Top of the Pops on BBC Four

[Sebastian Cobb]

Have caught up with this show - I loved that Red Box song at the time, and I still do. My mum was convinced that the lead singer was singing "Everybody loves St. Ives" rather than "Everybody now say aye" / "Everyone of you say aye", to the point that for years I thought he was singing about St Ives as well. Also I've just noticed the bridge sounds weirdly like part of the chorus to Oasis' "She's Electric", which Noel claimed he'd nicked from the original You & Me theme tune - lyrically, maybe, but musically it's much closer to "Lean On Me" instead.

Re: Ginny - it looks like a close up of someone's slightly bent fingers to me, but I did think the mirror thing.

I know that - it's just that when something goes wrong, as it inevitably does, it feels very awkward. It would be nice if someone could figure out a way to smooth over those situations better than they do rather than just ignoring it. Record a few more additional generic apology messages and have them always cued up somehow, maybe? I dunno.

Well in the old days the continuity announcers would cue the tapes as well but as you said that's now playlisted; rectifying the problem in this case was likely done by the broadcast engineer (there's always a few knocking about even when the channel's showing something like teleshopping) so they could apologise but I doubt they would.

[wosl]

(8) MIDGE URE – If I Was 

Always loved that transition in the vid from gun-holding mime back to uncle-at-a-wedding-reception-disco dance; Ure's hint of a grin essentially acknowledging: "Given pop's generic peace-and-love stance, that was a shitting awkward hand-off, wasn't it."  Also, in a way that's hard to define, there's something absurd about him choosing to appear in that in his stocking-feet.

[daf]

26 September 1985: Presenters: Janice Long & Dixie Peach

(21) DEPECHE MODE – It's Called A Heart
Four Hunks
(13) BILLY IDOL – Rebel Yell (video)
Just'a good ol' boy, Never meanin' no harm
(15) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love
Leather Catflap
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(35) FIVE STAR – Love Take Over
(34) THE DAMNED – Is It A Dream?
(31) DEAD OR ALIVE – My Heart Goes Bang
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157657809202396

(17) THE STYLE COUNCIL – The Lodgers
Hello Sailors!
(2) BONNIE TYLER – Holding Out For A Hero
By the Power of Greyskull . . . I HAVE THE POWWWERR!!!!!!
(1) DAVID BOWIE & THE LOWER THIRD feat. MICK JAGGER'S TOP HALF – Dancing In The Street (video)
Cheeky Bum Wiggle
(11) MARIA VIDAL – Body Rock (audience dancing / credits)
Special guest appearance from the green Quality Street wrapper

[Norton Canes]

26 September 1985: Presenters: Janice Long & Dixie Peach

(21) DEPECHE MODE – It's Called A Heart
Four Hunks

What a song.

I'd be inclined to fob It's Called A Heart off with the same short shrift it gets from the band, were it not so darned irrepressible. At a time when Depeche Mode's output was gradually becoming more solemn it went against the grain with its compulsive, convulsive framework of fragmentary but inexplicably synergic rhythms. There's ridiculous amount going on, from the intro's percussive crackle and pop to the springy, ruler-over-the-edge-of-a-table noise that gives it an absurdly funky edge and the metallic fanfare of the middle eight.

It's propulsive, and a bit demented, and it almost sounds as if it's being made up as it goes along. There's no clearly defined verse-chorus structure - in it its absence, the lyrics form a kind of impromptu plea you can almost imagine Martin blurting out to someone as she clears her things and runs out of the door. And for a supposedly lightweight song it's not insipid by any means – there's a real snarl to the way Dave delivers "tear it apart". It's a sprightly little delight that shouldn't be overlooked. And if it's something that the band needed to get out of their system in order to get in the right mood to make Black Celebration, then we're doubly lucky.

The other great thing about It's Called A Heart is that it makes a perfect companion for Shake The Disease, tracks that I can't imagine sitting comfortably on either Some Great Reward or Black Celebration. They're not as overtly reliant on industrial samples as the tracks on the former, and they're not as dense and epic as anything on the latter. A great brace of singles to trail the 81-85 collection.

And of course It's Called A Heart wasn't the single the band wanted to put out. To hear that we have to flip the vinyl and discover the monolithic thing of obsidian beauty that is Fly On The Windscreen, with its impassive beats, immense chords hammered out on instruments that could once have been pianos and guitars but have now been re-wrought by dark powers, insistent thirteen-note sequence that makes it sound like a breaking news bulletin and the staccato roar of a furnace disgorging smoke towards the heavens. Love and sex and death and fate have never been so compellingly entwined in one lyric. The sense of urgency is palpable, the desperation manifest. Unlike Blasphemous Rumours it's not carried along by an undercurrent of black humour, it's just a stark and straightforward reflection on our inevitable demise. Exceptional in its short form, the Extended Mix transforms it into a thing of thrilling beauty.

Should it have been the A-side? I think for once Mute's PR wing might have been right - as a trailer for the Singles album it's not representative of the band's work to that point, and it would have sounded hugely out of place stuck at the end of the compilation. More importantly, we would have been deprived of its presence on Black Celebration, where it fits perfectly.

[Norton Canes]

Oops duplicate post

[Norton Canes]

(11) MARIA VIDAL – Body Rock (audience dancing / credits)
Special guest appearance from the green Quality Street wrapper

Wasn't she in The Noisettes?

[daf]

Arf!

[the]

(35) FIVE STAR – Love Take Over

Choon

[daf]

3 October 1985: Presenters: Gary 'Burnt to a Crisp' Davies & Paul Jordan (New Presenter Special!)

(10) COLONEL ABRAMS – Trapped
Shaky Shoulder Bling
(20) IRON MAIDEN – Running Free (live clip)
Widdly-Widdly-Weeeeee
(21) CAMEO – Single Life
Shake your Runk to the Funk!
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(27) JOHN PARR – St Elmo's Fire
(26) THE SMITHS – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
(24) THE CURE – Close To Me
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(22) RENE & ANGELA – I'll Be Good
Flouncy Cuffs
(1) MIDGE URE – If I Was
. . . But then again, no



(28) FIVE STAR – Love Take Over (audience dancing / credits)
Clap Hands, Here Comes Steadman

[Bobby Treetops]

3 October 1985: Presenters: Gary 'Burnt to a Crisp' Davies

Jesus, he looks like a saveloy that's been left in the deep fat fryer for far to long, possibly the shiniest face on 80s TV, this side of Bob Monkhouuse.

[daf]

10 October 1985 : Presenters: Mike 'Butters' Smith & Steve Wright

(3) RED BOX – Lean On Me (Ah-Li-Ayo)
Sporting the unorthodox 'Half-Shirt Tuck' variant
(10) JOHN PARR – St Elmo's Fire (video)
Craggly Poodle Dad
(23) THE SMITHS – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Kicking against the Pricks


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157657809306126

- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(20) MADONNA – Gambler
(14) A-HA – Take On Me
(12) SIMPLE MINDS – Alive & Kicking
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(26) THE CULT – Rain
Cheeky Scribble
(1) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love
Maximum Shoulder Plumpage
(6) BILLY IDOL - Rebel Yell (audience dancing / credits)
Relaxed Tie

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
https://we.tl/ekLLtWtR04

[daf]

17 October 1985: Presenters: Peter Powell & Mike Read

(18) SHAKIN' STEVENS – Lipstick, Powder & Paint
Viva Port Talbot
(5) A-HA – Take On Me (video)
Emotional Doorframe Basher



(19) ELTON JOHN – Nikita
Danger DX7!
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(21) LEVEL 42 – Something About You
(14) GRACE JONES – Slave To The Rhythm
(10) JAN HAMMER – Miami Vice Theme
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(3) COLONEL ABRAMS – Trapped
Pocket Gyves
(1) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love
Luxuriously bound in richly grained scarlet Skivertex
(7) MADONNA – Gambler (audience dancing / credits)
Chopped to a nubbin

[canadagoose]

Not a bad episode, although Shakin' Stevens really isn't my thing. I know it was what TOTP usually did, but it seems a shame to have had Elton John on stage with a real keyboard and then just play the studio version on top. Feels like a waste.

[Chriddof]

(7) MADONNA – Gambler (audience dancing / credits)
Chopped to a nubbin

So the missing bit was a plug for the BBC's Drugwatch. Weird of them to cut that out - did they think people were going to confuse an announcement made in 1985 for one made now? I have noticed that broadcasters can be funny about that sort of thing. Shame, as it's the kind of interesting ephemera that's always so enjoyable to glimpse in these repeats.

[sweeper]

I had never heard of Red Box until these repeats, and now I'm obsessed with that video for 'Lean on Me'. It has a very Tim and Eric quality to it.

[Dr Rock]

For me, I liked it at first, then it got really annoying.

[sweeper]

Oh, the song is horrible. But why is it signed by two disembodied arms and half a head?

[non capisco]

Why are they all saying Colonel Abrahams? Is Colonel Abrams pronounced Colonel Abrahams? Serious question.

I came up with a cock-eyed theory whilst watching these last three episodes that 'If I Was' by Midge Ure is his confession that he only got involved with Band Aid to impress some lass and doesn't really give a tin shit about starving Ethiopians.

Not sure why 'Angel' was left off The Immaculate Collection but I think I've figured out why 'Gambler' was :-  it is rubbish.

'I'll Be Good' by Rene & Angela, really good that one. I'm surviving on the comparatively thin gruel of these mid 80s episodes because of the occasional great soul tunes that I've no memory of.

'Take On Me', then. Vivid memories of seeing that video and being a bit disturbed by it, the implication that Morten Harkett had the shit whacked out of him with a wrench by some cartoon baddies against the backdrop of a typically mid 80s grim looking cafe with a 'Nice Cold Ice Cold Milk' sticker in the window. That cafe is pure Crayford, Kent. I don't know if there still is but there was a fug of uneasy sadness and vague peril hanging over Crayford in the 80s in my child's mind and it's there in that cafe in the a-ha video.

Also :- Gary Davies' ridiculous 'suntan' for fuck's sake. It's very nearly blacking up.

[daf]

24 October 1985: Presenters: Dixie Peach & Mike Smith

(6) JOHN PARR – St Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)
Tonight . . I cel-e-brate my love . . to you
(14) ARCADIA – Election Day
Gang of Two Three


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157655550944553

(5) JAN HAMMER – Miami Vice Theme
School Caretaker's Keytar Wig-out
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(24) MATT BIANCO – Yeh Yeh
(23) ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN – Bring On The Dancing Horses
(20) KING – The Taste Of Your Tears
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(13) LEVEL 42 – Something About You
BOM-badda-BOM-ba-BOM
(1) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love
Shoulder Boulders
(29) THOMPSON TWINS - King For A Day (audience dancing / credits)
Say Goodnight, Gladys

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/90b778a6344abe2aa80def915c87df4220180604210858/ef665c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z--mta0LrFs (missing Echo & Bunnymen)

[kaprisky]

I was pondering whether Jan Hammer would get the Harold Faltermeyer treatment (miming to an instrumental track) and thought: no, they won't do that again... and then they do exactly that! And also shouldn't Dixie Peach be Tubbs, not Crockett?

[Norton Canes]

(14) ARCADIA – Election Day
Gang of Two

Best single of the 80's. (Three, surely..?)

[daf]

Oops - was it?

(I thought the Duran Duran rhythm section "Brawn" had formed The Power Station, leaving the Le Bon / Rhodes "Brains" duo to flounce off to Arcadia)

[non capisco]

I'm usually borderline repulsed by Level 42 but that 'We're only human after all" hook and falsetto chorus of 'Something About You' is the soundtrack to me running around a caravan site in New Romney off my face on some tartrazine heavy bottle of cheap fizzy pop. I really can't hate it, I'm afraid.

[Dr Rock]

Oops - was it?

(I thought the Duran Duran rhythm section "Brawn" had formed The Power Station, leaving the Le Bon / Rhodes "Brains" duo to flounce off to Arcadia)

You were right, Arcadia only had LeBon & Rhodes, Power Station had the three Taylors. I think Election Day is a fine song.

[Norton Canes]

No, definitely Roger Taylor too. Well sort of. The wiki explains all.

[Dr Rock]

No, definitely Roger Taylor too. Well sort of. The wiki explains all.

Drummer Roger Taylor appeared in only a few band photographs and in none of the music videos, and stated he was only to be involved in the recording side of the project

Well I never.

[daf]

31 October 1985: Presenters: Simon Bates & Janice Long

(12) FEARGAL SHARKEY – A Good Heart
Searchlight Sax
(4) ELTON JOHN – Nikita (video)
Checkpoint Shirley
(17) MATT BIANCO – Yeh Yeh
Ravaged by Rabbit?



- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(23) SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Cities In Dust
(20) KATE BUSH – Cloudbusting
(19) UB40 – Don't Break My Heart
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(15) KING – The Taste Of Your Tears
Brackish with vanilla top notes
(1) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love
Totally Leathered
(11) SHAKIN' STEVENS – Lipstick, Powder & Paint (audience dancing / credits)
Bum-Crack . . Under the Bates

[kalowski]

(21) CAMEO – Single Life
Shake your Runk to the Funk!

Oh yes. I've been listening to this, and the whole Single Life album, a lot recently. I love Larry Blackmon.

[daf]

7 November 1985: Presenters: Peter Powell & Steve 'You're the Sleazebag!' Wright

(2) A-HA – Take On Me
Ripped Jeans : Year Zero?
(16) THE FAR CORPORATION – Stairway To Heaven (Rockpop Music Hall clip)
Does Anybody Remember Laughter?
(6) LEVEL 42 – Something About You
Here Comes The Thumb King
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(22) THE SIMON MAY ORCHESTRA – Howard's Way Theme
(18) EURYTHMICS & ARETHA FRANKLIN – Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves
(17) TALKING HEADS – Road To Nowhere
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157660831534041

(7) UB40 – Don't Break My Heart
Blue Blue Whine
(1) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love
Stiff Little Fringes
(31) PAUL HARDCASTLE – Just For Money (audience dancing / credits)
If it Ain't Broke . . .

[buzby]

24 October 1985: Presenters: Dixie Peach & Mike Smith

(14) ARCADIA – Election Day

The record sounds like Nick Rhodes kicking a Fairlight down the stairs. Le Bon's atrocious miming is eclipsed by Rhodes looking like a 5-year-old who has never seen a keyboard before. A DX7 completes the 80s naffness, ending Rhodes' long association with Roland. I'm sure the taller of the dancers in the rubber skirts was in the Addicted to Love video....

(5) JAN HAMMER – Miami Vice Theme

Another bloody Fairlight IIx - I wonder if he borrowed Nick's rather than bringing his own or renting one in? The Lync  LN-4 controller is pretty distinctive and a Hammer trademark (and part of how he got that the lead guitar sound, together with playing through guitar amps and effects).

One thing i've always hated about this track is that incongruous looped percussion sample (it sounds like gamelan drums, or someone playing glass bottles) just before the end. It's far to high in the mix, almost sitting on top of it (almost as if it's been dubbed on after the track was mixed).

(13) LEVEL 42 – Something About You

Mike Lindup still staying faithful to the venerable Prophet V. Mark King still has his custom JayDee Supernatural bass, not yet having moved to the graphite-necked Status bass.

(1) JENNIFER RUSH – The Power Of Love

I remember at the time wishing this record would fuck the fuck off, and the same feeling came back as soon as Rush with her terrible muscle spasm dancing, naff 80's costumes and glitter hairspray hoved into view. Please God, make it stop!