TOTP on BBC4

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

Probably more of a "woo", but "ooh" works better for comedic purposes.

Seen this episode before, it bobbed up on YouTube last year. Which means I've had increased exposure to bloody Bono. It also featured Jonathan King doing the US charts from Madison Square Garden.

[Benjm]

TOTP on BBC4

Is King's spot something to do with his Entertainment USA series? I seem to remember seeing Prince on that with 1999 and Little Red Corvette before he really hit big in the UK with his Purple Rain derived stuff.

I should watch the show but the voodoo themed episode of Murder, She Wrote we've got on at the moment is grippingly awful.

[Various Artist]

TOTP on BBC4

This whole page is a magnificent series of non-sequiturs. Kudos, all.

[Sean of the Shed]

TOTP on BBC4

I never want to see the Stranglers doing anything like that again. That was poor.

[Mumpo]

TOTP on BBC4

Which song?

I seem to remember J. King had a huge influence on which records became hits in the mid-80's, mainly thanks to Entertainment USA. And not just the MOR rock stuff like Bon Jovi - Erasure's breakthrough single Sometimes, for instance, only became a hit after the video was shown on the show.

(Edit: Hang on, I'm getting confused with No Limits, of course. But still JK.)

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Mumpo wrote: Which song?

I'm guessing European Female? We must be at the start of 1983 by now.

[Sean of the Shed]

TOTP on BBC4

It was European Female. Just so mind-numbingly dull. Absolute meh. I think my repulsion is prejudiced by the fact that it is the Stranglers. Some bands churn shit like that out all the time and I couldn't give a fuck, but the Stranglers are capable of so much better than that.

[Sean of the Shed]

TOTP on BBC4

And even now, 34 years later, Kajagoogoo can still just fuck right off.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

It's hard to say whether 1983 was a good or bad year. Positives include This Charming Man, Fun Boy 3, Robert Wyatt's Shipbuilding (charted belatedly), The Imposter, Style Council.

But huge, huge negatives. Pop going fully Thatcherite in the wake of the 1983 re-election of Thatcher. Smug No. 1's like 'True' and Duran Duran.

[Outside Agent]

TOTP on BBC4

The Beatles 20th Anniversary releases continued with Please Please Me in at No.28. For how long did this trend continue, I wonder?

Down Under by Men at Work, by the way, is a great song. I think I'm only realising this now.

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

They ploughed on with the 20th anniversary releases all the way to Let It Be in March 1990, though diminishing returns rapidly kicked in. Love Me Do had started things by reaching number 4 (higher than when it was initially released), then Please Please Me reached 29. The next release was From Me To You which reached 40 in April 1983 and didn't appear on TOTP. Nothing else troubled the top 40, only She Loves You and All You Need Is Love got above 52.

There was an attempt to repeat the project for the 30th anniversary starting in 1992, but Love Me Do only reached 53 on that occasion and it looks like they went no further.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

All The Beatles' reissues made the Top 100, but almost always in lowly positions (70-100).

http://www.officialcharts.com/artist/10363/beatles/

It's odd that All You Need Is Love achieved the highest placing (in the 1984-1990 period) because it's not a song I associate with their best or most popular singles. Maybe it got a boost from Sgt Pepper's 20th anniversary reissue which made #3 on the albums chart (it's not on the album but is of the same period)?

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

That's very possible that it got a bounce, there was a big thing about the 20th anniversary of Sgt Pepper. Speaking entirely personally it was the first time the Beatles came across my radar.

[Various Artist]

TOTP on BBC4

I think I'd simply disagree with Satchmo's assumption, too, to be fair. 'Best' is of course a purely subjective viewpoint so I can't really argue on that one – but whilst it might not have come from their initial and most mega-selling period of mop-topped 'Beatlemania' singles, I think it's reasonable to say that as the years have passed All You Need Is Love has held up as one of the Beatles' most famous, enduringly popular and widely-played songs. It doesn't surprise me, on those grounds, that it should have placed the highest amongst the reissues.

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

Bit of housekeeping on the repeats, but we didn't get the first episode of 1983. It's bobbed up on Youtube, not great quality, but can be watched here.

And part 2. Same poster has also put the Christmas 1982 episodes up it seems.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

We must be reaching the point where most people had video recorders so there's more chance of a Yewtree'd episode going on Youtube in full, but as you say of variable quality.

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

"Wham, just like Brighton, going down". Think Peel might be upset over the Cup defeat.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

Annie Nightingale is a Brighton fan.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

longeared wrote: "Wham, just like Brighton, going down". Think Peel might be upset over the Cup defeat.

I'm sure he'd have been rooting for Gordon Smith in that split-second, just like the rest of us...

[Benjm]

TOTP on BBC4

Bananarama - fantastic.

Style Council - despite Weller's French Mod look being one of his best, the general titting around factor kills the Speak Like A Child video.

Tony Blackburn nails his colours to the mast and gets excited about an Icelandic jazz funk instrumental.

Ultravox attempt to halt career slide with sexy girls giving each other sponge baths video.

The Fizz knock out Run For Your Life (not to be confused with Land Of Make Believe). Jaye's power move to style and direct the band in a more adult direction showing early results?

Icehouse's six week journey on a cargo ship to make last week's show didn't paid off.

Blackburn's tan leather waistcoat is awful.

Bonnie? How many weeks have we skipped here? It was Men At Work on the episode I watched last weekend.

Her husband's a well known gangster, or was then, I believe.

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

We skipped an episode between Thursday and Friday which can be mostly watched here, missing a couple of videos but presume they're also available on YouTube if you want to recreate the show as a whole.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

re. Bucks Fizz: I thought their next single in this timeline, When We Were Young, was their best, and somewhat Krautrock-like (or lite), but perhaps way too big a leap from the kiddie-pop of just a year earlier.

[MsD]

TOTP on BBC4

I think that's the song where they were wearing parachute shirts from Seditionaries, too?
Not sure.

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

Quite amused at the way they portray Blackburn as some sort of old fossil when even now he's still on the BBC and yesterday was announced as the new Sounds of the Sixties presenter.

[Benjm]

TOTP on BBC4

MsDayglo wrote: I think that's the song where they were wearing parachute shirts from Seditionaries, too?
Not sure.

Certainly something along those lines, having seen it again (no decent late night films on).