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

Twitter scuttlebut suggests there’s been no ‘Story of 1990’ filmed yet because Covid.

Can't they just get Stuart Maconie and Paul Morley to talk shit on a Zoom call?

Are they not?

Ah, the thread you can only find by not searching for top or pops...

Anyway, the 1990 documentaries are on next Friday so 1990 episodes should follow.

90 was a good year for indie but I wonder how much of that will make it onto totp, or will it be full of dreck like the last couple?

Maybe it's just nostalgia but I've really really enjoyed the last couple of years of reruns.

Woo! I've been waiting for this.

90 was a good year for indie but I wonder how much of that will make it onto totp, or will it be full of dreck like the last couple?

A bit of both. For every Kinky Afro Groove there'll be a few Turtle Powers.

Thank god - I was getting concerned.

There's a list on Wikipedia but it's per year and not per episode (which avoids spoilers - good) and also says it's incomplete. It looks better but still not great.

If you search Popscene and add the year, you'll get all the episodes

Search on Google, obviously

But spoilers. I'd rather watch them roll out an episode at a time (and then fast forward though them)

There is that.

On the other hand, can I be bothered looking them up? They're kinda now 'I remember them pretty clearly from first time around' nowadays.

Seal came across well. Shaun Ryder looked awful: like Peter Beardsley on smack. Bobby Gillespie looked terrible shuffling around in leather trousers (but nice to see Mark Gardner from Ride pretending to play the keyboards for no particular reason). I like the Monie Love one. Frustrating camerawork for Beats International - just as it got to the 'mm-mm-mmmm-mmm-mmm' bit, they inexplicably cut to a shot of random people on the balcony.

The story of 1990 is a cracker, particularly after such a long wait, and painfully nostalgic for me. What a fascinating year.

Two episodes tonight starting at 7pm.

Story of 1990 was a really good watch: maybe lockdown is affecting my sense of time, but- rather than being nostalgic- 1990 looks more futuristic than any period since. The future looked like it was arriving. Primal Scream come across as hopelessly adrift peddling tired and clapped out old rock cliches amongst a racially diverse day-glo electronic music scene .

Same goes for the Quireboys from tonight's first episode. At the time I thought they were American, but it turns out they where from... Newcastle.

Mis-spelling Megadeth in the chart run down on TOTP is my business... and business is good!!!

The Guy Garvey archive trawl on Sky Arts is all *ITV* archive shows that i've never heard of. Supersonic? some regional shows as well.

it's themed, the clips are partial, and he talks all over it, so it's not great.

David Bowie and Ringo smoking on Russell Harty...

There's loads of great Russell Harty interviews with Marc Bolan, Elton, The Who, etc.

Bruno Brookes saying "sponditious" like someone trying to be cool and failing hard. Also ffs Bruno get rid of that suit, it's the 90s!

don't think i've seen that house of love performance before.

I'd forgotten how prevelent Phil Collins was during the early 90s. Unfortunately there's going to be quite a bit more of him (and fucking Genesis) for the next couple of years of re-runs.

I really like this period of Rod Stewart, but his appearance in the video for 'Downtown Train' (perhaps the most subtle song about a stalker I can think of) is... confusion? Like he's thinking "hang on, here's a video where I'm not drunk, or hungover, or clowning around, what?"

Just caught up on a few of these. That effort from Fish was beyond awful.

That Beloved song was kind of lovably weird despite being basically crap. Conceptually reminded me of Underworld's recent (superior) S.T.A.R., I wonder if there was a long gestating inspiration there.

Beloved made me think of Underworld as well. Odd.

The Brits 1990 megamix, squashed together things that were themselves mostly samples of other things, like War Of The Worlds. Video also included J King handing records to DJs.

Presenter also mentioned two versions of Walk On The Wild Side competing for sales. I guess the other was the original.

Great seing Electribe 101 trending on Twitter.

The Annie nightingale thing on later was much more my thing and I regret not taping them both.

I watched part 2 and have both recorded.

Not seen the "Fairytale in the supermarket" vid before, great. Good to see "Earthbeat" as well.

Yes, those shows had some great clips. Annie Nightingale is kind of underappreciated I feel.

Least convincing performance of the week goes to tmbg.

We're into the indie dance era, I guess, with primal scream and candy flip and orbital (the performance they covered in the documentary)

That'll be the dancer they didn't want on stage. Apart from Orbital and a couple of others, a distinctly underwhelming couple of episodes. A mix of rockers hanging on by their fingernails, SAW produced sausage factory pop, indie/madchester nonsense (Candy Flip - entering the 'BBC won't ban a record or act that references drugs as long as it's not blatant' era), and total egotistical arse (hello The Mission and Bobby Gillespie). My guess is that TMBG were shipped over to England at the last minute without any of their instruments except maybe that lefty Tele. American indie bands of the era seemed to have patented that 'jump around until you run out of breath and then flail your arms about' dance move.

bobby suffered from being the singer of a song with a 2 minute intro, and those leather trousers.

someone on facebook pointed out that it "features Mark Gardener on keyboards during Loaded because TOTP were insistent that Primal Scream had to have a fake keyboard player. However said fake keyboard player had to be a member of the Musician’s Union"

and same someone pointed out that wayne hussey was barefoot because the inspirals had had away with his shoes.

I was taking the piss out of someone at work whose lockdown hair has gone past Flock of Seagulls (a reference he did get) and is now in Mark from Ride territory.

snoball: "You look like Mark from Ride!"
colleague (who is in their late 20s): "Who?"
snoball: "Just google 'Mark from Ride'" *oldening intensifies*

so I was mystified by “tmbg”

The Man Baptised Gerald? (a bit too late, I guess)

The Most Beautiful Girl...? (way too early)

Too Much Business du Gibbon? (clutching at straws here)

had to google it (this was before that follow-up post) - They Might Be Giants it is, perhaps obviously

Least convincing performance of the week goes to tmbg.

But also one of the more entertaining ones.

The UK's 1990 Eurovision entry: no, me neither. I don't remember it at all.

I've always disliked Bowie's 'Fame 90' - the entire song sounds like it's been put through a phase effect pedal.

OK, least effort at miming award goes to disgustingly young Mike Patton.

Good couple of episodes there on the whole, watching the rubbish Quireboys video was a bit of a strain, but Killer still sounds amazing 30 years on, Vogue too.

Couple of classic Creation eps in the charts (and Loaded not far away) and they are still playing Sonia out twice in two weeks.

And the Blues Brothers.

Couple of classic Creation eps in the charts (and Loaded not far away)

I'm still a few weeks behind so haven't caught up with all the episodes yet. Are we talking the Play EP by Ride? I think MBV's Glider EP was just outside the top 40, so I'm not sure what the other one would be.

House of Love were in the 30s. But, thinking about it, it was The Beatles And The Stones though, which was neither Creation nor particularly classic.

And, yes, Play was the other one, although they used one of the track names rather than the EP name on the rundown.

Also odd to see that Candy Flip were blowing away all the other Manchester bands, chart-wise. Hadn't realised how popular that was.

Creation released 6 things in April 1990, so more than one a week. The ride, telescopes and swervedriver were big within my friend-group, the others not so much.

I, perhaps falsely, remember this being a time when there was something of interest out almost everything week, either on Creation or 4ad or Sarah or one of the other indie labels for like months on end, well into 91. But very little of it would've troubled totp.