? Watching these 1987 episodes, it feels like the exciting pop future promised by 1980-1984 just didn't happen and instead we have Curiosity Killed the Cat. The dominance of Stock-Aitken-Waterman and Bros is just around the corner. The shift seems to happen around the time of the Band Aid single, and then after Live Aid pop music seems to go through this weirdly bland period with the occasional act (Prince, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Erasure etc.) brightening things up.

Of course, we all know that lots of great music was put out 1986-1988, but there seems to have been a higher level of crap around too and it feels like the artier end of pop wasn't getting much of a look in anymore. Could something like Japan's 'Ghosts' have become a hit in 1987 like it did in 1981? Somehow I doubt it. The charts had changed and what people were looking for from pop had changed. Sadly.

I think there are some tracks like "Ghosts" which were undeniable, and would have been hits at any time (not now, obv, charts have been successfully narrowcasted)