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

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"

John Barnes' rap in 'World In Motion' is somehow always worse than I remember.

John Barnes' rap in 'World In Motion' is somehow always worse than I remember.

John Barnes's rap in World In Motion is brilliant, what are you talking about?

definitely more brilliant than Keith Allen posing about in the video

Yeah, that's the only sour note for me in the whole project. Fuck off Keith.

Keith wrote the rap, you have to accept one if you love the other

and it was meant to be a mix of all the team's individual takes, but Barnes' was the only slightly competent one

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?

dunno what the song was in this instance, but Beats International's second single was a cover of Norman Cook's first solo single, which had originally featured Sir William Of Bragg on vocals

I've always found World In Motion and New Order in general aside from Blue Monday obviously to be wildly overrated.

Keith Allen is actually Welsh too.

bun de witch

1995 looks like another world, compared to 90.

Jack Dee and Bjork are one for the photos of people you don't expect to see together thread.

Lol at scatman John.

And o_O at Michael j's Christmas message video. So pale he looked 2d.

Barnes' was the only slightly competent one

His timing is so off it's like he's reading the words off a card next to the camera.

Jack Dee and Bjork

Somehow the most 1995 combination of presenters.

Britpop year. Mike Flowers Pops Christmas number one with a comedy oasis cover.

Whole show very glitzy somehow, like camera or lighting technology had evolved.

the World In Motion B-side contains a snippet of the best edited-together version they could manage (timed link)

I had completely and utterly forgotten the existence of Mike Flowers.

Lucky you.

Britpop year. Mike Flowers Pops Christmas number one with a comedy oasis cover.

The previous world Cup, I saw the http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg during their residency at the MeanFiddler. They had a comedy night, Keith Allen was basically slagging off England as a football team (Atilla the Stockbroker disagreed and they had a bet on)

Anyway, four years later Keith is writing the song that bigs up the national team. Funny that.

Oh, is the cat still depping for the Red skins?

OK

How many of the players were still in the team?

What's this 1995 business?

Keith also had a hand on Vindaloo iirc

(It was 1995 night on bbc4 and they showed Xmas totp)

Could've sworn he said MFP was Christmas number one, they closed the show with it (unless they'd already played the real #1)

They had played MJ twice, both with his sister and solo (and played the aforementioned creepy video message), so maybe they back-announced that as the Xmas number one and then rounded off with wonder wall. Wasn't paying too much attention at that point tbh.

Keith also had a hand on Vindaloo iirc

He was 1/3 of the band and the lead singer on three of their four singles. He also co-wrote and sang on Black Grape's football record England's Irie, which led to Joe Strummer's only appearance on Top Of The Pops, still drunk/etc from going out after rehearsal the night before.

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