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

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)

Well, looks like Bananarama's metamorphosis into Stock-Aitken-Waterman puppets is now complete. Siobhan looking cool as fuck, but sadly will have fucked off within the year. Stock-Aitken-Waterman's reign of terror on the charts is, of course, just beginning. That Bruce Willis is still sticking around on the chart is fucking confounding.

Humba ma layba a looowwhohhhoohhh...

I don't care who you are, there is no reason for anyone to wear a bass guitar that high. Lower your fucking strap!

Hue & Cry with Another Song About Thatcher(tm), although as 80s songs about Thatcher go, it's pretty good.

pseudosatisfaction, baby

AAAARRRGH KENNY G FUCK OFF! *mute*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH Peter Powell fuck off

oh someone in the audience please jump up and grab that mic wire...

This is funny to watch with the sound off. He looks like he's getting a bit overexcited. The subtitles say "HE PLAYS SOPRANO SAX" ...

... ah, Mel & Kim! *unmute*

What the fuck was that?

overexcited

It's really bad with the sound on.

I take it I made the right call, then!

Wow, 'Catch' sounds really sluggish after 'La Bamba' ...

Los Lobos with that song where you know - or at least think you know - all the words despite not speaking a word of Spanish.

Of course George Michael is the vocalist on this Boogie Box High version of 'Jive Talkin'!

I thought it sounded like him!

I can believe it if it turns out that the vocal was sped up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie_Box_High
lol it is George as well!

Yeah, it sounds to me like it was sped up. A quick Google confirms that GM was unable to be credited for contractual reasons, and that Boogie Box High was GM's cousin!

To think that Smash Hits wrote an "obituary" when Tennant left the mag, only for Tennant to become one of the best things about pop music in '87...

"he'll be back in a year"

Although to be fair to SH, I look more like a pop star than Neil does in this picture:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p01j0ltn.jpg

Thinking back I'm sure that 'Labour Of Love' was one of the songs I had on my yearly 'I'm going on holiday for a week with my tedious family and need solid chart tunes to play incessantly on my Alba "walkman"' mixtape.

Also has Heart's 'Alone' ever been used in a TV advert for a financial services company?

Aha I get it.

Posts ah, but that is what pop stars looked like back then. Elvis Costello, him off The Farmers Boys, Lol Kingmaker, ooh..

Xposts not posts, damn spelling corrector!

Labour of Love is fucking banger.

Sherrick? Yeah I don't remember him either, but I do recall the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFZNPRSmyns

Gary Davies' eye-popping lime green jacket is very 1987, particularly the rolled up sleeves which are p-similar to a jacket young snoball had at the time. Except mine was a far more tasteful black.

Also has Heart's 'Alone' ever been used in a TV advert for a financial services company?
― just another country (snoball)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS_aFMtmT60

Rickrolled by BBC4...

Wax. Because "Gold & Gouldman" sounded too much like a law firm, I assume.