Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

TOTP on BBC4

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    TOTP on BBC4

    That's for Oops Upside Your Head.

    Comment


      TOTP on BBC4

      There's not enough videos featuring non league grounds, even if we did get to see more of a Renault 5 in the car park than stands and general infrastructure.

      Quite amused that the Smiths' debut was preceded by the first of many pieces of dross by Tina Turner.

      Comment


        TOTP on BBC4

        Jah Womble wrote: FGTH appeared on TOTP performing Relax in January 1984 - which for the majority of people would've been their first exposure to the band/song. It promptly vaulted from 35-6 in the following week's chart, received 'that' ban and wasn't heard again on the show.
        Which is when and why I stopped watching Top Of The Pops...

        Comment


          TOTP on BBC4

          I am utterly appalled with myself that I never knew that Tracey Ullman's hit They Don't Know was written by Kirsty MacColl. I mean, listen to it. Of course it's a Kirsty MacColl song. It's a bloody great song, by the way.

          I was intrigued by Paul McCartney's cameo in the video. I had to look it up, and apparently Ullman had a small part in Give My Regards To Broad Street which was filmed around then.

          Comment


            TOTP on BBC4

            Kirsty's original version of They Don't Know was played to death on R1 during the summer of 1979 - which was pretty much the first most of us had heard of her.

            However, one of those seemingly-annual strikes on TOTP prevented it from becoming the hit it should've been then.

            Comment


              TOTP on BBC4

              Just watched Slade performing their 1983 Xmas singalong My Oh My: forget the Lennon-cash-ins, that song is effectively the blueprint for all Oasis post-1995 anthems. The geetar solo toward the end of the song is pure undiluted Gallagher.

              (Meanwhile, the cameras catch a young girl standing dead still and staring into space during Kool & the Gang's [aptly-named] Straight Ahead. B*llockings for both floor manager and director, I suspect...)

              Comment


                TOTP on BBC4

                Yes, They don't know is such a great song, isn't it? I like the video too. I think Tracey Ullman was on stiff records, hence the Kirsty Mccoll connection.

                Someone mentioned that Paul McCartney appearance on this very thread a couple of months ago when we were talking about celebrity cameos on videos of this era. Since then I have found a new one. Johnny Friendly by Joboxers features a very young Frank Bruno in the video.

                Comment


                  TOTP on BBC4

                  My first hearing of Kirsty was "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis", which sounded a bit Dave Edmunds-like but in a good way. This is a nice piece on its co-writer:

                  https://www.rdjrecordings.com/Shop/DownloadDetails?rid=RDJ_RE_5

                  Two singles later Kirsty did a Pet Sounds cover, You Still Believe In Me, but she didn't bother the Top 75 again until A New England, which was produced by her husband IIRC.

                  Comment


                    TOTP on BBC4

                    Kirsty's bigger singles tended to be covers - Ray Davies's Days being another - which was, in my opinion, a bit of a shame. Her self-penned efforts were far better IMO: the aforementioned They Don't Know, Walking Down Madison and the splendid Free World come to mind off the bat.

                    But her two biggest chart hits were both Fairytale of New York, of course.

                    Comment


                      TOTP on BBC4

                      That Howard Jones video almost drove me to support Brexit.

                      Comment


                        TOTP on BBC4

                        Got a link on my Facebook page, last night whilst I was watching the election, Father Jack Hackett of "drink feck girls arse" fame was on!

                        Comment


                          TOTP on BBC4

                          Howard Jones was the Ed Sheeran of his day, except that poor Howard never got out of the B-league and was finished by Live Aid (infact he didn't make it to the Band Aid roster IIRC).

                          Howard was on one of those ITV competitions for faded old acts in the early 2000s, alongside Dollar, Toyah (IIRC) and various other 1980s B-listers.

                          Comment


                            TOTP on BBC4

                            Got a bit behind, so having a catch up. I've just watched a Slade performance of Merry Christmas Everybody, which is a very odd thing to sit through on a June afternoon.

                            Comment


                              TOTP on BBC4

                              What the absolute fuck is this from Arthur Daley and Terry?

                              Comment


                                TOTP on BBC4

                                And while we're on the topic of TV shows being extended to TOTP, I enjoyed seeing the theme tune to Auf Weidersehen Pet - Livin' Alright by Joe Fagin

                                Comment


                                  Why were Thin Lizzy and Sweet shown in black-and-white and Deep Purple in colour when Black Night was a hit over two years before the latter two?

                                  Comment


                                    The Thin Lizzy and Sweet performances were from the 1.2.73 show, which is summarized at this link:

                                    http://totp1970-1975.blogspot.com/20...uary-1973.html

                                    The episode was shown in colour (see the closing titles), so my inference is that the tape was wiped (as were most TOTP tapes at the time) and the one used for the 1984 broadcast must have been a back-up done by a producer in black and white.

                                    Comment


                                      Was TOTP sold to other countries back in the day? I ask because this sounds similar to the case of some Doctor Who episodes of the Jon Pertwee era (1970-74), which were all filmed and broadcast in colour (unlike the previous two Doctors' stories) but a few of which only exist in black and white. These are where the original videotapes were wiped and the episodes concerned have been recovered from film copies made for overseas broadcasters – many of whom did not broadcast in colour at the time and hence only had b+w copies.

                                      Comment


                                        A different but related story concerns Python:

                                        http://rjbuffalo.com/monty_python_time_life.html

                                        Comment


                                          Matthew Wilder! While one might argue that the '80s was actually several '80s', Matthew Wilder was definitely the high water mark of one of them.

                                          One of the peculiarities of the Yewtree hollowing out of the TOTP stockpile is that it gives the impression that Peel and the Kid presented it every week.

                                          Radio Ga-Ga sounds marginally less awful than remembered; the sequencers are quite pleasant until it goes all Nuremburg.

                                          Comment


                                            Make the most of the Rhythm Pals, there's not many of their episodes left before Kid goes to Capital. The last one is in June 1984.

                                            I hope they're going to tell us what won the video award, seeing as how much it's been flogged to death these last few shows.

                                            Comment


                                              Margrave and the Marshes has a TOTP photo of Peel and Kid Jensen posing with Costello. Would that be the Pills and Soap Episode?

                                              Oddly Sheila calls him Kid in the book's acknowledgements not David.

                                              Comment


                                                Originally posted by Squarewheelbike View Post
                                                Got a link on my Facebook page, last night whilst I was watching the election, Father Jack Hackett of "drink feck girls arse" fame was on!
                                                Which video was this?

                                                Comment


                                                  Well, he (Frank Kelly) had a #26 UK (and Top Ten Ireland) hit with Christmas Alphabet at the end of 1983, so very likely it was that?

                                                  Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                                  Margrave and the Marshes has a TOTP photo of Peel and Kid Jensen posing with Costello. Would that be the Pills and Soap Episode?

                                                  Oddly Sheila calls him Kid in the book's acknowledgements not David.
                                                  From what I can recall, Peel always referred to Jensen as 'Kid' - collectively The Rhythm Pals, of course.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Nice of BBC4 to broadcast Mick Talbot wearing a cycling jersey the night before the Tour de France starts.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X