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March 29, 2024, 09:04:42 AM

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Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Thread Four

Started by daf, June 06, 2022, 05:52:08 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

daf

Welcome along to Part 4!



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Thread 1 : 1977-1986 | skip to the end 1
Thread 2 : 1986-1990 | skip to the end 2
Thread 3 : 1990-1993 | skip to the end 3
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

kalowski


daf


cosmic-hearse

Not a huge fan of Mike Patton era Faith No More, but kudos for them getting a shot of him drinking what I assume is a boot full of piss on prime time TV

daf


daf


Icehaven

The Beloved showing how more bands should look like a cult.

daf


daf


daf


daf


Icehaven

There's no lyrics! Forgot they had a keytar, all's forgiven.

cosmic-hearse

Dinosaur Jr & Sugar in the top 40, wild times

gilbertharding

Does anyone know what S. O. U. L. S. Y. S. T. E. M. stands for? And why they're so fucking shit?

This second episode is very Trance, innit? Mighty Morphin' Totalitarian Dictators ahoy. Ooh - Stalin Thatcher makes you think...


buzby

Ah, what a banger Open Your Mind is. Great video too (not that the band probably knew anything about it), with the early photo morphing effects (Elastic Reality on the Mac)

gilbertharding


Icehaven


Icehaven


gilbertharding

Quote from: Icehaven on June 10, 2022, 08:46:15 PMThink it was Bilko.

The South African martyr? That's not in very good taste. Oh - BiLko.

buzby

Quote from: gilbertharding on June 10, 2022, 08:43:00 PMAnd Mussolini. Who did he morph into?
The first time he morphs into Nixon. The second time he morphs into Joe McCarthy.

Eight dance remixes of She Sells Sanctuary? One is too many.

matjam13

The first show (21/1/93) last night, must've been Michelle Visage's first UK TV appearance.

bigfatheart

"We are family/I've got all but one of my sisters with me..." Something quite deso about that, a great song mutated into a works do jolly-up before your eyes, if you squint you can still just about hear traces of Chic's production, like  looking at someone's photo of the Mona Lisa taken on a phone circa 2008.

Go West, fucking hell. Imagine being a kid in 1993, waiting for your weekly allocation of pop music, and you get this shit. Who was even buying this? Who is this for? I can understand that not everybody wants music that is challenging, or demanding, or interesting, or good, but I can't imagine anyone having the requisite enthusiasm to go out and buy this and put it into the charts. Utterly worthless.

S.O.U.L.  S.Y.S.T.E.M. there, proving that while KWS and Undercover may be finished, their spirit well and truly lives on. In fact, this episode as a whole felt very 1992, like a reminder that just because the year has ticked over, we're still not quite out of the woods yet.

But don't worry, the next episode gives us "No Limit", and that's bloody great. 2 Unlimited have been one of the highlights of the last couple of years or so, turning up amidst all the tedious sophisti-pop and wine bar-dance covers to be big and brash and garish and to shout in your face and to FUCKING GO FOR IT, so they're very welcome here. And across the country, a nation of Dads tut and say "This took a long time to write!" Presumably before having an aneurysm at "Open Your Mind".

East 17 didn't make much of an impression, besides Brian Harvey going a bit Jedward, and despite me being convinced they were the greatest group in the world around this time (I was three). And what is point Breakers section? In that second episode we got the same Def Leppard and Duran Duran songs we've already had in recent weeks and a remix of a Cult song we've all already heard a thousand times before. Could they not have given a leg up to Sugar or Dinosaur Jr? Just a baffling waste of time.

I have very firm memories of the Lulu-naissance of the mid 90s, mostly from "Relight My Fire", and maybe this is skewed by my being a child at the time, but I remember that the general tone of it all was that it was remarkable that she was still performing pop music despite being incredibly old, probably using her bus pass to get to the Top of the Pops studio, and that it was a real triumph for the older generation, a reminder of what they'd done for us just in time for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. And yet she was 44 when this episode aired, the same age Myleene Klass is now.

But don't worry, kids of 1993! You might have been underwhelmed by Lulu and Go West, but keep watching because, as both episodes promised us, we'll be getting Bryan Ferry, Sting and Michael Bolton soon! Yep, we're not sure when, but you'd better keep watching because any episode now you might be getting three blokes your Dad likes! (Actually, I looked ahead and Michael Bolton next shows up in the Breakers section in November, and won't be in the studio until April 1994. The only thing worse than being promised something shit is being promised something shit and never getting it.)

Deep: Why just a bass?

The Big Hits 1993 'annotated' version of Deep (starts at about 5'30 on https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00165cp/top-of-the-pops-1993-biggest-hits) has some gems.


kaprisky

That "Billie's Song" film that apparently starred Niki Haris and Bruce Willis was never completed, was it?

Alice in Chains, Belly, Dinosaur Jr, Sugar, in the Top 40 across the two episodes. Yes, alternative rock really did dent the charts in the 90s.

East 17's empty swimming pool to Dina Carroll's empty wine bar was a bit harsh!

daf


dissolute ocelot

I quite liked Sunscreem's cover of Broken English, not the most obvious Marianne Faithfull song to give a dance makeover to, and it's not exactly cheery, but certainly different. (I am a little disappointed that there doesn't seem to be a hi-NRG cover of The Ballad of Lucy Jordan anywhere. And speaking of dance cover versions, still trying to figure out if I prefer Aurora/Naimee Colman's version of Ordinary World to the Durannies'.)

It does feel as if terrible boy bands and terrible hair metal bands are the principal musical forces, did grunge really never happen? After this mess, I'm starting to look forward to Oasis.

Norton Canes

#27
Can you feel when your gunstalk starts to twitch
Sucker arm extending and your voice goes up in pitch
Exterminate


Sorry, couldn't help it

Here's an idea: from now on, instead of broadcasting every single episode, why don't BBC FOUR just take the best bits from the brace of scheduled shows and combine them to make one really good half-hour. Tonight's performances from Snap, The Beloved, 2U, E17 and Lulu (what? I like Lulu) would make a fantastic show. Chuck in the Faith No More and U.S.U.R.A. videos and we're good to go. Sorry, Dina.

Actually that's perhaps a bit unfair on Sister Sledge. Saw them live at a festival a couple of years ago and they do put a shift in, as can be discerned from their efforts to whip the crowd into a frenzy with an admittedly rather Pontins-tier singalong. (They must absolutely loathe their only UK number one single, by the way - we got all of about eight bars of 'Frankie' in the middle of a medley of their lesser hits.) Nice that the camera cuts to the crowd just as Mark elbows his way to the front. Was he hoping one of the band would dance with him? Bless.



Microsoft Windows logo considers redesign

Is it the way the footage has been restored, or does Peter Cox look like his face has been put through NewProfilePic? Kindest thing you can say about them appropriating What You Won't Do For Love is that it preempts the answer to a question the year's best-selling single hasn't even asked yet. Astonishingly we're not done with Go West yet, they're back later in the year for a final studio visit - annoyingly just missing the chance for it to be a show where a band and a single performed by another band have the same name.

Eventually the episode, which can at best perhaps be described so far as 'smooth', perks up with the arrival of SNAP!, thankfully having booted Turbo B into touch. Look! They've got their name on the screen in the same font the show used to use for the CYPHER GRAPHICS. That takes me back! What was it called? Got it bookmarked somewhere... ah yes, ITC Kabel. Lovely. Oh, the music? Good isn't it. Got a serene, sinuous surface-to-air celerity about it. It stops to breathe a lot. Seems to be built on the same 'da, da-da-da' motif (heard right at the start of this performance) which underpinned The Power but instead of being shackled with hefty beats it's left free to soar into the stratosphere. It may have a Eurodance sheen but like the best techno it's a steely framework that lets expression move through rather than trying to contain it. Niki Haris (single 'k', single 'r') looks fantastic too. Yep, an admittedly brief internet search throws up nothing for Billy's Song. Best moment of the performance is without a doubt that eye-opening, exquisitely poised leg lift, accompanied by a perfectly timed wolf whistle.

'Exterminate', though. Guessing they weren't aware of its Who connotations. What a brilliant single word to use.

Also proving you don't have to be pumped-up to be peerless are The Beloved and their blissed-out blueprint for kindness Sweet Harmony. Ever get that thing when you hear a song from a while back for the first time in ages and though you know who it is it also reminds you of something else you can't quite remember and it's only eventually you realise that the song it's reminding you of is actually that song?

Nope just me then okay

Loving Jon Marsh's soothing, authoritative vocals, like a baritone Neil Tennant. It's all very ASMR in fact - all it needs are some glitchy mouth clicks, and the sound of someone slowly washing their hair with a lot of shampoo (also just me..?). Although it comes on at first like a bit of a second-summer-of-love leftover, this sort of thing is actually a perfect match for the early 90's new-age sensibilities too. I mean it's digestible design-for-living lite, but sometimes if you want to get your message across you've got to start at square one. Look if you put it out these days the chorus would have to go "Let's come together, right now, oh yeah... and don't be a cunt". If nothing else it's a saccharine coda to a complaisant age that's about to be battered around the head by hordes of alcopop-fuelled, Adidas-original-wearing dissolutes and profligates. And it's got a sax break! Feel like someone should be told. 

All these full stops in band titles remind me of the companies that used to advertise in Yellow Pages renaming themselves '.....Aaable Plumbing' or whatever just so they could get to the top of their section. And I'm sorry, I don't care if you have reinvented yourself as a drag icon, there has never been a worse fashion item than those flouncy detachable flares things. Cuh, has it really been almost five years since the Sunshine Mix of Lovely Day was in the charts? Just time for Duncan Norvelle to effectively close out the show (Alternative Photographic Archives must have done that one, surely?) and for Mark to promise us Ferry, Bolton and Sting - sadly however their Comic Relief collaboration never transpired (Bolton pulled out after the other two refused his demands for a sax solo) and we ended up with Right Said Fred.

Someone must have pulled out of the second show at the last minute, no? It would explain the sudden need to show all of Whitney and that weird Sting mini-mega-mix video comp. Presumably whoever bailed turned up at the studio, saw 2 Unlimited in all their pomp perform the year's best chart-topper and just went, "Yeah, actually we'll give this a miss" (I like to imagine it was either Bob Mould or J. Mascis who thought this).  Whoever it was, you can't blame them - anyone trying to top this absolute remorseless juggernaut of a track was on a hiding to nothing. What a genius move on 2U's part, giving up any pretence to be a genuine rave act and outing themselves as pop stars. Also a marketing masterstroke, tailoring the track to UK tastes by removing Ray's raps. And... I know this isn't a PHWOAR thread, but - surely there's more than enough PHWOAR for anyone on that stage, numsayin'.



Ha ha, even the subtitles give up on Tony's mangling of 'Gascoigne'

Mmm, Ian Paisley morphing into Mary Whitehouse - just needs some JOI and I'm good. Had completely forgotten 'Things Can Only Get Better' made its first foray into the charts right now. Brian Cox might be some kind of genius but he didn't realise 'D:REAM' would be impossible to enter into the Google URL bar, did he, eh?

Who are the dodgy-looking guys ushering people offstage at the start of East 17? Is one of them Tom Watkins? Were the others mermaid wranglers? It's all going on here, isn't it. First: is this supposed to be a swimming pool, or the deck of a ship? If it's a swimming pool, why has it got portholes? Is a bit of internal logic too much to ask? Second: why did they put Brian in the same size suit as the others? Get him one that fits! And thirdly: how did Tony Mortimer get in with Reggie Kray? Was there some kind of dodgy East End family connection? Were the band just some kind of legitimate front for a money-laundering operation? (Sorry - by complete coincidence, I watched Legend for the first time last night.) TOTP Facts says Tony once set one of Reggie's poems to music - maybe it was Reggie writing all E17's songs? I suppose it would explain why the hidden track on Walthamstow is called I Will Fucking Do For You, You Cunt
 
Lovely swooping, ceiling-encompassing pan over to Dina. Yeah it does look like the sort of set Del Boy would wander round at the end of a particularly tear-jerking episode of Only Fools. So explain to me this: Duran Duran's Ordinary World was released on 19th December '92, according to Wikipedia. They got their EXCLUSIVe on the 14th January '93 show, when it obviously wasn't in the charts, so it must have been doing pretty slow business. But that was two weeks ago now. What happened in the week between the EXCLUSIVe and the chart entry? Did everyone watch the EXCLUSIVe and think, yeah this is great, I'll buy this, but not until next week? None of it makes sense

Just Lulu left then. Always liked Lulu. Lulu's cool. That voice (mainly). I bet she could knock out a great version of No Limit. Or I Will Always Love You, come to think of it. Fucking hell Whitney, that horrible double pitch-bend right at the end. Ah look, the audience have all piled into Dina Carroll's wine bar for the aftershow.

The Official Charts goes with

Chart run (9 weeks / 30.01.1993 - 27.03.1993)

11, 6, 6, 9, 12, 20, 33, 43, 60

gilbertharding

Quote from: A Hat Like That on June 11, 2022, 11:00:50 AMDeep: Why just a bass?

The Big Hits 1993 'annotated' version of Deep (starts at about 5'30 on https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00165cp/top-of-the-pops-1993-biggest-hits) has some gems.



One of the few people to have written more novels than he's read.