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

1998 a really awful year for pop.

I don't know what East 17 were trying to do here but they look like they're channelling Madness.

It must be love ..

The 'smoke weed twice a day' crew at university really like Duran Duran's 'Ordinary World' for some reason that I could never figure out. For me the song is an underwhelming attempt at... maturity? reflectiveness? coming to terms with their 80s past? I don't know. But I much prefer the (wild) boys when they're acting like pompous coked up yuppies worrying about their expense accounts and Learjets and Renoirs.

There must be some kind of name for this kind of landfill dance music that consists of one line of vocals repeated over and over again, but it just reminds me of being in a shit-arse Ritzy's nightclub in the early 90s.
I was so focussed on my dislike of Sting at the start of tonight's second show that I completely missed Take That standing right next to him.
I've come to the conclusion that Stereo MCs are the Muse of dance music. Once you've heard three of their songs there's really no need to hear any more, and you can watch a video of either of these bands with the sound off and still know what the song probably sounds like.

C'mon, Ordinary World has such an undeniable chorus.

Ordinary World is amazing when it has a big stadium trance backing and a singer with a pleasant voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA39yqwnX98

Been catching up on a few of these. Pop Will Eat Itself were dreadful.

I've always been well disposed towards them for their Prodigy collab, but yes that song is terrible.

I quite liked it at the time, so it brought back some happy memories of wearing their T-Shirts. I think the remixed single version with slightly more polished singing was better - but I’m not going to dig it out just to proof myself wrong.

There must be some kind of name for this kind of landfill dance music that consists of one line of vocals repeated over and over again, but it just reminds me of being in a shit-arse Ritzy's nightclub in the early 90s.

Which song is this about. I recall their being a Snap one on which I had forgotten about and found myself quite enjoying.

Honestly I can't even remember which song it was I was referring to.

I'm still catching up via iplayer but the last episode I watched felt like a real improvement with The Beloved and M People's best song, not even that weird racist performance from Gloworm or Sting's bizarre hat could spoil it

also, "No Limits" is the first song I remember dancing to as a child in the living room, we're heading into peak nostalgia for me!

Yeah, was really good to see that Beloved song.

What was up with the Gloworm performance?

We missed this in the episode they left out:
https://t.co/Tns0kVSIvW

Favourite part of last night's two episodes - the bit where a freeze frame of Brett from the Suede video s-l-o-w-l-y cross faded into the aerial shot of Miami before the kd Lang performance.

Xpost swines!

it's becoming really obvious where the show's direction is not working. All these respectable acts like Sting, Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry - the only bit of life from the studio audience is when "No Limits" is performed.

What was up with the Gloworm performance?

the costumes and dancing were definitely a bit culture-as-costume

the women playing with ferry looked very familiar but no credits on the single or lp for anybody female

Some real garbage this week. Didn't know and didn't need to know about this Hue & Cry remix of 'Labour Of Love'. Remember when Q magazine offered them £10 to split up?

Only one episode this week and all of it musical wallpaper (oh a song from a VW Golf ad!) until Robin S and 'Show Me Love'. Almost everything else has this 'smug gloss' over the top of it. I can't really explain it, it's like the performers are making the minimum effort while saying "look at how cool I am not caring about this". Even though this episode is from March 1993 these songs feel like they've been lazily put together to be 'summer hits'. Maybe, like punk and grunge before it, Britpop had to happen to get us away from where we'd ended up, and that the actual content of Britpop didn't matter so much as the 'getting away from somewhere' part.

Got to say if I a DJ dropped this Hue and Cry remix while I was on a good pinger I probably wouldn't leave the dancefloor.

Maybe it's just because I was 17 at the time and have rosey nostalgia for this era, but I'm now enjoying Snow - Informer.

More Covid-adled observations may follow as I continue watching the episode.

I don't mind Labour of Love '93, but that functional tinny disco-house sound is the most 1993 thing in existence, and adorning it to an older hit to peddle a greatest hits is also what gave the Doobie Brothers their biggest UK hit later in the year

I used to have this Grid track, quite fond memories of this one too, it had some nice remixes.

More nostalgia via Therapy? being an indie disco staple for a while, but I doubt anyone remembers the Big Country track.

gave the Doobie Brothers their biggest UK hit later in the year

No spoilers 😉

I feel like if they skip episodes because Rold Harris is in them they should skip Right Said Fred ones too.

Apologies - pretty much jumped into this thread without seeing if there was a rule.

The other in the trilogy that comes to mind we've already had, We are Family.

Sorry, to be clear I don’t think there is a rule, I’m just being “very funny” :D

No rules, that's a different website

Only some websites have ominous bunny warrens in the corner, alas

Ah, remember it well...

David Bowie's cover of 'Here Comes The Night' isn't great but it's a lot better than this shouty mess of a version from David Essex.

the casio preset reggae rhythm didn't really do the song any favours either

This Duran Duran song feels like it's 15 minutes long.

ffwd 29 years and they're opening the commonwealth games in clothes designed by stabilo boss...

They just making their marker..

Honestly at the time I wasn't too bothered about Haddaway's 'What Is Love', but it's (rightly) a classic tune when played against some of the other songs these past few episodes.

I'm miles behind, but just binge-watched a load of them tonight and saw the Hue & Cry one everyone was talking about upthread. I bought the original (1987) version and musically this 1993 one isn't too bad, but the fashion sense of the non-singing members of the band was absolutely criminal. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get to see this one, which appears not to have a been as big a hit as I thought it was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQljxfLmcKg

a little bit behind but I loved that performance of "Can You Forgive Her?" and also how everyone currently seems in competition to wear the most ostentatious hats

For some unknown reason, an episode from 1987 is being shown on BBC2 tonight at 10pm.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00029mk

probably because it’s the only episode that features a Queen (Freddie Mercury performs “The Great Pretender”) and a King (Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” is that week’s number one). also, it features Christians.

Should have been the following week, which features Freddie and King too, cus that's the JAMs 1987 episode and I missed it at the time.

The time = 2019

Caught up on a few more last night. Some good nostalgia from my early days of going to clubs (chart-based ones before graduating to 'proper' clubs): Sub Sub, Robin S and Cappella. Also The Bluebells at number one every week: I remember the one where they did the 'techno, techno, techno, techno' bit from There's No Limit, but didn't realise they did a different ad lib every week (culminating in 'there's no business like show business').

Good to see Diane Charlemagne on last night‘s repeat.

Shara Nelson sounded like she had a cold.

wasn't a really good shot of his face but is that still prof cox on keyboards for d:ream, the one with the hair-metal hair?

Yes I think so.

o_____O at Bad Boys Inc's crotch thrusting dance moves. I'd get arrested if I did that. But musically they're harmless, what you'd get if you stuck Jason Donovan and Take That in a cloning machine.
'Mr Vain' is a banger but for me it's mutilated by the memory of a housemate who used to sing it in a tuneless falsetto all the time for several months.