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

*kudos

According to Bill Drummond's intro to the reprint of 'The Manual', Edelweiss followed the instructions in the book to get this hit.

and it's godawful. looks like the skits they do on red bull soap box races.

Somehow that tie doesn't suit Freddie Mercury at all. A couple of fairly duff episodes in a row, but IIRC 1989 was like that generally.

Stefan Dennis' 'Don't It Make You Feel' is the worst Neighbours related single and in some sense simultaeously the best, because it's so brazen in it's awfulness.

Haven't seen the latest ones yet, but feel like taking a few minutes off from coronavirus-gloom to talk about last week's ones. As I've said before, I scarcely saw any TOTP in 1989 so these repeats are filling in gaps for me. I bought 'Rok Da House' by Beatmasters/Cookie Crew in early '88 and until the last few weeks assumed it was a one-hit-wonder for both groups, so it's been a pleasant surprise to see both of them had more chart success the following year. I knew the Beatmasters one, just didn't know it was by them (and was convinced as a 15-year-old that it went 'Wolves in the house!'). 'Eternal Flame' is a guilty pleasure of mine. Whenever I hear it, I'm transported back to that weird period where secondary school has kind of half-finished but not completely - all the 16-year-olds who weren't going to college fucked off at Easter and those of us who were left had two or three weeks of cramming before the GCSE exams started.

Yeah that Edelweiss thing is horrific.

I quite like "eternal flame" now but it was bloody EVERYWHERE at the time

I'll see your Stefan Denis and raise you the theme to cell block h.

Acapella thing was on twice yesterday, hadn't heard it before.

Aside from those, there's a lot in the chart that you still hear, usually on radio 2.

Wow, this (terrible) Live Report song I am hearing for the first time here, apparently came 2nd in Eurovision with 130 points… amazing how the UK’s popularity has fallen so much.

Never heard that Stefan Denis thing before. It was a special kind of awful, but I think the London Boys one a week or two before was possibly worse.

As a bit of a connoisseur of Hi-NRG I enjoyed that one.

Yes the Stefan Denis song is admirably terrible.

I was surprised by that London Boys track in that it seemed like the kind of thing that would've gotten some meme revival or brought up more in lol 80's discussions so I googled them and, well, that explained that.

Come on, Requiem is a masterpiece compared to Stefan Denis

You are referring to their untimely deaths in a car accident?

Didn't know that, blimey.

'I Drove All Night' - I always thought the line was "crapped in your room".

"Is that alright?"

the Beautiful South doing that "I love you from the bottom of my pencil case" song

'Song For Whoever' - this song illustrates my general problem with The Beautiful South, in that lyrically they frequently risk sounding like they think they're being clever in self-congratulatory way.

How do you distinguish between a songwriter who sounds like they think they're being clever, and one who sounds like they are clever? "Song For Whoever" is fantastic.

Or a songwriter who is clever even though they don't (immediately) sound like they are? It's not that 'Song For Whoever' isn't a great song, because it is. It's that I can see the scaffolding, and for me at least that's a bit distracting. Soft Cell's 'Say Hello Wave Goodbye' (similar in that the character singing the song is a shithead) works better for me because the writing is less noticeable, even though all lyrics are written. I prefer the lyrics of Duran Duran as they are clever even though they frequently sound stupid. Compared to Spandau Ballet, where the lyrics are obviously written. I guess I like songs best when the lyrics don't sound like they were written, which is ridiculous.

Urgh I hate the Beautiful South. Clever lyrics sure, but so musically beige.

lol Simon Parkin

Way too much Bono these past two episodes.

Yes, the Clannad thing is rubbish. I only know them from Robin of Sherwood.

Back to Life though - what a fucking tune to this day.

Goes without saying, but watching old ToTP generally demonstates that the songs that endure do so for reason.

"back to life, back to reality" - if only eh!

Goes without saying, but watching old ToTP generally demonstates that the songs that endure do so for reason.

Absolutely. Also noticeable just how much doesn't endure or even exist as a bad memory despite being ubiquitous at the time. Before all these reruns I would have guessed Kim Wilde had had about three or four hits, but she seems to be on TOTP every week. As for Shakin' Stevens, he seems to have had dozens, but does anyone actually remember them? I'd have been able to name This Old House, Green Door and that Christmas one and then I'd have been struggling.

I totally thought Living In A Box were a one hit wonder but they're showing up quite regularly too!

Shakin Steven's career is baffling. Did people not have access to Elvis albums in the 80's or something?

Shows the persistence of nostalgia for 50s rock and roll, which started some time in the early 70s and died out - well, his last Top 10 hit was 1987.

Yeah, 50's nostalgia had almost as good a run as 80's nostalgia afaict.

tbf the Shakey, he'd been around for a long time doing rock and roll before he had any sort of commercial success.

Shakey does CCR!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLUoPjL6DK4

i barely recognised paul heaton in the last episode - he scrubs up well.

Waterfront's 'Cry' - what if Bros weren't wankers but were bland instead? Although they do predict that boring kind of early 90s boyband sound.

Fun fact: Shakin Stevens was managed by liquid d&b top bloke High Contrast's dad

London Boys ;_;

Ephraim, Fuller and Ephraim's wife all died in a car accident on 21 January 1996. They were travelling in the Austrian Alps on a mountain road on their way to a skiing holiday and along the route, met a car driven by an inebriated driver who was trying to pass on the opposite side of the road. The Swiss driver had reportedly been overtaking other cars in dangerous places along the road for a couple of miles beforehand, in bad weather conditions, and he hit their car head on. Fuller, Ephraim, Ephraim's German wife Bettina, a Hamburg DJ (who was their mutual friend) and the Swiss driver all died in the accident. Ephraim and his wife left behind a son, Stevie, who was 3 years old at the time. Fuller had a daughter, Laura, who was 10.[1]

new Radio 1 DJ - don't remember him. Tim Smith apparently. the one last week that looked like Richie Cunningham, i did vaguely remember him.

who is the female guitarist with holly johnson? she's been there on the last 3 totp appearances but doesn't have a credit on the lp, unless her name is brian may, which seems unlikely.

fucking sonia.

don't think i've ever seen the video for voodoo ray before. they've lifted parts of it from len lye.

Wasn't it on one of those NME vhs video comps?

I'm sure I a) saw it before it got on TOTP b) still have that video tape somewhere

This was my final year at university and I'd pretty much weaned myself off chart music by then, and probably had better things to do with my Thursday nights, so I have no memory of these episodes.

What the fuck was that Michael Jackson video?

"Look there's The Incredible Hulk!"

Basically all MJ's LA mates.

neither seen nor heard that norman cook song before.

I don't remember that Eartha Kitt / Bronski Beat song.
Uhgh it's late '89 as evidenced by the sudden chart dominance of Jive Bunny.

The Eartha/Bronski B-side, "My Discarded Men", was fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYjmYRo_0JU

Strong shameless rip-off but fun vibes on that Norman Cook song, and another hip-house track in the same show, one-day that genre will make a glorious comeback!