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

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.

I was 16/17 then and certainly bought a lot of stuff on Creation and 4AD then, if not quite every single week.

Don't worry, this is the last time Pat and Mick will be troubling the Top 40.

just morrissey, on a stage, no mic even. surprised they didn't force him to have scantily clad dancer on stage with him.

looking a lot like robbie williams

Was that the one where Stephen Street was hoping he might fulfil his ambition and appear on the show (playing guitar as he did) but Morrissey decided it was going to be him on his own?

Jesus Heartstopping Christ that NKOTB video.

All the great tracks they COULD play from one of my favourite eras (Ghetto Heaven!) and they play Micheal Bolton and NKOTB. That Beats International track is the worst follow up to a great single i've ever heard; genuinely phoned-in lousiness, and it seemed to kill them off forever.

'How Can We Be Lovers' shoots its bolt(on) in the first few seconds by frontloading the chorus and leaves Michael nowhere to go for three minutes.

I can't believe ANYone was still writing those Rocky IV soundtrack type anthems so late in the day!

Gary Davies is ace ..

xxp I don't even remember that Beats International song. I don't think they were expecting 'Dub Be Good TO Me' to be a huge hit and didn't have a follow-up planned? Meanwhile this Thunder song is hard rock by numbers but I don't hate it as they avoid most of the hair metal excesses and cliches that were totally worn out by this point.

Would have gone over a lot better in 1986 though.

record company exec: "So can you guys come up with a single that sounds like that hit you had two years ago? Don't worry if you can't come up with any lyrics, just throw in some Van Morrison street observations and muble the rest."

Bloody hell was 1990 the year of shit singles from acts who'd had a couple of hits at the end of the 80s or something? Sam Brown followed immediately by Paul Young (PS Paul if you're not going to play that guitar why bother with it? Also is that a George Michael wig?).

yeah, charts do seem to be pretty dire at the mo.

looking for more evidence that it WAS a good year for music and my claim above that every week there was something worth buying here are 4ad's releases for 1990

https://4ad.com/releases/filtered/all/1990

and i bought literally all of those (and continued to for about 5 years).

sarah?

Sarah 024 The Field Mice, "The Autumn Store part 1", 1990
Sarah 025 The Field Mice, "The Autumn Store part 2", 1990
Sarah 026 Gentle Despite, "Darkest Blue", 1990
Sarah 027 Brighter, "Noah's Ark", 1990
Sarah 028 Action Painting!, "These Things Happen", 1990
Sarah 029 The Orchids, "Something For The Longing", 1990
Sarah 030 Heavenly, "I Fell In Love Last Night", 1990
Sarah 031 Eternal, "Breathe", 1990
Sarah 032 "Sunstroke" (fanzine), 1990
Sarah 033 The Sea Urchins, "A Morning Odyssey", 1990
Sarah 034 St. Christopher, "Antoinette", 1990
Sarah 035 Another Sunny Day, "Rio", 1990
Sarah 036 The Sweetest Ache, "If I Could Shine", 1990
Sarah 037 Even As We Speak, "Nothing Ever Happens", 1990
Sarah 038 The Field Mice, "So Said Kay", 1990
Sarah 039 The Sweetest Ache, "Tell Me How It Feels", 1990
Sarah 403 St. Christopher, Bacharach, 1990
Sarah 601 The Field Mice, Skywriting, 1990
Sarah 602 The Wake, Make It Loud, 1990
Sarah 376 Temple Cloud, 1990
Sarah 545 Air Balloon Road, 1990

i have all those too.

Jesus Heartstopping Christ that NKOTB video.

― Being cheap is expensive (snoball)

That girl was NOT enjoying herself.

I guess the aim was to pick a girl out of the audience who was so young that there was no possibility at all of NKOTB being accused of creeping on their audience, but given all the shit with Glitter, Savile and others in the intervening years it immediately set the alarm bells ringing.

there was a lot of crap on the second show especially, however we are also in one of the best run of #1 singles ever

Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
Beats International - Dub Be Good to Me
Snap! - The Power
Madonna - Vogue
Adamski - Killer
England New Order - World in Motion

I made a joke about Nicky Campbell on twitter during this show and he started a conversation with me, which was a bit unexpected.

I made a joke about Nicky Campbell on twitter during this show and he started a conversation with me, which was a bit unexpected.

Hah! Amicable? Reminds me of the time I had a twitter row about Brexit with Terry Christian...

Well, as you ask, here is the entire interaction

https://i.imgur.com/AYJeON3.png

Bearing in mind that

* I essentially know nothing about Nicky Campbell except he is a TV presenter
* But looking into it he is apparently one of the top-paid BBC presenters and has 1.2 million Twitter followers
* I was made redundant at the end of last month and feel like my family are really on the verge of disaster, can barely sleep TBH
* Despite 1000+ downloads per episode and lots of nice media coverage, I still only get less than $200 p/m on Patreon
* A minor gig at the BBC would basically save me & my family
* I have absolutely nothing at all in the way of networking skills

What do you reckon I should do here?

I think at least asking if he'd do a tweet about your stuff would be entirely appropriate. I just followed you!

90 minute chrsitmas special opened with genuinely spooky rooling stones video, 2000 light years from home.

but the only other thing worth watching was the Specials doing nothing in their christmas jumpers. everything else was the usual suspects.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b086trr9/top-of-the-pops-christmas-hits

(stones at beginning, specials at 15:40)

oh, i suppose The Shamen get an A for effort at 59:00, given that it's christmas.

a few weeks behind and catching up over the past few days on iPlayer:

- Candy Flip having a maracas player and a tambourine player on stage side-by-side was cracking me up
- what was going on that "Lily Was Here" was such an enduring presence in the chart?
- Jimmy Sommervile might not have the best songs but what an endearingly fun, likeable, charismatic star
- "The Power" is a great single, but in the context of 1990 it sounds even greater - so stark and ominous, so well-assembled and cavernous, even with Turbo B and his two pals mooching around an imaginary triangle outline

I think I've mentioned this before but I think of 1990 as my own "Year Zero" for pop - I was only two years old but a lot of the big stuff from this period is the sound of pop when I was growing up, things like "Love Shack" and "Black Velvet" seem just as essential to me as historical significance as The Beatles and Elvis, and it's great to see them in the context of being contemporary rather than established hits.

> what was going on that "Lily Was Here" was such an enduring presence in the chart?

the answer to this is generally "Radio 2 audience"