TOTP on BBC4

[oscar mike]

TOTP on BBC4

As for Murray Head, the sooner he fucks off to Bangkok the better, what a tune that is.

I've been drinking tonight, can you tell?

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

I take the point about Bowie et al, although I think he was outside the TOTP radar at that point. My point is really that TOTP as of 1976 seems to have gone down the Light Entertainment route and is not that different to the musical interludes on the Two Ronnies or Mike Yarwood. Punk did at least change that in the sense that some of the poppier pseudo-punk like early Boomtown Rats and Sham 69 was getting on TOTP by 1978.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

Ruby Flipper are like something out of Playschool, witless, sexless, a real pile of right-on crap.

I got an idea for a TV show.

A Variety of sexy ladies à la Pans People/Legs & Co dancing to pop music for half hour, high heels, cleavages, thighs, calves, lippy.. plenty of sweaty skin.

And there could be a male version if the there was the demand.

[historyman]

TOTP on BBC4

satchmo76 wrote:

My point is really that TOTP as of 1976 seems to have gone down the Light Entertainment route and is not that different to the musical interludes on the Two Ronnies or Mike Yarwood.

Spot on. I was thinking along similar lines myself this week - you could just imagine Eric Morecambe popping up from behind a drum kit and wiggling his glasses.

It would be interesting to know which period in TOTP's history received the most complaints from viewers, thus indicating when the show contained edgier acts. Somehow I think 1976 was a quiet year. Mud's lime green, skin tight trousers are the most subversive thing I've seen so far.

[MsD]

TOTP on BBC4

I don't think TOTP in 76 reflected what young people listened to, either the music I've described, or the "hairy" crowd who were catered to by the OGWT.

It was essential viewing in 72-74, not that every act was hip but you did get The Faces, Bowie, Roxy Music, Queen etc. as well as the major soul acts.

In 76 it was mainly the dross that went on, the good stuff was represented by videos or dance sequences.

With the advent of punk it did become fairly hip again, with the sort of mad juxtapositions we had seen in the early 70s.

[Stumpy Pepys]

TOTP on BBC4

Pan's People and Legs & Co were often guilty of jaw-droppingly literal interpretations of song lyrics.

However, I think Ruby Flipper's take on Young Hearts Run Free sets a new high watermark here.

[Come along, Min]

TOTP on BBC4

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

However, I think Ruby Flipper's take on Young Hearts Run Free sets a new high watermark here.

Wholeheartedly agree, wronger than spunk on a corpse.

[Benjm]

TOTP on BBC4

Of all the episodes that I've seen so far, this week's came the closest to having no redeeming features whatsoever.

To the age old hypothetical question, what would you do if you had a time machine, my current answer would be to go back to the first week of July 1976 and buy 70,000 copies of the Real Thing single just to see off the bloody Wurzels.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

The comment about TOTP in 1976 being viewed as effectively an extension of the BBC's 'variety' line-up is absolutely correct. Right down to the lame-assed Top of the Pops Orchestra arrangements of those already-lame-assed songs. And - to echo my own earlier point - the show's producers had a very stringent remit as to who could appear, which added to the increasingly pedestrian 'tonight's special guest'-feel of the programme by then.

There was a later appearance: Laser Love 7/10/76

Ah, good spot. Bolan's output was, by then, so dismal I can barely remember it.

[George]

TOTP on BBC4

benjm wrote:

Of all the episodes that I've seen so far, this week's came the closest to having no redeeming features whatsoever.

Amazingly this week's show was far from the worst aired to date.

This one took some beating in that regard.

[George]

TOTP on BBC4

The show's back after giving way for The Sky At Night last week. 'Diddy' with his finger on the pulse...

''Well a lot of people were sad when The New Seekers split up and no doubt they'll be very glad their back together again now''

[Hamish! Dougal!]

TOTP on BBC4

I just put it on, only to be confronted by Paul Whitehouse as Dave from Slade.

[dalliance]

TOTP on BBC4

I don't think TOTP in 76 reflected what young people listened to, either the music I've described, or the "hairy" crowd who were catered to by the OGWT.

The charts back then were much more reflective of broader listening tastes than they are now though, avenues into other more challenging musical cultures for kids were fairly restricted to the likes of John Peel.

We think of this period as the lull between prog and punk but neither of genres were hugely commercially successful. I think we are all viewing these TOTPs as a quirky novelty show about to get blown away by punk and new wave, but as TOTP is essentially a reactive programme that plays stuff based upon it having achieved a certain commercial mass first then I reckon we will be disappointed. For every Duchess we will still have three Yes Sir I Can Boogies going on.

The Alwyn Turner book on Britain in the 70s called Crisis? What Crisis? is an excellent read and it has a good section on this very theme, how conservative society was in the 70s and very much encompassing its musical tastes.

It was all 50s rock and roll revival that was led by The Bay City Rollers, Mud (Oh Boy) and Showaddywaddy. Chris Farlowe, Chubby Checker, Bryan Hyland and Duane Eddy were all back on TOTP and of course as we have seen old hits from Hank Mizzell and Dion back in vogue.

Then there were the comedy records of which we have already seen way too many. We fortunately have missed with the current run the likes of Laurel & Hardy, Billy Connolly and Windsor Davies & Don Estelle at number one.

But broadly it was retro, easy listening stuff which was dominant. In 1975 Englebert Humperdinck, Jim Reeves and Perry Como all had hits collections at number one in the album charts, in 1976 Roy Orbison, Slim Whitman, Bert Weedon and Glen Campbell did the same. In 1977 Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis and Connie Francis followed suit.

It probably chimes with people who grew up in the 60s and whose recollection of the musical era was not shaped by the Beatles and The Stones and the Summer Of Love, rather The Sound Of Music soundtrack being number one more often than not for the second half of the decade.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Must say I'd never really thought of the BCRs as being especially influenced by fifties rock 'n' roll, but I suppose I see what you mean ('Shang-a-Lang', 'Remember (Sha-La-La)', etc).

Mud definitely bought into the sound and style after dabbling in glam - and Les Gray's 'Elvis' obsession had worn pretty thin by the end of 1975. It was Showaddywaddy (as you suggest), The Darts and, in the USA, Sha Na Na who had that market sewn up.

However, I find it hard to think in terms of there even being 'musical tastes' in 1975-1976. Singles-buyers (my young self included) were so spoon-fed by Radio 1 that pretty much anything the station got behind would become a hit. Those years always come to mind as being dominated by Philly soul, US AOR, country-lite and workmanlike UK bands such as Smokie whose nondescript sound and style was somehow appropriate to a time with no discernible musical direction.

Plus of course those endless 'novelty' hits...

[G-Man]

TOTP on BBC4

For every Duchess we will still have three Yes Sir I Can Boogies going on.

And thank the good Lord for that.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Yes, that jarred a bit with me, too.

Whatever the merits of 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' - and, at the very least, it had a certain charm - I doubt even diehard Meninblack rate 'Duchess' as The Stranglers' finest moment...

[dalliance]

TOTP on BBC4

The sheer randomness and amateurishness of Ruby Flipper's routines continue to confound. Why was one of them dressed up like a WW2 pilot last night? You think really that instead of a studio audience they should be watched by a group of their parents with cine cameras proudly watching their young children perform in the end of term production.

Demis Roussos is a curious one. He has a good voice, if not one that is necessarily to everyone's taste but his whole strained vocal delivery is surely caused by his morbid obesity and evident struggle to breath properly yet alone sing. It means the whole vocal for Forever and Ever comes in half a beat late on every line, like he's struggling to regain breath from the previous line and is playing catch up forever and ever, well for 3 minutes anyway. Curiously it might be this that gives the song a certain charm. He shits all over Nana Mouskouri though.

One of the hardly revelationary things about these TOTP re-runs is that my taste in female pop stars from the 70s has changed somewhat over 35 years. This insight came to me a few weeks back when Tina Charles was carthorsing around the studio and I remembered I had slight regard for her at the age of 7. Thinking about it, over the past 3 months of these programmes I am struggling to think of anyone apart from Agnetha from Abba that I would still fancy watching them as an adult. The clothes and hairstyles don't help but even so, a dire absence of decent skirt! Until last night though. The dark haired singer of The New Seekers was proper fit.

Do you think the DJs write their own links between songs or do they come from a team of high paid writers on a break from writing I Claudius or something. They are universally awful but the reason I ask is that it's not the first time I have noticed that they seem especially awful when David Hamilton is presenting.

So either he does his own and comes up with stuff that is as second tier as his career was, otherwise the writers really hate him and give him the really rubbish ones, saving the best for DLT. I mean his closing one last night beggared belief "We close with Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys, I suggest if you want some good vibrations then why don't you go and sit on your washing machine"

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

He shits all over Nana Mouskouri though.

I don't know, if they're not smashing plates...

[Calvert]

TOTP on BBC4

It's an enduring image.

I still laugh at I can boogie, boogie voogie all night long everytime I hear it, which is quite a lot.
Duchess is just about alright, it's certainly no I Feel Like A Wog.
Now that would've been something for Ruby Flipper to interpret and the Hairy Cornflake to introduce.

[Edie St Pierre]

TOTP on BBC4

I only really like The Stranglers for their basslines to be honest. Ridiculously muscular basslines.

I don't think they ever wrote a tune as good as 'Yes Sir I Can Boogie' though. A really bizarre song, that. The women who sang it used to be in a Spanish folk band, you know. And it was released three years after the death of Franco. A song about wanting to participate in a multi-cultural dance craze. Only saying, like.

There's more going on with it than bloody 'Duchess' by The Stranglers, anyway. There's an underlying anxiety and pathos.

[Edie St Pierre]

TOTP on BBC4

dalliance wrote:

Demis Roussos is a curious one. He has a good voice, if not one that is necessarily to everyone's taste but his whole strained vocal delivery is surely caused by his morbid obesity and evident struggle to breath properly yet alone sing. It means the whole vocal for Forever and Ever comes in half a beat late on every line, like he's struggling to regain breath from the previous line and is playing catch up forever and ever, well for 3 minutes anyway. Curiously it might be this that gives the song a certain charm. He shits all over Nana Mouskouri though.

"Do you think he's sexy, Ange"
"Yes. [pause] It's a pity he's so fat though"

[Beatle Simon]

TOTP on BBC4

Demis' (and indeed Vangelis') greatest moment!

[Calvert]

TOTP on BBC4

, There's an underlying anxiety and pathos.

There is?
And there was me thinking it was just another droplet of pop piss.

Voogie!

Haha.

[Wyatt Earp]

TOTP on BBC4

Yeah, but you don't really do pop, is it. There's pop, and there's things that are your cup of tea.

[historyman]

TOTP on BBC4

dalliance wrote:

Demis Roussos is a curious one. He has a good voice, if not one that is necessarily to everyone's taste but his whole strained vocal delivery is surely caused by his morbid obesity and evident struggle to breath properly yet alone sing.

I have to confess a soft spot, or guilty pleasure for Demis Roussos. Well, the two songs that I've ever heard of his anyway.

'My Friend The Wind' is the other one, which I think is a bit of a piss take because if Demis ever spent any time in Donegal then he'd quickly realise that living in one of the windiest spots in Europe doesn't endear you to icy blasts whipping in straight off the Atlantic.

Fact fans will of course be delighted to be reminded that Demis was a hostage for a short time on the infamous TWA Flight 847.

This week's show was another reminder of why I'm glad that I was too young to be buying music in 1976. Still wouldn't miss the shows for anything though, there's so much to see and hear aside from the tunes.

Some great Afros on display, including Art Garfunkel, who surely was just a tad shite without Paul Simon.

And after seeing one of The Real Thing sporting a pair of brown dungarees, this question begs to be asked: Has any performer ever looked cool in dungarees?