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Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Thread Three

Started by daf, November 05, 2020, 08:25:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

dissolute ocelot

The last couple of weeks have been shit. It's your 1500th show and the prestigious pre-#1 slot is Neil Diamond singing a tune that everyone who grew up in the late 70s or 80s knows from mumbling through non-denominational school-based acts of generic worship. Cat Stevens has some great songs, but that one is forever cross-legged on a cold gym floor.

Not convinced by the Deeply Dippy cover: you take a song which is largely an acoustic strum-along with a big climax, and do it as a strum-along with a less exciting climax. Why?

Boys II Men look like nice boys, not like those nasty gangster rappers, but nice boys don't make good music.

Why did the French always think it's cool to be bored?

I think En Vogue have kind of vanished from memory in comparison to Destiny's Child, but Free Your Mind is a proper classic, the only non-archive highlight. There must be more good music coming soon?

Norton Canes

Spoiler alert
You might want to give BBC FOUR a wide berth tonight
[close]

PammySpacek

A bit late with this, but as to the most recent set of Smash Hits scans - didn't someone on here once say they were convinced Abba were interviewed on TV in the 90s about being in a helicopter crash? Because that person appears to have caught an interview with Bjorn Again. I didn't realise they were a comedy act on top of the tribute thing.

buzby

#2853
The 1992 Brothers In Rhythm remix of Temptation is total pish, but Carol Kenyon! Singing Live! <swoons>

Also, I noticed the Blue Monday-sampling How Does It Feel? by Electroset in the chart rundown. I bought this at the time.

daf

How does this work - are they miming to a live version?

cosmic-hearse

"Authentic 90's vibe", "eclectic chart mix" - can the continuity announcer not think of something else to say, or are BBC budgets so low that they have to replay the same blurb each week?

gilbertharding

Quote from: cosmic-hearse on May 06, 2022, 08:32:39 PM"Authentic 90's vibe", "eclectic chart mix" - can the continuity announcer not think of something else to say, or are BBC budgets so low that they have to replay the same blurb each week?

I think, at this stage, she's on tape.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Norton Canes on May 06, 2022, 01:27:40 PM
Spoiler alert
You might want to give BBC FOUR a wide berth tonight
[close]

Why's that then?

gilbertharding

A real backward step for Minogue there. Has she met Nick Cave yet?

And this Donovan is PISS.

gilbertharding

Rod: The carpet doesn't match the curtains.

Norton Canes

#2860
+++ [BLEEP] MESSAGE BEGINS +++

Hi, I'm not here right now... well, actually I am here, but instead of writing this I'm likely to be busily rooting through piles of Lycra one-pieces and a stack of luridly-hued stamina enhancing tablets. No, I'm not going to be one of The Shamen's backing dancers (thanks, Tony!), I've foolishly enlisted myself for a weekend's road cycling in the Lakes. So in order to maintain my regular posts (it's important to stay regular!) I've taken the unprecedented step of watching tonight's brace of episodes in advance and composing my penetrating critique now, while I've got some spare time. Unfortunately this does mean I won't have the immediate thrill of seeing the shows broadcast on Friday but hey, no sacrifice is too great. And speaking of sacrifices, if I end up with a broken neck at the bottom of some precipitous ravine, this piece will be my enduring legacy. No pressure then!

Right. Better crack on I guess


+++ MESSAGE ENDS +++


19th November Presenter: Tony Dortie

So, welcome again to 1992, the year the Chart Music Podcast steadfastly refuses to touch with a bargepole. Although if they were going to push the barge out (that is what bargepoles are for, yeah?) and wanted a reassuring introduction then this show wouldn't be a bad start because apart from Cathy Dennis's silky opener (stop it) there are no other original, non-cover, non-legacy band studio performances. What a time to be alive! To be fair to CD she does her best to put in a decent shift, though it's a shame her nan couldn't understand the knitting pattern and rage-quit before the jumper was finished. Also, it does sadly appear that Cathy's already focussed on writing second-rate numbers for manufactured light-entertainment ensembles rather than embracing 1992's outrageous pop dynamism. It's literally and metaphorically a case of navel-gazing. 

A final, bleated flashback clip and it's inevitable we'd get Cooper Black eventually. I think Season 8 would defintely be the most Cooper Black season. And it's terribly remiss of me but it appears I've been neglecting the housekeeping, because I haven't mentioned the return of the full top 40 rundown, though we've had it for a few weeks now. In fact this is probably a good time to take a look at that chart and wonder if, like the FedEx logo, what's missing from the show is better than what's there? Well, East 17 are upwardly mobile with Gold, they were good value with House Of Love the other week and surely would have jumped at the chance of further exposure. I guess they could've hauled EMF in for the tepid It's You. I presume Faith No More were still in the show's bad books after the From Out Of Nowhere debacle. And of course it might all have been a different story had the Prodigy ever deigned to grace the Pops studio with their presence (it took me years to realise the Prodigy had never done TOTP, with the same kind of slowly-dawning realisation I had as a child, that there were no adverts on the BBC. I just always assumed there were ads, but in the programmes I wasn't allowed to watch; then one day, a day of epiphany, I remember working my way through a theoretical but typical day's BBC schedule and thinking... None in school's programmes. None after Pebble Mill At One. None in children's programmes. None in The Rockford Files. Hang on...). So barring an unlikely appearance from Guns n' Roses, that doesn't leave much else. The new single from Clannad's vocalist, perhaps?

Enyaway

Glenn Frey's looking better here than most of the 80's comeback merchants, which I suppose has a lot to do with big suits being back in fashion. Also it's kind of meet that large female vocals are again the mode du jour (as in the vocals are large, not... yeah). The difference is, of course, nine years ago such things were only peddled with arch intention. Madness tick off more nostalgia boxes by being a legacy act and performing a cover version. You'll know by the time you read this, but I wonder if we'll get a special announcement before the show reassuring us it was recorded before recent events in Ukraine? Watched it through a couple of times and I can't take my eyes of white-hat Madness man because though he's larking around in the expected Nutty Boys fashion, he actually looks and behaves exactly as you'd expect Boris Johnson to do if he went on a diplomatic mission to Red Square. Can't unsee it huh!

So hang on, there were two versions of Peter's Friends? Because I definitely didn't see the 'very funny' cut. Sorry, spent most of this uninspiring turn working out anagrams of THE PASADENAS, and being disappointed I couldn't get SEND A PENIS. Tony's 'remember the words to this in five years' reference in the Breakers had me stumped, I'm afraid. Had a plucky Brit just been accepted on a NASA programme? Too early for Branson to brag about a possible orbital endeavour, surely. A metaphorical reference to what it already seemed likely we were going to do to John Major?

Unannounced, Whitney's sublime intro to I Will Always Love You hits like one of the Slo-Mo drug sequences from Dredd (not the shit one), or that Suede video for the 8th or 9th single off Coming Up; time suddenly stops dead, expressions freeze, objects hang in the air with aparrent weightlessness and spilled liquids transform into a sculpture of droplets, as the camera slowly pans around capturing the eerily impossible spectacle. Damn they didn't need any instrumentation at all here did they. Okay maybe just the sax break.

Fuck there's not much left but rubble to sweep up from this week's disaster is there? Phil Collins mangles 'in-vizi-bal' in the same way Peter Drury destroys 'Benzy-mar'. Wait let's get this straight... it's a live version of Invisble Touch. Except it's in the studio. But here it's being sung live. Although there are crowd noises from when was recorded. And Phil Collins still gets the audience to sing at the end. Ah, this is like trying to understand a Mobius loop. Speaking of loops, there's something about the little end bit of Phil's belt hanging down that makes me think of... no, let's not go there. Let's instead commend Tony for his spectacular bit of Franglais "...elle est numero eight avec 'Be Moi Baby'. We love you Tony, don't ever stop trying.

Which just leaves Charles and Eddie. Can't help borrowing from The Young Ones here but I'd like Would I Lie To You much more if it wasn't SO BLOODY NICE. It's a lovely song, beautifully crafted, but it does need to grow a pair. In previous posts I've described singles with a gently soothing character as 'Zephyr rock'; well, if they were zephyrs, then to describe music this gossamer, the Beaufort scale needs a new level representing the magnitude of air movement caused by water draining from the bath, a phenomenon which can only be felt by people with especially sensitive thighs. Okay I get it's supposed to be mellow and easygoing and that but seriously, it needs to beef the fuck up. I'm not saying it has to be a full-on Sly and the Family Stone throwdown but at the very least, it should all be as buff as the "When you wanna see me night and day..." bit where the drums finally get cranked up. Props to it though, it's a song that Michael Jackson would have killed to have had on Dangerous.

I've searched for footage of Right Said Fred's involvement with Children In Need and after realising that Stick It Out was Comic Relief, this was all I could come up with. Any further evidence would be welcome.


26th November Presenter: Mark Franklin

Oh look they did haul EMF in for It's You, and it's incredibly tepid (can something be 'incredibly' tepid?). Wonder how this went down in their live sets? It's a bar-break song if ever I heard one. Scraping around for positives... each time James sings the chorus I can't stop replying "Gesundheit", and a degree of amusement is provided by the fact it appears someone's set fire to the drum kit. Look I'm sure they were short of suitable show-openers that week and reluctantly asked EMF as a last resort. I mean it's not as if there were any chart entries that week by dynamic new acts who would've been able to snazz up their performance with a set-stealing appearance by an adult movie actress, is there?

Oh.

What coulda been, huh.

int. BBC design department
A phone rings. A BBC employee answers.


"Hullo?"
"Hi, hello? Is that the BBC design department?"
"Yeah"
"Hi! It's John Matthews"
[pause]
"Sorry?"
"John Matthews. Lead singer, Undercover."
"Are you? Why?"
"Why am I the lead singer?"
"No mate, why are you undercover?"
"Aha ha! No I'm the lead singer of Undercover. Top 40, Baker Street, Never Let It Slip Away..."
"Oh right. The covers band. What can I do you for mate?"
"Well look, it's... look we've done Top Of The Pops eight times now and I was thinking, when I watch them back they all look a bit... well frankly, a bit lacklustre."
[awkward silence]
"No kidding."
"...so I was thinking, could we like, jazz the set up a bit? That's your area, isn't it?"
"'Jazz it up'? Like how?"
"Well, what I thought was, we could be on a jetty, right, a fog-shrouded jetty, at night, dead atmospheric, stars in the background... with ropes, and nets. And a seagull. And... and bunting."
"Bunting?"
"Yes! And a little boat. A little rowing boat, moored at the jetty. It's moored at the jetty, and on the side it says..."
[more silence]
"Says what, mate?"
"It says... S.S. UNDERCOVER"
"Pffff... Well, I don't-"
"In Helvetica block capitals"
"Why do y-"
"But the 'N' is backwards"

A week later, Top Of The Pops studio rehearsal

"Why isn't the 'N' backwards? Why isn't the fucking 'N' backwards? I ask you to do one fucking thing and you can't get it fucking right. Sort it the fuck out now or we don't go on"

Having heard them on the Story Of... doc it's hilarious that Carter USM genuinely thought they had a shot at the Christmas number one slot with their take on The Impossible Dream. Still, lovely little diorama they're on - reminds me of those miniature landscape segments you got with Matchbox 1/76th scale tank kits. I loved them, had the lot - I used to imagine they were chunks of the battlefield that had been blown clean into another dimension and were doomed to float, along with the tank and crew, through an infinite temporal void. Yeah, existential angst has been my eternal companion. (Does anyone else wish, for extra authenticity, the real fire they've set up in the studio would start to burn out of control and have to be extinguished in the most obtrusive way possible by a pompous-looking BBC safety official?)

Tell you what, I bet Deacon Blue were furious Your Town wasn't a bigger hit after they went full-scale Achtung Baby with Oakenfold on production, treated vocals, a glitchy video, DIY aesthetic covers, extravagant shades and Jesus, Ricky's even started wearing a flambouyant blouse. "There's always been an unconvincing pseudo-industrial element to our music..." And who's this, looking like they've just emerged from the Camberwick Green musical box? Why it's Miss Minogue, the Pop Star. Hullo Miss Minogue! Miss Minogue waves silently. Are you here to sing a pop song? Miss Minogue nods silently. Is it a new one? Miss Minogue shakes her head. A cover version? Miss Minogue nods. Oh that's disappointing. Will you soon be jacking PWL in and decamping to a cool dance label in order to rediscover your mojo? Miss Minogue smiles.

I like the video effect at the end of Celebration there as the camera cuts across to Jason Donovan, suggesting we've entered a parallel dimension where this kind of shit is considered remotely acceptable entertainment for an early evening pop music show. Never mind, just the one further studio performance from Jase to look forward to, and that's not for a few months. And making sure we hit our quota of cover versions this week it's Rod Stewart... or at least I think it's Rod, because here he looks like he's morphed into a cross between Noel Edmonds and Owen Wilson. Which doesn't sound too disturbing until I admit the resultant hybrid looks a little bit sexy.

Which just leaves another turn from C&E, here reinforcing 1992's baroque credentials by looking like something from the latest Netflix Neil Gaiman adaptation. They haven't outstayed their welcome with their little stint at the top, unlike some other singles in this year of the protracted chart-topper. In fact, it's served as a nice breather between two overwrought epics. A sort of a cathartic sorbet of a song. A refreshing palette-cleanser before Whitney's extravagant spread (don't). And I haven't even mentioned the whole bromance angle to their schtick because... well because it is purely schtick - for all the coy glances and nearly-pouts (mostly from Eddie it has to be said) it's all just show. Nothing to see here. Move along. I tell you what though, those backing singers are defintely getting it on.

Yes! Another week done and dusted, at last. The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed I didn't have much to say about the actual music this time because let's be honest, of the three live performances of new songs across two shows, only the current number one is actually much cop. And don't expect things to pick up with the festive season rolling up on the horizon. Advent calendars out - only twenty nine sleeps to Christmas 


This post has been brought to you with the assistance of San Francisco Bay Coffee Rainforest Blend

Norton Canes

Quote from: Norton Canes on May 06, 2022, 01:27:40 PM
Spoiler alert
You might want to give BBC FOUR a wide berth tonight
[close]

Quote from: gilbertharding on May 06, 2022, 08:35:53 PMWhy's that then?

Sorry, it was a response to the question in dissolute ocelot's post above:

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on May 06, 2022, 12:19:20 PMThere must be more good music coming soon?

bigfatheart

Thought there were some great songs across those two episodes. Sadly, all of them had been released in far better versions several years earlier.

daf

19 November 1992: Presenter: Tony DOrtie

(26) | CATHY DENNIS – Irresistible
RPT | SONNY & CHER – I Got You Babe (TOTP 12/8/65 & charts)
(09) | HEAVEN 17 – Temptation (Brothers In Rhythm Remix)
NEW | MADNESS – The Harder They Come (via satellite)
(24) | THE PASADENAS – Let's Stay Together
- - - - - - - - - - - (Breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(21) | INXS – Taste It (video)
(14) | THE PRODIGY – Out Of Space (video)
(12) | GUNS N' ROSES – Yesterdays (video)
(11) | SIMPLY RED – Drowning In My Own Tears (video)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



(04) | WHITNEY HOUSTON – I Will Always Love You (video)
(07) | GENESIS – Invisible Touch (Live)
(01) | CHARLES & EDDIE – Would I Lie To You? (video)

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



monkfromhavana

Quote from: Norton Canes on May 06, 2022, 09:46:55 PMAnd of course it might all have been a different story had the Prodigy ever deigned to grace the Pops studio with their presence (it took me years to realise the Prodigy had never done TOTP

Yeah, they always refused to do it. They did do "Dance Energy" on BBC2 though.

cosmic-hearse

Those early Prodigy records are so good - early 90s rave / breakbeat records have aged really well. It gives me a Proustian rush of 1992 & listening to tapes of SUAD & The Ragga Twins on school trips.

(I know they're loved by many, but I didn't like any Prodigy records after the 1st album - like Front 242 or Cypress Hill, they really should have avoided guitars)

monkfromhavana

Quote from: cosmic-hearse on May 07, 2022, 08:17:04 PMThose early Prodigy records are so good - early 90s rave / breakbeat records have aged really well. It gives me a Proustian rush of 1992 & listening to tapes of SUAD & The Ragga Twins on school trips.

(I know they're loved by many, but I didn't like any Prodigy records after the 1st album - like Front 242 or Cypress Hill, they really should have avoided guitars)

One Love aside, I'm inclined to agree. Not to say that they made bad records, far from it, just that they didn't quite land with me. To be honest, they played it well, no way would they be going down the jungle/happy hardcore/techno routes. It was really the only route open to them.

cosmic-hearse

TOTP 1997.

My overriding memory of the 1997 (let's face it, a fairly underwhelming year) is that the summer saw both Cornershop & Chumbawamba in the top 10, at which point the world had been turned upside down & anything seemed possible.

Similarly, there was a strange episode of TOTP in early 1999, which featured both The Offspring & Sebadoh; the US hardcore scene appearing in the charts in ways no-one would have predicted.

cosmic-hearse

Quote from: monkfromhavana on May 07, 2022, 08:44:19 PMOne Love aside, I'm inclined to agree. Not to say that they made bad records, far from it, just that they didn't quite land with me. To be honest, they played it well, no way would they be going down the jungle/happy hardcore/techno routes. It was really the only route open to them.

Dance music was moving so fast at that point that records released in 1992 sounded archaic 18 months later. Really quite a remarkable period (the late Mark Fisher wrote about it a lot, the "hardcore continuum" etc.), can't think of another period of such rapid change other than guitar music in the 60s.

monkfromhavana

Quote from: cosmic-hearse on May 07, 2022, 08:50:58 PMDance music was moving so fast at that point that records released in 1992 sounded archaic 18 months later. Really quite a remarkable period (the late Mark Fisher wrote about it a lot, the "hardcore continuum" etc.), can't think of another period of such rapid change other than guitar music in the 60s.

Proof of this being "Wind It Up" by The Prodigy. Their contract with XL basically demanded a single be released, but as they had been pretty much constantly touring, they had to release a remix of "Wind It Up" when they really didn't want to as it was very out of date by then (5 months after Out Of Space was in the top 10). The rave scene moved incredibly fast, you only have to look at the BPMs - 1990 you're looking at around 120-125, by 1993 you're up to 170 on some releases. I think Simon Reynolds half-inched Eno's term for it as "scenius" as opposed to "genius". It wasn't necessarily individuals moving the sound forward, but the scene moved as a whole and thing went out of fashion very quickly.

Captain Z

She seems to have an invizi bal touch, mon

daf

26 November 1992: Presenter: Mark Fr@nklin

(23) | EMF – It's You
(08) | GUNS N' ROSES – Yesterdays (video & charts)
(05) | UNDERCOVER – Never Let Her Slip Away
(21) | CARTER – THE UNSTOPPABLE SEX MACHINE – The Impossible Dream
- - - - - - - - - - - (Breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(17) | SHABBA RANKS feat. JOHNNY GILL – Slow And Sexy (video)
(14) | DEACON BLUE – Your Town (video)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



(20) | KYLIE MINOGUE – Celebration
(26) | JASON DONOVAN – As Time Goes By
NEW | ROD STEWART – Tom Traubert's Blues (Waltzing Matilda) (via satellite)
(01) | CHARLES & EDDIE – Would I Lie To You? (via satellite)

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




Quote from: cosmic-hearse on May 07, 2022, 08:45:23 PMTOTP 1997.

My overriding memory of the 1997 (let's face it, a fairly underwhelming year) is that the summer saw both Cornershop & Chumbawamba in the top 10, at which point the world had been turned upside down & anything seemed possible.

Similarly, there was a strange episode of TOTP in early 1999, which featured both The Offspring & Sebadoh; the US hardcore scene appearing in the charts in ways no-one would have predicted.

It wasn't mentioned directly but 1996 was the first time Sex Pistols and Joe Strummer appeared live on Top of the Pops.

The only ONLY highlight of those two was that Noel Edmonds number.


Egyptian Feast

Quote from: daf on May 07, 2022, 04:15:17 PM

This article is amazing. A beginner's guide to shrimping in blimmin' Smash Hits! The Gary Barlow anecdote should have come with a warning, cos I'm never going to be able to shake off that mental image. Mark Lamarr advocating toe sucking at bus stops was similarly unexpected.

kaprisky

I was going to lambast Undercover as a bunch of chancers and then realised that it was the first of five cover versions in a row, I think, if that Waltzing Matilda track counts as a cover.

The Story of 1998 is scheduled for Sat 21st May.

I did like the transition from Kylie to Jason though!

Norton Canes

Quote from: kaprisky on May 10, 2022, 09:14:35 AMif that Waltzing Matilda track counts as a cover

It's a cover of Tom Traubert's Blues, the Tom Waits song inspired by Waltzing Matilda

daf


daf