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

PSB's 'Always On My Mind' probably my favourite cover version ever, precisely because it doesn't even try to sound like Elvis. SPOILERS it's THIS single that was Christmas #1 in 1987.

Hahaha! 'Children Say When Are Level 42 Gonna Fuck Off'? and the answer is "Not long now"!

You can tell this is still quite early PSB by the lack of outlandish costumes, but above all, the fact that Chris can still be arsed to mime.

I like how Neil was trying hard to look casual but couldn't stop tapping his foot in time to the music.

Ha, you just knew he wanted to cut loose!

Climie Fisher with their other big hit single that isn't 'Love Changes Everything'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9M_bqIB6EU

I'd enjoy this Wham!-on-TOTP programme a heck of a lot more if Mark 'Mark from Mark & Lard' Radcliffe shut the fuck up.

Indeed. Ooh, there's a Kate Bush doc on next!

Loved the 1988 documentary last night which I allowed myself to watch even though I'm a whole year behind on the weekly shows (and had to binge watch a whole load of 1986 ones the other week just to get that close).

Dude from S-Express was the best on that.

Yep. Also good to hear from Coldcut. And Aswad (not that I was a fan, but the first ever gig I went to was a free concert in my town's park by Aswad in the summer of 88). And just a couple of weeks ago I had a conversation where I seemed to be the only person who remembered the Wee Papa Girl Rappers' 'Heat It Up', so it was nice to see it wasn't just a figment of my imagination. I could have done without the reminder of just how much I hated Cliff Richard doing Mistletoe & Wine, though.

I actually turned it off after the acid house/S-Express segment as I was watching the 1.30 edition, was knackered, and didn't think they'd top it. I'll catch up with the end another time, maybe.

even though I'm a whole year behind on the weekly shows (and had to binge watch a whole load of 1986 ones the other week just to get that close).

I admire your meticulousness!

Dude from S-Express was the best on that.

― chap, Saturday, June 8, 2019 10:59 AM (one hour ago)Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, totally!

Fittingly the first TOTP of 1988 is shaping up to be very 1988.

And what could be more 1988 than Terrence Trent D'Arby?
(also LOL at him miming "baby" instead of "lady" in the video)

Must have made quite an impression on 14-year-old me this week's one, as I bought all four singles they had on live in the studio (Krush - House Arrest, Terrence Trent D'Arby - Sign Your Name, Climie Fisher - Rise To The Occasion and...er...Morris Minor & The Majors - Stutter Rap).

Oh, I just love when the remix makes the debut chart entry, and the act have to mimeperform the samples..

When "Injected with a poison" made it on, they had to do the line live for real. It was rub.

lol, so because of Wimbledon tonight's episode of TOTP was first postponed by 15 minutes and then cancelled.

Nothing changes (much)

It's a two-fer tonight starting at 7:30pm unless, I don't know, someone hits/doesn't hit a small yellow ball across a net in a certain way or something.

"Screaming Blue Messiahs I Wanna Be A Flintstone" excuse me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGZenzfg3A0
Yeah me neither. This looks like the kind of thing that Beavis & Butthead would have taken the piss out of for 30 seconds.

Is Gary Davis cosplaying as Columbo?

The exuberance of Billy Ocean's performance really makes 'Get Outta My Dreams' work where in someone else's hands these lyrics could be a bit of a crepe-fest.

Talking of crepe-fest lyrics, here's Was (Not Was) with 'Spy In The House Of Love'.

In French class at school we had to translate the lyrics to Vanessa Paradis' 'Joe le Taxi' and boy is it bobbins.

Line two isn't actually "Mars bar and Soda", is it?

It's "Y marche pas au soda" which Google translates as "Do not walk in soda" which doesn't make any sense, although at the time our class thought it was "mange un soda" / "eats a soda" which started an argument about eating a soda being weird.

I think my version makes more sense: taxi driver grabs a quick snack..

“He doesn’t run on soda.” Just like his car, he needs something stronger (like that rum).

Oh that makes sense.

Meanwhile here's racist piece of shit Morrissey.

Rick Astley is such a bad dancer, it's no surprise they nearly always showed him from the waist up.
Sisters of Mercy's 'Dominion'! They appeared on TOTP in late March 1988.

God. I remember loving that when it came on TOTP. I was 10. Never really embraced Goth after that.

Apart from the Temple Of Love remix. Which rules.

No, it shines like thunder

xp Andrew Eldritch would claim that he never really embraced Goth either...

I wonder if the Sisters and Erasure met in the BBC canteen?

It's easy to feel sorry for the bass player from Bros, but boy (pun not intended) does he look like a complete tool here.

Heart cosplaying as Jem & The Holograms here. Also the de riguer hair-metal-drummer-spins-a-drumstick-at-the-camera-shot.

I liked Patsy Kensit's version of 'I'm Not Scared' at the time, but the PSB version is much much better.

This re-run of a 2001 edition of TOTP2 somehow manages to be more dated in it's presentation that the 1988 TOTP episode that preceded it.

Still playing catch-up here and had a summer of 87 binge tonight. The one from 23 July was an eye-opener: first Boy George appeared to be rapping in an American accent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmmYMFvhFQI but then came possibly the most surreal performance I've seen in all of these reruns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMw_kry75w I can only assume I must have fallen asleep for a week in 1987 because I have no memory of either of these.

(Argh, sorry about the formatting)

I remember that chorus but had completely forgotten that Shaky went through a Hi-NRG phase, I hope he recovered.

Originally recorded by Gary Glitter, which explains the lyrical dodginess...

Scott Fitzgerald with the UK's 1988 Eurovision entry - yeah I don't remember either.

ver Boys score another #1, this time with a song they were going to send to Madonna but didn't because they were worried that she might reject it.

(xp) It did very well!

In 1988, he was the first ever artist chosen by telephone vote to sing the UK's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Go". The song was written and composed by Julie Forsyth, daughter of the entertainer Sir Bruce Forsyth.[4] Forsyth joined Fitzgerald on stage at the contest in Dublin, alongside her husband Dominic Grant (also of Guys 'n' Dolls) and Des Dyer (formerly of Jigsaw), to perform backing vocals. Ronnie Hazlehurst conducted the live orchestration. Fitzgerald came second in the contest, by one point, to Switzerland's winning entry performed by Celine Dion. "Go" reached number 52 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1988.