TOTP on BBC4
I'm sure that's terribly unfair on pretty much everyone involved there...
I'm sure that's terribly unfair on pretty much everyone involved there...
-
-
TOTP on BBC4
Kurt and Courtney?Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Encountered Ms Wilcox when working on ships, she's lovely. Music is shit admittedly, but she's lovely!Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Bringing the two sub-threads together, Toyah does sing like a York Street docker
Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
There is no way that this, from the opening link, was accidental:Squarewheelbike wrote: Last night was a bit of a disappointment, complete second hand episode, Vance hadn't even changed his jumper!
Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Vance's jumper should have been Yewtreed (but you could say the same about the glasses and fringe)Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
So what Pops-based games do you like to play while the show is on? M’lovely wife and I have a couple of favourites:
Guess which bands particular audience members have come to watch
Everyone must do this. In the recent Mike Read edition there were a smattering of New Romantic types who were clearly there for Duran Duran, and a couple of mods possibly waiting to bask in the presence of The Who. Best, though, was a girl in gloriously gothic attire presumably in tribute to Toyah, who stood icily in the background as Ready introduced other songs but completely ruined her aura of cool by jiving with cheerful abandon to Do The Hucklebuck at the end credits. Shame.
Speculate who might be knocking off who
From the bands, presenters (and even audience members of you like) that are in the studio that week, suggest the most grim and/or absurd opportunistic carnal liaisons. The most grotesque one we’ve come up with lately has been the bewildering possibility of a bunk-up between Phil Collins and Kiki Dee.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Forgot all about the Polecats and John I'm Only Dancing, just wrong. Soon forgotten once Hazel O'Conner turned up mind!Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
"Forgot all about the Polecats and John I'm Only Dancing, just wrong."
True, but even so, I got super-excited to see yet another double bass on Top of the Pops.
More great school disco dancing at the end, this time to Making your Mind Up. I hope they keep this up. It is fast becoming my favourite part of the show.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Weirdly today I took a tenner out of a quiz machine, for guessing Matchbox's first top ten hit was Midnight Dynamo after watching the repeats! Except it wasn't! Hey ho!Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
No, it was When You Ask About Love! Their only Top Ten hit!
In my early NMTB days, I had to take some 'funny' lines to Graham Fenton (lead singer of Matchbox) in his dressing room. He then regaled me with about 45 minutes of tour stories, which, from the little I can remember, wasn't exactly Led Zep-level debauchery. There was some very convoluted tale about getting lost in the fog on the way to a gig in Totnes, but I don't recall cascades of Grade One cocaine dusting the Devon countryside, or expensive hookers falling out of limo doors as the wrecking crew sped through Dartmouth. I think he said something about waking up the landlady to be let in at a quarter to eleven - but I could be embellishing the anecdote.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Must have erased that Kids School "Mum" song riding in on the coattails of Grandma We Love You. Quite shameless, I was prompted to think of The Police and Adam And The Ants re punk/new wave! Amongst others!Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Yeah, that kids choir was a clear attempt to catch lightning in a bottle again.
For the second time in recent weeks we saw the presenter say "(the artist) is over there", ostensibly point towards them and then we saw a repeat of a previous performance. BBC FAKERY! I shall write to my MP.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
I also felt that the St Winifred's Choir song was a (very) belated attempt to restore the balance after Clive Dunn's Grandad, a decade earlier (which, unlike these two records, at least possessed the merest sprinkling of 'craft' to it). This 'My Mum' abomination - which I must admit I'd all but forgotten as well - must've caused a few hate-waves with its lyrics about skivvying for the family, no?
There was some seriously p*ss-poor linking in that edition: "People often say that Stevie Wonder's finished - here's proof that he isn't." (I mean, for Christ's sake...)Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Just to echo the bewilderment at "My mummy is one in a million" by the school choir. The really shocking thought is that it was probably the tip of a massive turd of cutesy school choir songs that came out at the time.
I guess the most recent equivalent cultural phenomenon would be naked calendars for charity. Or maybe male vocal groups?Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Anyway, the kids sitting at the front of the stage during Shakey were superb, especially the one in the gold glam-rock jacket.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
How tragic it was to listen to the big, brilliant, ballsy voice somehow breaking out of Lena Zavaroni's tiny, shrivelled body. I was surprised to see her on a 1981 TOTP as I couldn't remember her anywhere near the charts around then.
Looking it up now and I wasn't exactly wrong. Roses and Rainbows never reached the Top 40 and although she had released a string of singles over the years, she only ever had two songs that charted back in 1974 from her Opportunity Knocks days. Hard to believe that she was still just 17 years old here though.
Stevie Wonder wrote many great songs over the years but Lately wasn't one of them. What a one-paced dirge of a record that was.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
I think Lately's heartbreakingly brilliant, as it goes. The last great Stevie song.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Masterblaster was that for me.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
He turns up again at the closing 'school disco' outro (which was a bit tamer this week after the lively Hucklebuck / Making Your Mind Up editions) without the jacket, which suggests he was picked out and given it to wear for Shakey.steveeeeeeeee wrote: Anyway, the kids sitting at the front of the stage during Shakey were superb, especially the one in the gold glam-rock jacket.
Another suitably mixed bag this week, no out and out novelty record (excluding that school choir nonsense, which belongs in another genre) this week, with Tony Capstick's heart warming ode to the joys of domestic abuse having a week off.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Do I Do was Stevie Wonder's last great single - especially the 12''. Hopefully we'll see a video for it when 1982 comes around.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
That Girl (US 1981/UK 1982 - from Original Musiquarium I) was Stevie's last great moment - and remains one of his best-ever songs.
My point, though, was more to highlight Simon Bates's wretched, unprofessional intros, with that one being the pinnacle.
Lena Zavaroni was on? Must've missed that...Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Guessing you watched the earlier edition!Jah Womble wrote: That Girl (US 1981/UK 1982 - from Original Musiquarium I) was Stevie's last great moment - and remains one of his best-ever songs.
My point, though, was more to highlight Simon Bates's wretched, unprofessional intros, with that one being the pinnacle.
Lena Zavaroni was on? Must've missed that...Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
Stevie also released Ribbon In The Sky and Front Line from Original Musiquarium I. They are not bad.
But my choice would be Overjoyed, which charted as late as 1986. It's MOR but nice all the same. He also did that great harmonica on The Eurythmics No. 1.Comment
-
TOTP on BBC4
"There was some seriously p*ss-poor linking in that edition: "People often say that Stevie Wonder's finished - here's proof that he isn't." (I mean, for Christ's sake...)"
Yes, that stood out as a really stupid comment. And yet...his album before the superlative Hotter than July was The Secret Life of Plants, which I don't think I've ever been able to listen to all the way through.
I was looking forward to seeing if Bates, like Skinner and Read before him, would join in the school disco dancing at the end. Did he bollocks. He made like he'd pulled some off-screen girl and then vanished into thin air. For shame, Bates, for shame.Comment
Comment