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

not familiar with sisters past floodlands, which i love, but this seems bad...

"we are on the cutting edge of rock and roll, living dangerously. next week, special guest, cilla black..."

That was their final single. But their previous, Temple of Love 1992, was a top three hit and the corresponding early singles/EPs comp was their only top five album. This is all conveniently forgotten now but surreal to think about.

Is this the Will Smith single with the ridiculous arm-wavey dance move? Why yes it is. I recall people having to hold their hands at more of a right angle to avoid smacking other people in the face on the dancefloor.

These two shows were the best since, what, 1990? Earlier?

Maybe not that bad but the most solid back to back shows in a while. I think it's because - at least for my taste - landfill dance is a lot less obnoxious than landfill indie.

These two shows were the best since, what, 1990? Earlier?

My thinking was that these were definitely the best we've had in ages. Not since 1990 but yeah, in the first episode for instance the only song I didn't like was Craven

Think the key thing was the lack of old timers playing their comeback singles and dance remixes of disco hits, that's accounted for half of some of the recent shows.

Ha, my wife and I thought there was a lot of poor stuff in these and we skipped quite a few tracks this week. Maybe Moby just put us in a bad mood – just dreadful in every way. It was good to see Björk and New Order and Radiohead were OK but most of the other good tunes were from videos.

(Moby has done a few alright bits despite being Moby – but not this one)

Thought it was a good Moby, also good to great:

Venus As A Boy
Paying The Price of Love
Boom! Shake The Room
Sometimes
Mr Vain
Ace of Spades

Not that keen on Creep or Go West, but both still way above the recent average, as was the Belinda Carlisle. Show two did tail off in quality towards the end a bit.

It's one of Moby's early best I reckon. Shame they never had him on doing Thousand (shame it was never recognised as an AA).

To I Feel It that is, not Move

Yeah the Moby tune's good!

Also as engaging a 'bloke behind a keyboard' performance I can remember seeing on TOTP.

'Coming up, a MAJOR new talent for the 90s, Bjork!' Tony Dortie OTM for once.

I've tried really hard (OK, not that hard) with New Order, but I just don't like them apart from Blue Monday. Main issue is Bernard Sumner's weedy voice.

Blue Monday is something that has been overplayed for me. rest of substance is ok. anything newer than that i just find meh.

these two episodes had as much ffwd fodder as usual. the last thing that grabbed me was carter despite not liking them at the time. it had proper lyrics, whole sentences, about things.

four episodes next week but i can't tell whether they are the next 4 in sequence or just random episodes.

also noticed that iPlayer has all the Story ofs up to 1999 which i don't remember being on TV

please do not show four '93 episodes at once BBC Four I'm having to share a TV at the moment

the later Storys Ofs were on BBC Two saturday evenings a few months ago

xp first two eps next Friday are from 1993, then one from 1979 and one from 1987.

Lumme

As much as I like Billy Joel, "All About Soul" is fucking garbage.

Sometimes I wonder if the instruments that the acts are miming with are their own or if they're from some BBC Television Centre cupboard. The Shamen rocking a Roland G-707 synth guitar and an Oberheim Four Voice here.

(although the guitar does have a sticker on it protesting against Thorp Nuclear Reporcessing Plant so at least the sticker is The Shamens if not the guitar itself)

i have a vague memory of seeing the shamen live and them having a Roland G-707.

One of the surprising things about these early 90s episodes is how many hit 2 Unlimited had, and how much better they were than I remember. I guess it's easy to assume the Spitting Image "no no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's no lyrics" joke was an accurate reflection of what the band were really like, but it's not.

techno

Hard agree, the band had pop chops for days.

Tony Dortie presents the pop chart programme, first broadcast on 2 December 1993 and featuring U2, Bjork, M People, East 17, Mr Blobby and Meat Loaf.

One of these things is not like the rest of these things...

3D glasses, the Meta Quest of the early 90s.

Jeremy Clarkson?

I thought it might have been some kind of charity single but apparently not. Carol Vorderman is in the video as well, but tbh she was everywhere on TV in the 90s.

I'm sure I had that remix of Big Time Sensuality, does anyone know which one it is?

Fluke Minimix?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CwVLnl9m40

Yes, nice one GP - that’s a group I’ve forgotten about.

2 Unlimited gleefully leaning into the ridiculousness with their performance of 'No Limits' on this Christmas 1993 edition. But elsewhere it seems that the editors of this episode were hitting the fast forward button more often than I was.

1993 is a bad year for TOTP, not a great year for the charts, but the selections on TOTP (loads of big name boomers with their latest shit singles many of which didn't even do well) were even worse. And still annoyed about the apparent boycot of The Prodigy.

Hard disagree, this year and Christmas episode was full of bangers.

1993 is all eurodance, ragga and waistcoats, I have no issue with this. The problem is that TOTP in 1993 seems committed to pretending that young people want to hear stadium metal and dadrock. I'm a few episodes behind but the last one I watched had the crowd going wild for 2 Unlimited and then completed disengaged for everything else.

Ah, yes, I get you.

Exactly, every week we had a chart countdown with loads of great stuff then across to another satellite link of Rod Stewart from Paris at #34. The charts were maybe 10% heritage acts but the show was sth like 50%. Even the good Eurodance stuff was often ruined by a combination of ill-judged live vocals and backing track mixed way too low.

also Take That can fuck off forever

I also think it's telling that, in this era, when TOTP show an exclusive performance of a yet-to-be-released single, it inevitably ends up charting. It feels like the show is trying to influence rather than reflect popular taste, and you only need to look ahead fifteen years to see how that ends up working out for them.

According to wikipedia, it was the Prodigy who boycotted TOTP, not the other way round. xps

guess the idea was "this show is for everyone, we have to play the older acts to keep the mums and dads watching" which is tbh the kind of audience targeting fuckery that has been a plague on the BBC for the last 20 years.

xp yeah but it was TOTP that refused to play the videos

They've also managed to avoid Goodmen's "Give It Up" which has been hanging around for weeks and weeks.

There was a similar attitude in the 1970s with lame-o third-rate soft rock acts like Liverpool Express and Smokie turning up every week, while disco was tolerated by the producers at best.

b-b-but Liverpool Express were the new Beatles!