TOTP on BBC4

[Discordant Resonance]

Oceanic certainly getting much studio mileage out of their major hit (is this their third or fourth appearance?). We'll say farewell to The Wizard with the following episode.

[Benjm]

Had Mick Hucknall moved to Italy by this point? Struggling to explain his outfit otherwise.

[Discordant Resonance]

Just why would you cover this?

[longeared]

They missed a trick not playing out this particular show with Wind Of Change.

[Benjm]

Rozalla to the rescue.

[Discordant Resonance]

And another pointless remix from Tina.

[Benjm]

Marc Almond's just doing a slightly more upmarket version of the dance cover thing here, isn't he.

[Discordant Resonance]

They didn't exactly pick a classic tune to close the era - if only longeared had been the producer!

[Benjm]

I can't visualise what the next era looks like without any prompts.

The dance acts in the studio/more trad stuff on video split was very pronounced in that last episode.

[longeared]

I watched a few of the new era shows on YouTube a few years back and they can be tough going. They end up somewhere between Pops and Later, some overly enthusiastic presenters who seem to have vanished (Mark Franklin presented 50-odd shows and doesn't even have a Wiki page) but the music is primarily an attempt to promote some more serious material and not being bounced around by the vagaries of what's going up in the charts. The show did need some aspects overhauling by then - the Wizard feels massively out of place by now - but it's a really weird way to go. I didn't care for that iteration of the show at the time, although it's not helped by the fact that chart music in general goes pretty shit midway through 1992 and stays that way for a long time, 93 in particular can be borderline unlistenable at times when they do it on Pick of the Pops.

Going to be a long way to 1994 I fear.

[Benjm]

They end up somewhere between Pops and Later...

That almost sounds appealing, but in the Later... slot rather than TOTP's.

[Discordant Resonance]

Looking at the TOTP Wiki page, Franklin was 17 (!) at the time, so over-exuberance is rather understandable in the circumstances.

[Fussbudget]

an attempt to promote some more serious material and not being bounced around by the vagaries of what's going up in the charts

Zzzzzzz

I note that Nicky Campbell had another one of his 'ooh this is proper music made with proper real instruments' moments again about Simply Red, I can never tell if he's being sarcastic or if he's that much of a fuddy duddy disco dance-music-sucks old fogey.

Not sure I've ever actually heard Ned's Atomic Dustbin before, I always used to get them mixed up with the Wonder Stuff but that song sounded weirdly proto-emo

[Fussbudget]

Also Ooh Gary Davies's sad little face as he closes the show :-(

[Satchmo Distel]

Gary Davies also IIRC famously played 'Layla' (long version) as his last ever Radio 1 track before handing over to Danny Baker, who opened by noting that this selection was proof why the change had to happen.

[elguapo4]

Gary Davies also IIRC famously played 'Layla' (long version) as his last ever Radio 1 track before handing over to Danny Baker, who opened by noting that this selection was proof why the change had to happen.

That sounds a bit unnecessary

[Sean of the Shed]

Yeah, just playing the piano ending á la Goodfellas would have been enough.

[Benjm]

"That's when I knew that Matthew was going to whack Gary..."

[Discordant Resonance]

Within 5 minutes, they've already counted down to No 1 - granted, people knew since the previous Sunday, but rather kills the momentum.

[Benjm]

Tony Dortie's colourblock shirt is very of the time.

I enjoyed Erasure's and Belinda Carlisle's spots but as the dawning of a new era it is distinctly underwhelming, not helped by Bryan still hanging round in the top spot. As we were all thinking at the time, who could possibly have wanted the damned thing but not stirred themselves to buy it before now?

[Discordant Resonance]

And all very MOR for 1991 - the Quo, far-from-vintage Stevie Wonder, and a 12-year-old Python song? Laters!

[longeared]

Wait until you see who's on next week!

[Discordant Resonance]

Poignant Queen video in retrospect - one of the first prominent deaths I remember in my lifetime.

[longeared]

There was a lot to unpick from all that, there was a lot of purple, and it was mostly fucking appalling in an entertaining kind of way. I think my favourite bit was when Dortie just appeared in front of the stage at the end of the Belinda Carlisle performance and shoved the crowd out of the way as he did his piece to camera.

[Benjm]

Yes and the first episode's opening shot of a tiny crowd on the other side of an empty looking studio broke the first rule of TV pop shows, to pretend that the joint is jumping.

You can draw a direct line from this rejection of artifice to the Dogme 95 movement in cinema. Possibly.

Mick Hucknall was rather more soberly turned out than the explosion in a Versace boutique that was his previous appearance.