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

was the Tina Turner in the album of the week slot? so that would've been the album name? (i ffwded through the entire two episodes)

There's a Neil Sedaka performance on a recent repeat which is literally the corniest thing I've ever seen.

How long did this 'new' format of TOTP go on for? I don't have any memory of these presenters or of the show seemingly being broadcast from an echoing aircraft hangar or of the top 40 countdown being replaced by a cursory 'here's the top ten' right at the start of the program, but I started university at pretty much the exact time the format changed (and didn't have a TV there so didn't see anything for the rest of 1991 as far as I know).

Intro sequence must have been the inspiration for the gay steel mill from The Simpsons

jfc I did not need to see up Axl Rose's kilt just then

We take it for granted now but that really was an inspired choice of cover song for them.

Moving on, this dirge is from Diana Ross' FIFTY EIGHTH album.

I imagine there's a song exactly like this on at least half of them.

"Here's a man who celebrates every Christmas by having a big big hit, Cliff Richard" - epic potential for lols wasted there.

Bob Marley

Christmas Day 1991 - I likely didn't see this at the time as it was on at 2pm and my family were likely chowing down on Christmas comestibles.

some of these flashbacks feel like AGES ago, but can be 6 months tops

For some unknown reasons tonight's episode is a re-rerun of the 1984 Christmas Day show. So we're spared a week of crap junior Radio 1 DJs spouting nonsense.

Holy shit the bit in the video for 'Go Go' where George jumps into the frame and then Andrew does right afterwards is joyous.

the '84 Christmas show with them all announcing each other and then all joining up for the finale is a bit of a classic.

'88 next week

Looks like the rest of the month is Christmas TOTP reruns.

and we got to Xmas with the reruns anyway so they'll be in sync when they restart (for a while)

Are they ever going to do a 1991 show like they did for all the other years?

Bruno 'Tory' Brookes is appearing in panto as Jim Davison.

88 and 89 Christmas shows were full of SAW stuff and i ffwded through them in about 5 minutes each

I watched Erasure on last night's episode then skipped the rest.

I've said it before but 89-91 might be my favourite musical period, just not this.

Me and my partner unanimously switched over the THIRD time J-Don appeared.

I posted this on the favourite mixes of 2021 thread

https://soundcloud.com/sorry-records/sorrymix10

The night before the club's final morning, longtime resident boxofbox took the decks one last time; delivering a six hour set that stretched well into the morning hours, going a full two hours past the city’s legal closing time, and playing record after record to deliver their final love letter to the sweat-packed floor of revelers that called the club home. Thought to be lost to time -- a new trove of DAT tapes containing the complete soundboard recording of that legendary night were recently unearthed from a box found deep within a storage closet in the long dilapidated and recently shuttered subway station record shop MTA TRAX which operated on the Northeast side of Times Square - 42nd St. station for the better part of the last forty odd years. boxofbox’s DATs contain a tracklist that is simply stacked with some of the greatest dance hits from the era, where radio-candied pop hits meshed with sultry rnb and the emergent sound of new jack swing, as well as some early signals of the rave era to come as it was taking shape.

basically a six hour mix of crossover dance music from the late 80s/early 90s, it aligns perfectly with the good stuff (or at least, what I think has been the good stuff) on TOTP repeats lately

Nice, thanks :)

Been enjoying this Boxedjoy, as far as I can see this club never existed, but a great concept and a great mix of some amazing tracks. Before the penny dropped this wasn’t quite as in seemed I was absolutely in awe of some of the drops and blends on a live mix.

I guess why I was so sold on this mix was remembering dancing to so many of these tracks at the first clubs I started going to with my fake ID :)

Hmm, Noel does his last totp from an office, for the Xmas 78 special

Darts, then Boney M, then Brotherhood of Man, then the Brighouse and Rastrick brass band?

This is why punk had to happen...

Oh, wait

was this the one done whilst strike was on? ie was clips ratther than all live?

(my pvr doesn't like recording things over the 19:00 channel changeover, i get sound but no video, so i've missed the start of some of these)

I don't think so, but I know what you mean.

Den Hegarty was still in The Darts when "Boy from New York city" was a hit, but here it's the new guy doing the bass notes

"Boy from New York city" was my "anarchy I

"Boy from New York City" was my "Anarchy In The UK".

Nee to watch this

need. this phone....!!!

Darts were way worse than i had envisaged. Still marginally better than Showaddywaddy.

in 1978 i liked Love Don't Live Here Anymore the least. in 2021 i enjoyed it the most.

Wikipedia says -

"Love Don't Live Here Anymore" incorporated the use of the Electronic LinnDrum machine, and was one of the first songs to effectively use the sound reverbs of the instrument.

shurely shome mishtake.

must mean syndrum.

LinnDrumm, syndrum, Quality Street

i boycott Nestlé Confectionery.

caught the repeat. so much dancing to travolta films.

very mixed bag as mentioned above

> Darts, then Boney M, then Brotherhood of Man, then the Brighouse and Rastrick brass band?

smurfs too. the darts has actually grown on me, i wonder if two-tone took any inspiration from that performance? but, yeah, the whole show is like punk never happened.

Oh, I was meaning the descending quality of the show. Darts OK, BoneyM was alrightish (rasputin), then....

...two more boneyMs

the abba in the middle looked effortlessly cool somehow. we aren't even trying and yet the result is this.

Rasputin is the only one i loved then that i still love and hearing The Floral Dance again induced some mild trauma.

Where was Dreadlock Holiday?

Christmas 1998 starting now.

...and it honestly could have stopped a minute later.

I'm honestly not nostalgic for the late 90s at all.

Christmas 2002 on now. Better, but cut from the same cloth. The presenting style has gone from 'CBBC street' to 'early evening BBC1 street'. Liberty X clearly not making much of an effort here.

missed 98 but 2002 looked like tiktok, seemed to be about dance routines more than anything. and the blokes looked like they were all from the pages of Lisa Simpson's "non-threatening boys" magazine.

"this was originally a hit for blondie", er, no.

This year's Christmas programme is on now, and is even more tiktok/insta. It's a bad sign when you need to have Clara Amfo and Jordan North talking over the top of the songs telling you why you should give two shits about any of it.

The 2002 edition reminded me what an incredible time for pop music it was, although the Girls Aloud performance showed they took a bit of time to become the force they were.

This year's edition just showed me they can only persuade a limited amount of stage-school performers onto the show.

An incredible time with possibly the worst configuration of TOTP. The enormous wide stage with the video wall in the back, the backing dancers there to fill in the gaps, everything overlit, the weird backstage 'diner' or whatever it was supposed to be, the terrible presenters.

So for whatever reason this year's New Year Special was on BBC1 at 4:15pm, while 2014's New Year's Eve programme is being repeated tonight on BBC4 at 7pm. I'll watch the latter - it'll be the most recent TOTP repeat I'll have seen. How much difference between 2014 and today? Not much, I predict.